Alcala pitched professionally in the United States, Canada, the Dominican Republic, and Mexico. Even so, his name is unknown to most American baseball fans. Santo Alcala has largely disappeared from public view in the U.S.

Santo Aníbal Alcalá was born on December 23, 1952. His given name typically has an ‘s’ on the end in Spanish. Alcala’s wife, attorney Yolanda Mejía, explained. “It ought to be Santos, but apparently my mother-in-law pronounced it ‘Santo’ when it was registered, so that is his name officially.”3 Nonetheless, Dominican and Mexican sources typically show Santos, as did certain U.S. stories during his playing career. Note also that in Spanish, the last syllable of his surname is accented. In the U.S., it was typically pronounced AL-cala.

Also noteworthy is how Alcala is known by his mother’s family name. His father was Juan Aníbal Solano, who worked at Central Romana, a sugar-cane factory about 20 miles east of San Pedro de Macoris. Santo’s mother, Anadina “Ana” Alcalá, was Solano’s common-law wife. Santo was their only child; he had two half-brothers (Mauro and Epifanio) and a half-sister (Milagros) from Ana’s previous marriage to a man named González. When Santo was born, he was registered under the name of Alcalá; later everyone agreed that changing the records meant too much time and trouble.4

Alcala’s hometown is located in the sugar-cane producing area of his country, on the Caribbean coast about 50 miles east of Santo Domingo. The motto of this baseball hotbed is seis-cuatro-tres, or 6-4-3, scorebook notation for shortstop to second to first. San Pedro is frequently referred to as the cradle of shortstops. On a per capita basis it has produced probably as many major-league shortstops as any other city in the world. However, it has furnished the majors with players at all positions, including pitchers. In 1969, Santiago Guzman became the first native of San Pedro to pitch in the major leagues; he was followed in 1976 by Joaquin Andujar and Alcala. By 1985 The Sporting News heralded the area as “Baseball’s Secret Treasure,” quoting Ralph Avila, a Los Angeles Dodgers official, as saying, “San Pedro de Macoris is . . . the best baseball town in the world.”5

During Alcala’s youth, boys throughout much of the Caribbean area aspired to become professional baseball players. They played in the streets or on vacant lots, often with homemade balls and bats. Because many youngsters saw baseball as their only possible route from poverty, motivation was intense. Out of the thousands who tried, several hundred have succeeded. The Dominican Republic has sent more players to the major leagues than any other country outside the United States.

When Alcala was growing up, he and his fellow townsmen had an advantage over youngsters in most Caribbean locales. San Pedro de Macoris had seven sugar-cane factories. The sugar-cane season lasted only three months, but the owners had to care for their employees and their families all year. So the factories built ball fields, provided equipment, and paid instructors. The kids flocked to those ballparks to practice long hours every day. Everyone wanted to play baseball to escape the cane fields or factories.6

Though Alcala’s family was not well off, he lacked nothing; he didn’t have to work as a child and could devote himself to sports. He spent much time on the field, the running track, or in the gym.7 He graduated from high school at Liceo José Joaquín Pérez in 1968 at the age of 15.8 (At that time Dominican public education consisted of six years of primary school, followed by four years of high school.)

Alcala’s original position in baseball had been first base, but he converted to pitcher in 1969. His strong arm impressed Pedro González, the third big-leaguer from San Pedro de Macoris, who ran an amateur league there.9 (It was only in 1973 that major-league teams began to open baseball academies in the Dominican Republic.10) Just a couple of months later, Alcala signed his first professional contract. He had already reached his full height (listed as either 6-feet-5 or 6-feet-6) but then weighed just 170 pounds. That year the Reds also signed Joaquin Andujar, who was just two days older than Alcala. The two friends spent much of their minor-league careers together.

