A few years ago, Johnny Cueto bought an ambulance, though to call this particular vehicle an ambulance is something of a misnomer. It is more like a real-life Transformer. Open the back and 22 speakers -- nine in each door and a stack of four in the middle -- greet you. On top of the ride, emerging from a hidden compartment, is a literal wall of sound: two fold-out flaps with six speakers apiece attached to a central panel with 20 more. For a pitcher, Cueto's on-bass percentage is extraordinary.
He bought this audiophile's dream from Octavio Dotel, the longtime reliever, and immediately set about upgrading it so that during get-togethers at El Malecon, the main drag in the Dominican baseball hotbed San Pedro de Macoris, nobody would out-blare him (not even Robinson Cano, himself the owner of a souped-up ambulance).