Ivan the Wonderful
Baseball great Pudge gets Puerto Rican Parade honor
A BASEBALL STAR will be honored at the Puerto Rican Day Parade’s diamond jubilee.
Ivan Rodriguez, the longtime Texas Rangers catcher who briefly played with the Yankees in 2008, is among the Latino luminaries who’ll celebrate the 60th anniversary of the vibrant, manic march up Manhattan’s Fifth Ave. on June 11.
The Hall of Fame-bound backstop was named Tuesday as the padrino — godfather — of the parade, which pays tribute to Puerto Rican culture and individual achievements.
Other honorees announced at a press conference at the World Trade Center include entertainer Iris Chacón, salsa singer Gilberto Santa Rosa, Brooklyn-born actors Lana Parilla and J.W. Cortes, and Olympic gymnast Laurie Hernandez.
“Our community creates lots of talent, lots of richness, lots of arts and lots of culture,” said Lorraine Cortes-Vazquez, the National Puerto Rican Day Parade board’s chairwoman.
“This year is about legacies and collective achievement and not losing sight of all the people in Puerto Rico that keep the hope alive, that keep our traditions.”
Chacón, the curvaceous singer-dancer whose ’70s variety show was a huge hit on Spanishlanguage TV, was named the parade’s godmother. Santa Rosa is grand marshal, while Hernandez, who won a gold medal at last year’s Rio Olympics, is athlete of the year.
Parilla, the Evil Queen on ABC’s “Once Upon a Time,” is parade queen. Cortes, a Marine veteran and former NYPD cop who now co-stars on TV’s “Gotham,” was given the annual Nuestro Orgullo — our pride — award.
“It’s an incredible honor for me and for my family to be honored today,” said Cortes. “I’m just a little bit overwhelmed to think about where we’ve gone and where we’ve yet to go as a people.”
A crowd of more than 1 million revelers is expected to display its Puerto Rican pride along Fifth Ave. from 44th to 79th Sts., while cheering on about 100,000 marchers from the New York area as well as Puerto Rico.
But the annual event is also the centerpiece of an effort to help elevate the Puerto Rican community — in the U.S. as well as on the island — through education.
This year, the parade’s board of directors reached its goal of awarding 100 scholarships worth $2,000 each to deserving high school and college students — up from 60 last year and just five in 2013, before the current board took charge.
“Since taking over the parade in 2014. . . we’ve created it to be a platform to express who we are,” said Cortes-Vazquez.
“We are an extended nation (that’s) 9 million strong, regardless of where we live. We are bound together as a people, not only by language and culture, but by traditions, by passion and by a commitment to our culture.
“And that, for us, is an amazing feat.”