BÉISBOL LATINO at La Casita

BÉISBOL

LATINO

Latinos in Baseball

BÉISBOL

LATINO Latinos in Baseball

Béisbol at the heart of our latino community

“Latinos and Baseball: In the Barrios and the Big Leagues” is a national community collecting initiative at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History. La Casita Cultural Center at Syracuse University is one of a dozen partners in this nationwide project. “Latinos and Baseball” traces the role baseball has played, socially and culturally, in Latino communities across the country.

This collecting project builds on a growing body of original research, oral histories, and collections by and with Smithsonian partners, to document the impact of Latino communities on American history and culture. Baseball is an important lens through which to look at ethnic identities and reflect on the lives and histories of our communities.

The 2016 baseball memorabilia collection presented at La Casita, explores the national pastime in Central New York and the role of Latinos in it for over a century. The project is uncovering extraordinary stories from youth and amateur leagues of today all the way to historic moments in the professional and mayor leagues, many of them long forgotten and rediscovered through this research and collecting initiative. Latinos in Baseball is an on-going year-round project.

Partnership with The Smithsonian Since the nineteenth century, baseball has been an exhilarating metaphor for the Americas, full of so much promise and opportunity. In the United States, the sport has long served as a path to understanding American values, represented shared identities, and highlighted racial and ethnic differences. Locally, baseball has connected communities. As the collection of stories in this catalog illustrate, games continue to bring families, neighbors, and friends together, especially in Latino barrios across the U.S. and Puerto Rico. These are significant histories because they reflect our lives, homes, and communities.

At the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, each artifact tells unique stories about American culture and identity.

And one at a time, objects of memory from the game are building on and enriching our national collections. From a well-used ball and glove, a handmade bat and jersey, or a community stadium sign, to food vendor posters used at local games, home movies, specially made fan memorabilia, and photographs, each provides insights into personal, community and national narratives.

Alongside our active collecting, we are proud to feature many of your family stories and artifacts in an exhibition in 2020 that will open at the National Museum of American History before traveling to different neighborhoods across the country.

You can join La Casita and the Smithsonian in documenting the cultural heritage of Latino communities through baseball.

Preserving our histories is important now more than ever as significant players and keepers of memories pass away and their stories and artifacts are lost to time. The National Museum of American History would like to ensure these artifacts are, and always will be, national treasures forever preserved.

We hope you will consider sharing your stories and objects with us.

It is only through such donations that our collections can continue to grow and improve. Please contact La Casita for more information or visit: https://americanhistory.si.edu/latinos-and-baseball.

Dr. Margaret Salazar-Porzio, Curator of Latino History and Culture at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History

Photo courtesy of the Latino Baseball History Project at California State University of San Bernardino. The San Bernardino-Colton Centrals pose at Cubs Park, also known as El Corralรณn (the Corral), in South Colton, CA, April 1930.

The Central New York Community

MARILÚ LÓPEZ FRETTS Photojournalist Guest artist and curator of the photography collection for the Balcón Criollo, Marilú López Fretts focused the attention on documenting the experiences of our local baseball community during its 2015 spring/summer season. She is also a member of the La Casita’s Advisory Board.

A native of Canóvanas, Puerto Rico, she currently resides in Syracuse, NY. Her work appears in a variety of media outlets and organizations, including the Associated Press (AP), Gannett News, CNY Latino, Indian Country Today, Native Peoples magazine, the Smithsonian’s New Museum of the American Indian, the Syracuse Post-Standard, Utica Daily News, and the Utica Observer Dispatch. Her work with Oneida Indian Nation has led her to document events of the Native Nations across the U.S. She has also worked extensively in the advertising industry (Saatchi & Saatchi and BBDO, among others), and has exhibited her work in various group exhibitions in San Juan. Marilú has a B.A. in Public Communications from the University of Puerto Rico, and in 2011 completed her M.A. in Photography at Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications.

