BIG SCORE Negro Leagues’ Latino baseball players finally getting their due
The news this week that Major League Baseball was finally classifying the Negro Leagues with “Major League” status was a welcome, if long overdue tip of the cap to the exceptional talent African American players brought to the game long before Jackie Robinson broke the color line.
It not only means that players on Negro League teams from 1920-1948 who later joined MLB clubs will have their career statistics included in their overall records, it also signifies that the players of the era — most of whom never got the chance to make the Majors — were on a par with their white counterparts.
But it’s also a testament to the often overlooked and under-appreciated Negro Leaguers whose exploits are barely remembered today — the scores of foreign-born Latino players of color from the Caribbean, Mexico, and Central and South America who faced the same bigotry and barriers as American Blacks did when they played in the States.
“In these troubled times, to have greater attention brought to the history of race in America, this is an important recognition,” Dr. Raymond Doswell, curator of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, told the Daily News.
“For the Latino players as well, who excelled in both the U.S. and in the Caribbean, we see their greatness across many fields of play and levels of competition. It solidifies their greatness and contributions.”
But while many of today’s fans may recognize the names of such Negro League icons as Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson or Cool Papa Bell — who are among the nearly three dozen Negro Leaguers in the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. — most would be hardpressed to know some of the Latino legends, like Cuban star Martin Dihigo, who played alongside them.
Dihigo, considered the Hispanic Babe Ruth for his pitching prowess as well as his hitting skill — not to mention he could play every position well — is the only player enshrined in five Halls of Fame, including the U.S., Cuba, Mexico, Venezuela and the Dominican Republic.
Like many from the era, Dihigo played year-round in several countries, including the New York Cubans of the Negro Leagues, a team usually comprised of as many Latin as Black players. Other alumni include Perucho Cepeda, father of Hall of Famer Orlando Cepeda of Puerto Rico, and Luis Tiant Sr., whose son was the colorful Boston pitcher and ex-Yankee.
“What has always bothered me is that the Latino players of that era were of very high quality, yet they were always overshadowed,” by MLB and Negro League players, said Gilberto Dihigo, Martin’s son and biographer.
“It’s shameful they never got the respect they deserve. But now with the (MLB classification) there are 3,400 souls who played in the Negro Leagues having a fiesta in the sky,” Dihigo added.
“Latin and black players were cultural brothers in integration and it goes back to the beginnings of Negro Leagues history. Even before the more formal Negro Leagues, baseball was available to black American players in Cuba and Puerto Rico,” Doswell said.
“I often say that although we lament the amount of American born black players in MLB today compared to Latino players, their history and culture are much more intertwined than people know, and it starts with the history of the Negro Leagues. They are part of the same story.”