For decades now baseball fans have cheered Dominican players such as Pedro Martinez, David Ortiz, Vladimir Guererro and many, many others as they have ascended to become some of Major League Baseball's biggest name stars.

However, for every player from the Dominican Republic who makes it to the big leagues, there are perhaps 15 others who were signed by teams and didn't make it. On Friday, a new feature film called "Sugar" shows audiences the experiences these young players go through while trying to reach the big show.

The film stars an unknown sandlot player from the Dominican named Algenis Perez Soto, who plays "Miguel Santos," a.k.a. "Sugar," a talented young Dominican baseball player who spent his early teens in one of the Major League academies in his native country and his journey to the United States to play for a Minor League team in rural Iowa.

"I didn't know every Major League team had such an extensive academy down in the Dominican Republic," said Ryan Fleck, who, with his partner, Anna Boden, co-wrote and co-directed the film.

"This industry is so huge down there, and I thought if I, as a fan, didn't know, then I thought other fans didn't know either, and not just baseball fans, but people interested in a very unique immigrant experience. And I thought this would be a pretty exciting story to tell."

In the Dominican Republic, where baseball has been popular for more than a century, the sport is often seen as the quickest way for a man to lift himself and his family out of poverty. Slightly more than 10 percent of big leaguers are from the Dominican, with an even greater proportion of Minor Leaguers originally hailing from the island.

Every year, hundreds of young hopefuls arrive at the academies eager to show their stuff to scouts from the United States, but only a handful make it onto the rosters of Major League teams. In the film, "Miguel" finds early success in the Minors as a player, but soon becomes overwhelmed by adjusting to a completely different culture and the constant pressure to succeed and make it to the next level.

"These are young kids," said Boden, who with Fleck, wrote and directed the acclaimed 2006 film, "Half Nelson," which garnered a Best Actor Oscar nomination for its star, Ryan Gosling. "So many of them come over here every year, they don't know the language, they are away from their families for the first time. They are struggling with the cultural differences and trying to play baseball at a much higher level, and I just wanted to explore what that journey was like."

It has also been an amazing journey for the film's star, Soto, who had never acted in his life and was cast after an extensive search in both the Dominican and United States.

"They were looking for guys who could play baseball and who also had the characteristics to act," recalls Soto, who is now living in Boston with relatives and pursuing other acting opportunities. "I was playing baseball with some of my friends in Santo Domingo and they invited a few of us to go to the auditions. Anna Boden asked me if I wanted to be an actor and I said 'yes,' because I thought [that was] what she wanted to hear. But in reality I had never thought about acting."

"We got really lucky," said Fleck. "We weren't going to make the movie unless we found somebody with that kind of ability. He needed to play baseball and [Algenis] wasn't a pitcher, but he had a pretty good coach in [former Major League pitcher] Jose Rijo, who worked with him on the mound and taught him a few tricks, how to throw a curveball, how to throw a slider. But he has that great presence, has that great face, those 'Miles Davis' eyes, and he really communicates a lot without saying too much."

"It was a nice experience to be acting for the first time," said Soto. "To work with Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck was a very good experience for me."

The film has already gotten praise from its toughest critics -- real-life players who attended a special screening of the film in the Dominican Republic a few months ago.

"It was the opening of the Dominican Republic Film festival," recalls Boden. "Sammy Sosa, Pedro Martinez, David Ortiz and Robinson Cano were all there. We got to talk to those guys afterward and they said, 'You got it right.' And it all came together for me at that moment to hear them say that, from guys who lived through that experience."

DVD's of the film were given to some teams this spring, including the Dodgers, who played the film on a chartered bus trip between Phoenix and Tucson. The producers were hoping that a certain Dominican-born Dodgers star named Manny Ramirez would be on the bus. When they found out that Ramirez drove by car that day, they sent an extra copy to Dodger Stadium for his personal viewing.

"Sugar" opens nationwide on Friday.