NADIA DÍAZ Miss Syracuse Baseball Nadia is a native of Syracuse, currently in high school at ITC, the Institute of Technology Central. Started playing baseball at age 4, and by 12 she had gained national attention when she struck out 18 players in a 6-inning little league championship game. She traveled to LA where she was guest of honor at the Little League World Series. The Pirates Jersey that she wore when she struck out those 18 batters is permanently in exhibition in a Little League baseball museum in Pennsylvania. Nadia’s uncle is former major league catcher, Benito Santiago. Second cousin, Nelson Figueroa pitched with the NY Mets. Most of all, she says, her inspiration comes from her father, José Díaz, a former AA catcher in Puerto Rico. She wants to be the first Female and the first Latina to play in Mayor League Baseball. She has played 5 championships at the Southside little league and last year she won the Battle of the Falls in Buffalo NY, taking the first place among 38 competing teams in the Ryan standard division.

She has played all-star teams for 3 years in a row, and she was considered the most dominant player in the Southside American Youth League of Syracuse NY.

This jersey, now permanently on display at the The World of Little League Peter J. McGovern Museum of Williamsport, Pennsylvania, is the one worn by 12-yearold Nadia DĂ­az when she struck out 19 batters for Southside American Little League in a 6-inning Majors Division baseball game in Syracuse, NY, in 2012.

(One batter who struck out had reached base on an uncaught third strike.)

JORGE MARTÍNEZ Jorge Martínez, born in Dominican Republic, living in Syracuse since 1984, was involved with the Spanish Action League softball team in the late 1980s. At that time, he recognized the need to help kids in the area to keep safe and off the streets. He started a project that he calls “the corner university” to help make the streets safer. This led to the creation of baseball, softball and domino teams. All throughout the Syracuse baseball leagues, there are many first generations of “kids” that he coached, now working as coaches -- and a whole second generation, playing the sport.

JOSH RODRÍGUEZ Josh Rodríguez was playing SS in all-star teams in Syracuse at age 10 and by age 11 was playing with the Jr Chiefs. He has played tournaments in Syracuse, Cooperstown and Albany, and at 14 led the North Syracuse team to a State Championship. At 16 he played “Best of the East” in Ohio, and then played for three years with the CNY Thunder. Graduated High School from CNS and then went to SUNY IT in Utica where he was ROOKIE OF THE YEAR and made the All-Star team as a freshman. Josh attributes his achievements to the support he has from his parents through every step.

For the RodrĂ­guez's, family and summer vacations are always about baseball.

When Josh started playing competitively the family worked hard all year to save up for baseball traveling each year. For Josh baseball is more than a sport, it's a life.

From left to right, Joe RodrĂ­guez (dad) with sons, Jonathan and Josh.

THE CUBAN SUGAR KINGS In 1946, the Estadio del Cerro was established in Havana, Cuba, with capacity for 30,000 fans. The stadium became the home for the flourishing Cuban Winter League.

In 1947, Cuban baseball linked up with professional baseball in the United States. This association put the Havana club-owner Roberto “Bobby” Maduro in a position to help hundreds of young boys in Cuba and in the U.S. to develop their baseball skills.

Maduro brought the Havana franchise in the Class B Florida International League in June 1953, and when Baltimore moved up to the American League, the International League sold the AAA franchise to Havana. The ever-popular “Havana Sugar Kings” were born.

The Havana team first played the Syracuse Chiefs in 1954 and quickly became a fierce contender in the Central New York AAA circuit.

The Sugar Kings were a colorful group of players who were members of the International League until Fidel Castro’s revolution took over in 1959.

They The Sugar Kings played in Havana through Castro’s first year of power, but in June of 1960, the club moved to Jersey City and later became the Jersey City Reds.

“Professional baseball will profit from smoother relations and elimination of misunderstandings between our clubs and the Latin-Americans, and more specifically by increasing the flow of splendid young baseball players who contribute much to professional baseball in the United States.”

Roberto “Bobby” Maduro 1916-1986

Baseball and Memory

HOW I RECALL MY CHILDHOOD

by Myrna García Calderón ​ fter last night’s opening event en familia I feel comfortable A enough sharing a personal story with you. Carlos, Candy, please do not take personally what I am about to say but, as a child, I hated baseball! Just hear me out and you will understand why.

Both my parents were huge baseball fans. The early years of my life were divided by TV access during and after the baseball season. My working class family had one TV set we all shared.