Nearly 40 years later Alcala told a Cincinnati reporter about his signing experience. “Things were different back then,” Alcala said. “The scout who signed me drove over to San Pedro de Macoris and said, ‘C’mon, we’re going to Santo Domingo to watch you throw.’ I said, ‘OK’. I’d never been to the capital before. I threw for him, about 20 pitches, and he said, ‘Sorry. You do not throw hard enough for me to sign you.’ No radar gun, just his eyes. I wanted to be a professional. We didn’t have much money. I said, ‘Give me the ball again.’ After I got done, he said, ‘How about $3000?’ I said, ‘I’ll take it.’” This article gave the scout’s name as Rafael Campino, but Dominican sources show it was Wilfredo Calviño, which fits with the record. Calviño also signed Andujar.11

The Reds assigned both young hurlers in 1970 to their farm team in the Gulf Coast League. Alcala posted a record of 4-6, with an ERA of 3.00. The following year he pitched mainly in relief for the Sioux Falls Packers in the Class A Northern League, and wildness (36 walks in 41 innings) fueled a 5.27 ERA. Still in his teens, Alcala broke into his homeland’s winter league in the winter of 1971-72. He joined the Escogido Leones and would pitch with that club for five subsequent winters.

Alcala started the 1972 season with the Key West Conchs in the Class A Florida State League. He went to the unaffiliated team on loan because the Reds organization thought he would be more comfortable playing under Spanish-speaking manager Pancho Herrera.12 Although Alcala had a losing record with Key West (7-14), he showed enough promise to earn a late-season promotion to the Trois-Rivières Aigles in the Class AA Eastern League. His control was much improved, yet he still struck out nearly a batter an inning. Alcala pitched for the Canadian team again in 1973, going 7-13, 3.93. The Reading (Pennsylvania) Eagle gave a good sense of that season: “Santo Alcala. Great prospect. Big strong prospect.” He’d already beaten the Reading Phillies twice that year, allowing just one run in each game, and was on his way to a third win over them after firing seven shutout innings. “Alcala was putting that good fastball and hard slider exactly where he wanted them.” But he came unglued in the eighth after walking the leadoff man and throwing a sacrifice bunt into center field. “Then he just tried to blow it by us,” Reading catcher Jim Essian observed. “He lost his poise and rhythm.” Reading won, 6-1.13

Alcala continued to develop at home in winter ball. After viewing him pitch for Escogido in the 1973-74 season, Chief Bender, the Reds director of player development, gave the press a glowing report on the prospect’s progress.14 Indeed, Alcala became the league’s Pitcher of the Year, notable for a relief pitcher (as he was then used). Largely on Bender’s recommendation, the Reds invited Alcala to their spring training site in Vero Beach in 1974; although he pitched well, the Reds had a full staff and reassigned him to the minor leagues on April 3. He spent the next two seasons with Cincinnati’s top affiliate, the Indianapolis Indians of the Class AAA American Association. Alcala tied with Pat Darcy for the most wins (12) for the Indians in 1974. On August 31, he pitched a four-hit 1-0 shutout against Iowa and clinched the AA East title. Alcala started two games for the Indians in the AA championship series against the Tulsa Oilers, winners of the AA West. He pitched well in both games, but came away with no decisions. Both his starts, the second and sixth games, were lost in extra innings. Tulsa won the series four games to three.

Alcala led the Indianapolis staff in 1975 with 13 wins against 12 losses. He ranked second in the American Association in both wins and earned run average (2.76). Two of his games that season deserve special mention. On August 12 he hooked up with Tom Brennan of the Oklahoma City 89ers in a memorable pitchers’ duel. Brennan pitched a one-hitter, but Alcala came out on top by pitching a two-hit shutout; the Indians won, 1-0. Later that month (August 29) as the Indians defeated the Omaha Royals, 2-1, Alcala got all of his seven strikeouts on called third strikes. “He was throwing fast balls on the knees and right on the corner,” Omaha’s Ray Busse said. “It was one of those times all you can do is tip your hat and say ‘More power to you, buddy.’”15

