Cards take back big contract.

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Wagner Mateo is a 16-year-old from Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic. His mother cleans an office and his father works as a handyman. He was planning on pulling his family into wealth with his prodigious baseball talent, rewarded in July with a $3.1 million signing bonus from the St. Louis Cardinals.

During the physical examination standard for a player signing such a huge contract, doctors informed the Cardinals of a possible issue with the vision in Mateo’s right eye. The team sent him to specialists, but definitive answers were elusive. With the 90-day window to void the contract approaching, the Cardinals acted swiftly Tuesday night.

They swooped in and took money from a blind kid.

Of course it’s not that simple, little in the Latin American baseball business being so. As signing bonuses have risen dramatically among teenagers primarily in the Dominican Republic and Venezuela, so has scrutiny. Top prospects now undergo DNA testing to verify their age and steroid testing to ensure their coaches aren’t doping them. Almost a dozen scouts and executives have been fired in a bonus-skimming scandal that drew FBI interest.

Cardinals prospect Wagner Mateo has possible vision issues in his right eye, according to doctors.

(AP Photo)

And now comes the case of Wagner Mateo’s right eye and whether it’s a “physical defect,” as the Cardinals termed it in their statement announcing the voiding of his contract, or “the same as it was when the Cardinals worked him out,” according to Mateo’s representative.

Edgar Mercedes, owner of Born to Play academy, the preeminent talent factory in the Dominican Republic, said Mateo sees 20/30 out of his right eye – and has since March, long before the Cardinals flew him to Jupiter, Fla., for a private workout before signing him July 2. Mercedes declined comment on the specifics of the eye problem, saying that agent Adam Katz is considering filing a grievance on Mateo’s behalf against the Cardinals for terminating the contract.

Katz confirmed he was looking into Mateo’s case but declined to go into specifics. Cardinals general manager John Mozeliak said via text message, “I stand by our release.”