During the off season we would entertain ourselves with a variety of options, during baseball season it was all about those Mets my father loved so much!

Myrna García Calderón Associate Professor, Spanish; Director of the Latino-Latin American Studies Program College of Arts & Sciences, Syracuse University Prof. García-Calderoìn specializes in Modern and Contemporary Hispanic Caribbean and Spanish American literatures and cultures.

Her book Espacios de la memoria en el Caribe Hispaìnico insular y sus diaìsporas, studies the construction of memory, space, and place in the cultural and literary representations of the Hispanic Caribbean and its Diasporas.

​ y even-tempered father was an undeniable fan. Sitting in front M of the TV set, he was transformed. He reacted to every play, out loud. Throughout the long games he would cheer, jeer, admonish, umpire and coach, all from the comfort of his seat. He celebrated wholeheartedly when the game was going his way and would be devastated when his team lost. Occasionally his brothers or cousins would drop by and watch the game with him. If fandom is characterized by a feeling of empathy and camaraderie with others who share a common interest, it was those occasions that taught me what fandom was all about. I would later discover that the word fan first became popular precisely in reference to baseball enthusiasts. The word fanatic itself, introduced into English around 1550, means “marked by excessive enthusiasm and often intense uncritical devotion”. It comes from the Modern Latin fanaticus, meaning “insanely but divinely inspired”. My father was true to that definition. ​ y early childhood was spent in NYC, when we moved back to M Puerto Rico when I was 8 I was in for a shock; it was then that I discovered there was such a thing as winter baseball. I quickly

calculated the number of months of the year I would have to live surrounded by baseball and thought that life was utterly unfair as a child that age would. The six members of my family quickly divided their loyalties for the local teams: my father and my brother began rooting for the Criollos de Caguas, my dad’s team, my two sisters and I sided with my mother, a lifetime Cangrejeros de Santurce fan. It was then that I came to hear the fandom stories of my mother. She enthusiastically remembered being decked up with the colors of her team in her teenage years, cheering her Cangrejeros at occasional games at the Parque Sixto Escobar or, hearing the radio transmissions with her friends. My mother was a great storyteller and she displayed a very special kind of joy while relating her baseball stories.

I​ n my middle school years two of my closest friends happened to be big baseball fans. At a time when games were still mainly played during the day, they would hide their transistor radios in their shirt pockets to check the scores during recess or in between classes. Around that time one of my parents cousins married a struggling baseball player who played in the winter league in Puerto Rico and in the minor leagues in the US, eventually making it briefly to the majors. Already a teenager I was privy to the struggles and pressures of a baseball player. Beyond the passion for the game, the intense training, the rigorous travel schedule, there was the constant pressure to prove yourself worthy of your uniform. As Yogi Berra once infamously said, “Baseball is 90 percent mental; the other half is physical.” In spite of Yogi’s fuzzy math, by watching the struggles of our cousin’s husband I realized the impossible demands placed on the players who we charge to carry out our dreams and our expectations. We love them when they do and unfairly chastise them when they don’t. They are our heroes and we feel a sense of ownership towards them. ​ ever was that love more evident for me than on December N 31st, 1972. In my family New Years Eve was a big celebration, my father’s birthday was January 1st so we always ushered the beginning of the New Year by celebrating his birthday with a

Benito Santiago played for the San Juan Metros in Puerto Rico (1985-1986). He played for twenty seasons as a catcher in Major League Baseball for ten different teams, although his greatest success came with his first team, the San Diego Padres. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Santiago was considered the premier catcher in the National League.

huge party. I grew up in Carolina, right across the road from the San Juan International Airport. That night we didn’t need to hear the first reports about a lost plane en route to Nicaragua carrying relief for the victims of the earthquake along with our baseball hero, Roberto Clemente, we had already seen the reflection of the search lights frantically looking for survivors of the crash.

The eerie silence that followed, the despair and disbelief were testimonies of what Clemente had meant for a generation and a country. ​ aseball continued to follow me in inexplicable ways.