Pat Zachry and Alcala, the two best pitchers in the Reds’ farm system, were kept on the major-league roster during the 1976 season because they were out of options. If they had been returned to the minors, they would have become eligible for the next winter’s Rule 5 draft. They appeared to be ready for the majors, but Reds pitching coach Larry Shepard lamented the lockout that delayed the opening of the spring training camps. “Of course, you can’t really say they are (ready) until they’ve been given a good test,” he said.16

Shepard needn’t have worried. Alcala didn’t need spring training to get in condition to pitch. He had kept himself in excellent shape pitching for Escogido. He and Zachry both made significant contributions as the Reds defended their world championship. By that time Alcala had filled out: his baseball cards then listed him at 220 pounds. He made his major-league debut at Riverfront Stadium on April 10, 1976. The 23-year-old relieved Jack Billingham in the sixth inning with the Reds leading the Houston Astros, 8-4. Alcala couldn’t get anybody out. He gave up three earned runs on four straight hits and left the game with the Reds’ lead cut to 8-7. Rawly Eastwick put out the fire, and the Reds went on to win, 13-7.

After four relief appearances, Alcala made his first big-league start at Wrigley Field on May 8. He got off to a terrible start, walking three men in the first inning, all of whom scored on two force outs and a single. But he recovered nicely and gave up only one more hit in seven innings of work and left the game with a 10-4 lead. The Reds won the game, 14-4, and Alcala earned the first win of his major-league career. He won 10 more games that season, against only four losses. His .733 winning percentage, despite an ERA of 4.70, reflected support from the Big Red Machine, which scored an average of 6.1 runs in his 21 starts. Alcala had three complete games and one shutout, and made nine relief appearances during the season.

Again Alcala’s control was a big issue; he walked 67 in 132 innings pitched in 1976. Yet in his shutout of the Mets at Riverfront on May 15, the high point of his big-league career, he walked just one and struck out nine. Three of the four hits he allowed were doubles, but the Mets failed to get any of them home.

After Alcala won his fifth straight start (on May 30, at home over the Dodgers) one wire service reported, “Two years ago he was considered too timid to survive in the major leagues . . . but he has matured rapidly.” Alcala said simply, “I’m not afraid of anybody anymore.”17 This fits with the observations of Malcolm Allen, who has been writing a biography of Joaquin Andujar. Alcala’s name came up often in Allen’s research. “Over and over I heard ‘gentle giant’ and that the Reds wished he was tougher, like Andujar.” At his best, though, Alcala had a catchphrase that sounded like Andujar: “My fastball, she is terrific.”18

Fellow Dominican Cesar Geronimo, Alcala’s roommate on the road, claimed Alcala was the club’s champion sleeper. “That Santo loves to sleep . . . 12 to 14 hours every day. He hates day games,” Geronimo said, adding, “When you sleep a lot, you’re happy. Unhappy people and people who worry can’t sleep.”19

As the number five starter on the Reds’ pitching staff, Alcala made no postseason starts, nor was he needed in relief. The Reds swept the Philadelphia Phillies in the National League playoffs and the New York Yankees in the World Series.

During the spring of 1977 rumors were rife that Alcala was on the trading block. Apparently the Cincinnati brass gave up on Alcala’s ever becoming a consistent winner. The long-rumored trade took place on May 21. The Reds shipped Alcala to Montreal in exchange for two players to be named later, pitchers Shane Rawley and Angel Torres. Alcala took issue with the way the Reds had treated him:

“When you play baseball, you have to be relaxed. I not relaxed. Sometimes I be afraid. I have to win all my games or I out of the rotation. There was a lot of pressure on me. Last year, one time they take me out of the rotation for no reason. I do bad in the beginning of last year. I pitched relief and I never pitched relief before . . . I say nobody care about me.”