B My first academic job was in California, where I had done my graduate work. I moved to Santa Cruz four weeks after enduring Hurricane Hugo in Puerto Rico, only to find myself at the epicenter of the Loma Prieta earthquake. It happened on October 17th, 1989, right in the middle of the transmission of one of the Bay Area World Series games between the Oakland A’s and the San Francisco Giants. Unable to communicate with my family in Puerto Rico they found out about the earthquake because my father was glued to the TV set watching the game. Baseball continued to follow me; it was now becoming a constant presence in my life, a marker of important milestones.

I​ lost my father on March 3rd, 1998, twenty-eight days before the opening of the Major League Baseball season.

As I travelled to a conference on March 31st, my first trip after laying my father to rest, I caught a glimpse of the Mets opening game playing on an airport television screen. They were playing the Phillies and they won 1 – 0. This would be the first time in decades one of their biggest fans wouldn’t be cheering them on. In my mind and in my heart I am convinced they won for my dad. That was a particularly memorable baseball season, it was the year Sammy Sosa and Mark McGuire were chasing the home run record. My father would have loved it! Because of that, for the first time in years I found myself watching baseball somewhat regularly, it

connected me to my father; it gave me comfort. While watching one night I realized that to the right of my couch stood a picture of my dad angled directly towards the TV screen. In spite of the fact that I don’t really know what happens after we die it dawned on me that I had unsuspectedly placed the picture there so he could watch, just in case there was such a thing as an afterlife.

I couldn’t believe that baseball was helping me in my moment of grief. I had reconciled with the game.

I​ n my research I have studied issues of memory in literature and culture. Puerto Rican writer Edgardo Rodríguez Juliá, a true lover of the game, has published a book and several essays about baseball and baseball players. In his beautifully woven stories of baseball there is history, a passion for the game, an ethics he derived from it, a shared memory. When in the late 1940’s the Divisón de Educación a la Comunidad was created by the government of Puerto Rico to help educate the population on a number of topics, one of the first films produced by the DIVEDCO was by Jack Delano, a 1951 movie titled Los peloteros. The theme was deliberately chosen as an opportunity to use the local passion for the game as both a metaphor and a learning tool to reflect upon the importance of team work, and, by extension, community building. ​ s I look around I can feel October is in the air and this A year’s baseball season is coming to an end, as is my participation in this panel. But before I give the floor to our baseball stars, let me just say one more thing. Candy, Carlos, I no longer hate baseball. It reminds me of my childhood, of my parents, of my cousin who named his dog Bobby Thompson, of my childhood friends, of community, of home. For that, I thank you from the bottom of my heart, and now invite you to address your fans.

Orlando Sánchez, a native of Canóvanas, Puerto Rico, was the batting champion of the 1984-85 season playing with the Santurce Cangrejeros. He is a former catcher in Major League Baseball; playing four seasons from 1981 through 1984: for the St. Louis Cardinals (1981–83), Kansas City Royals (1984) and Baltimore Orioles (1984). Batted left-handed and threw right-handed. Following his playing career, Sánchez coached in the minor leagues, and currently manages the Saraperos de Saltillo of the Mexican League. On August 29, 2009, he led the Saraperos to defeat he Quintana Roo Tigres 14–1 in the sixth game of the championship series.

SANTURCE CANGREJEROS The Santurce Cangrejeros (Crabbers) from 1939 on, was one of the most storied franchises in the Caribbean. Their first owner, Pedrín Zorrilla, was a visionary who worked closely with the Negro league and the big leagues. Zorrilla signed up such eventual Hall of Famers as Josh Gibson, Satchel Paige, Roy Campanella, Ray Dandridge and Leon Day during the team’s first decade. Santurce was the most successful winter league team of the 1950s, with three Caribbean Series titles. Roberto Clemente, Rubén Gómez, Willie Mays, Willard Brown and Bob Thurman played for the Cangrejeros during those glory years. Tom Lasorda used to pitch for them.

Santurce set up working agreements with the Giants, Dodgers, Astros, among other teams. Earl Weaver and Frank Robinson were team managers and Hall of Famers Bob Gibson, Jim Palmer, Reggie Jackson Martínez and Robin Yount were early Cangrejeros.

Orlando Cepeda and Tony (Tany) Pérez played their entire winter league careers with Santurce. Lee Smith, the Major League’s all-time saves leader, pitched for them. Juan González, Rubén Sierra and José Cruz, Jr., are two of the teams Puerto Rican stars of the 1990s.

WILLARD BROWN “The Santurce Cangrejeros (Crabbers) emerged as a league anchor in the late 1940s with a loyal fan baseand their onetwo punch of Willard Brown, Bob Thurman, the most feared tandem in league history.

Fans came to the Puerto Rico ballparks in droves from 1946-47 –when Willard Brown first put on the Santurce Uniform –through the 1953-54 season, Brown’s final full season with the Cangrejeros. The island’s league attendance surpassed the 700,000 mark three times during this period.”

Thomas E. Van Hyning The Santurce Crabbers: Sixty Seasons of Puerto Rican League Baseball McFarland & Co., Inc 1999

MLB players at la casita

Major League Baseball former players from Puerto Rico, Carlos Baerga and Candido Maldonado co-hosted the opening event for Latinos in Baseball at La Casita in September 2016.

Carlos Obed Baerga Ortiz, born in 1968, became the first second baseman since Rogers Hornsby in 1922 to have back-to-back 200+ hit, 20+ home run, 100+ RBI, and .300+ average seasons when he accomplished the feat in 1992–93. He was a 3 time All Star in the 1992, 1993, and 1994 seasons.

The switch-hitting Baerga was the first of three players to have ever hit one home run from both sides of the plate in the same inning. He did so on April 8, 1993, at Cleveland Municipal Stadium against New York Yankees. Baerga played 100 games with the Indians in 1996, before being traded to the New York Mets on July 29, 1996.

Baerga was eventually inducted to the Cleveland Indians Hall of Fame.

Candido Maldonado Guadarrama, born in1960 is a former outfielder who played from 1981 to 1995 for the Los Angeles Dodgers, San Francisco Giants, Cleveland Indians, Milwaukee Brewers, Toronto Blue Jays, Chicago Cubs, and Texas Rangers. Chris Berman, a fellow ESPN analyst, nicknamed him the “Candyman”. Maldonado holds the distinction of having struck the first game-winning hit outside the United States in World Series play, and was the only Giant to hit a triple in the 1989 World Series.

“Latinos in Baseball: From the Barrios to the Big Leagues,” was the topic for a panel discussion that included the participation of former MLB players from Puerto Rico, Carlos Baerga and Candido Maldonado. They were joined by a group of scholars in the presentation moderated by Myrna García Calderón, associate professor of Spanish and director of Latino-Latin American studies at Syracuse Univeristy. From left to right, Candido Maldonado, Mireya Loza, curator of political history at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History; John Odell, curator of history and research at Mayor League Baseball Hall of Fame ; Professor Myrna García Calderón; Adrián Burgos, professor of history, African American studies and Latina/Latino studies at the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign; Tere Paniagua, Executive Director of the Office of Cultural Engagement for the Hispanic Community at S.U., and Carlos Baerga. The program investigateed baseball as a social and cultural force within U.S. Latino communities.

Seymour Dual Language Academy (Syracuse City School District) 5th graders during met Mayor League Baseball veterans from Puerto Rico, Carlos Baerga and Candido “Candy” Maldonado at La Casita Cultural Center in the fall of 2016.

1944-45 Santurce Cangrejeros (Crabbers) with the Seven-Up logo. Front, left to right: Monchile Concepción, Sammy Céspedes, Roy Campanella, Momo Peréz. Standing, left to right: Luis Raúl Cabrera, Alfonso Gerard, Pedro Jaime Reyes, Juan Sánchez, Terris McDuffie, Rafael Muñiz, Gina Carmoega (godmother), Perdín Zorrilla, Gerardo Rodríguez, Heriberto Rivera, Nenené Rivera.

La Casita Cultural Center Tere Paniagua Executive Director Monica McLean Office Manager Luma Trilla Event Production Coordinator Weisi Liu Financials Specialist Margot Clark Librarian & Archivist Marinique Mora Graphic Design Alison Rivera Office Administration Paulina Colรณn Community Service & Outreach

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