But he was happy about the move. “They trade me. Good for me. This is my life. I try to do good over there [at Montreal]. I have a long way to go. I know it. Now I go to mound every fourth day and I learn a little bit more.”20

Montreal manager Dick Williams welcomed the deal and planned to give Alcala a start on May 27. He also said why he thought the Expos got Alcala for just future considerations. “Once [Reds manager] Sparky Anderson loses faith in a pitcher, then that pitcher is finished. He won’t get another chance.”21 But the Expos wasted no time putting Alcala into action before that. On May 24 he pitched a perfect 13th inning at Wrigley Field and picked up his first save of the season as Montreal defeated the Chicago Cubs, 5-4. Williams had high hopes for the tall Dominican. “Alcala was 11-4 with the Reds last year, even though he didn’t start regularly,” he said, “They say he’s a little wild, but maybe that’s because he didn’t pitch on a regular basis. Our reports are that he is a strong thrower with a good slider and sinker. We will give him the chance to pitch every four days, with another day’s rest every now and then.”22

True to his word, Williams inserted Alcala into his starting rotation on May 27. In the third inning that night in St. Louis, Alcala hit the only home run of his major-league career. But he was knocked out of the box in the fourth frame and took the loss as the Expos went down, 7-3. For several weeks Alcala remained in the rotation, with indifferent success. In late July Williams demoted him to the bullpen. Control remained Alcala’s bugbear: he walked 47 in 101⅔ innings with Montreal.

The game on July 2, 1977, at Montreal’s Stade Olympique, made a bit of baseball history: it was the first time that Dominican starting pitchers faced each other in the majors. Alcala never did face off against old friend Joaquin Andujar, who was traded to Houston after the 1975 season. His opponent that night was Nino Espinosa of the Mets. Santo went six innings and got the win, his last in the majors. Alcala’s last big-league appearance came at home on September 25, 1977. He relieved Jackie Brown in the seventh inning, with Montreal trailing the Phillies, 7-5. Garry Maddox flied out to right field, but after Bob Boone singled, Jay Johnstone flied to center and Terry Harmon popped up to first base. No one knew it at the time, but at 24—the age at which many big-league careers are just getting started—Santo Alcala’s was over. His major league totals were 14 wins, 11 losses, and an ERA of 4.76. Not very impressive numbers, but that 11-4 mark for the Big Red Machine in 1976 will forever be a bright spot in the record books.

Alcala joined a new winter-ball team for the 1977-78 season: Águilas Cibaeñas. Águilas won the Dominican title that year—the only time Alcala was a member of a champion team in his homeland. However, he pitched in only two games that winter and did not appear in the league playoffs.

In spring training 1978, Dick Williams still envisioned Alcala as a part of Montreal’s starting rotation. “The fifth starting spot remains open,” he said. “The fifth starter role will also call for long relief before we hit the stage where we need five starters. The chief contenders are Fred Holdsworth and Santo Alcala. It will all depend on what they show us this spring. They will make the decision for us.”23

On March 23, 1978, the Seattle Mariners selected Alcala off waivers from the Expos for $20,000. He reported to Seattle with a sore arm, then caught a case of the flu. The Mariners tried to annul the deal, but baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn ruled against them. On April 3, without ever having pitched a game for the Mariners, Alcala was placed on the 21-day disabled list with a strained right shoulder. When he recovered, the Mariners assigned him to the San José Missions of the Class AAA Pacific Coast League. Initially, he refused to report to San José. “They have not let me pitch,” he said. “So how do they know what I can do? I want my release.” Alcala may have had a point, but he relented and reported to San José. In his first game for the Missions, on May 7, he pitched a five-hitter to beat Albuquerque, 4-3. Battling injuries, he pitched in only 15 games for that season, for a record of 5-2. At the end of the season Seattle returned the injured right-hander to the Expos, who reportedly agreed to replace him.24

Alcala did not play at home at all in the 1978-79 season. Montreal placed him on the roster of its Triple-A club in Denver in 1979. As of early April, though, he had reportedly joined the new Inter-American League. There is no record of his ever playing in that league. According to a report in the Cincinnati Enquirer on June 26, when the short-lived IAL was on the verge of folding, Alcala had been pitching batting practice for the Santo Domingo team, the Azucareros.25 That same report said that Andujar had gotten Alcala a tryout with the Astros. That didn’t pan out, but Alcala did play in seven games in 1979 for the Buffalo Bisons, Pittsburgh’s affiliate in the Class AA Eastern League. How the Pirates obtained him is not reported.

In 1980 Alcala pitched in nine games for the Portland Beavers, Pittsburgh’s club in the Pacific Coast League. He also got into 15 games, all starts, with Chihuahua in the Triple-A Mexican League. He pitched well for the Dorados, with 11 complete games and an ERA of just 1.99 in 113 innings pitched. However, his won-lost record was just 5-9. Alcala returned to Portland in 1981 and spent the entire season there, going 7-13 with a 4.39 ERA. During the winter of 1981-82, he wrapped up his winter-ball career with seven last appearances for Águilas Cibaeñas. In his 10 seasons at home, Alcala posted a record of 17-29 in 142 games, with a 3.95 ERA.

In February 1982, the Pirates organization optioned Alcala’s contract to the Monterrey Sultanes in the Mexican League. He made a spectacular debut there on April 3, striking out 15 Nuevo Laredo batters in seven innings.26 Again he pitched well overall, with 12 complete games in 26 starts and a 2.92 ERA in 194 innings pitched. Yet again his record of 9-15 did not reflect it. Alcala remained in the Mexican League, dividing the 1983 season between the Saltillo Saraperos and the Aguascalientes Rieleros. Oddly enough, even though his ERA rose to 3.72 that season, he posted a record of 10-4 in 22 games. He played for the Toluca Truchas in 1984, but after five ineffective appearances there, his Mexican career was over. Indeed, so was his career in Organized Baseball, at the age of 31. (Alcala wasn’t quite through playing ball, though. In 1989, when the Senior Professional Baseball Association came into being, he pitched for the Gold Coast Suns. He also helped get Joaquin Andujar to join the Suns.)27

Alcala returned to live in San Pedro de Macoris, where a street—Calle Santos Alcalá—is named after him. He fathered five children from three different relationships: José Alcalá Castro, Sandra Alcalá Mejía, Santos Alcalá Mejía (“Santico,” who was born in Montreal), Yosairy Alcalá Mejía (now deceased), and Johanna Alcalá Encarnación.

Beyond that, however, American media reported next to nothing about Alcala’s life in nearly 30 years. They cannot ignore what he did for the Reds in 1976; indeed, the Cincinnati Enquirer caught up with him during the team reunion of 2008. Otherwise, “I wouldn’t be standing here right now,” he said.28 However, U.S. writers have shown slight interest in Santo Alcala’s contemporary life. It’s ironic, because his wife Yolanda says, “The U.S. has been our second home and has given us and our children permanent hospitality. We have great gratitude toward America.”29

His homeland still appreciates his contributions to the game, though. For example, in 2007 another pitcher from San Pedro de Macoris, Daniel Cabrera, cited Alcala’s help. Cabrera had major control problems, and he said that his height (6-feet-7) was a big reason—as it had been for Alcala.30

Alcala has been a pitching coach in various organizations, including the Chicago White Sox, the Seattle Mariners, and the Los Angeles Angels. He crossed the Pacific in 1997 to join the China Times Eagles in Taiwan. He has been coaching in the Dominican Republic with the Angels chain since 1998, and on occasion his name has surfaced in reports from publications such as Baseball America. He has also coached a few seasons in the Dominican league with Estrellas Orientales. He continually gives back to his school, Liceo José Joaquín Pérez, by coaching teenagers in baseball during the morning hours.31

When Joaquin Andujar died in September 2015, Alcala was in the news again because he attended the funeral in San Pedro de Macoris. He recalled that Andujar often said to him, “Between us two, you’re the prospect. I’m the one just looking for a chance.”32 Yet even though Santo Alcala’s promise as a pitcher was largely unrealized, he remains a happy man. As his wife said, “Santo is not perfect—he is a human being—but he is a very special individual who has led a peaceful and exemplary life.”33

In June 2016, 40 years after his 11-win season in the majors, Alcala returned to Cincinnati for another reunion of the Big Red Machine as Pete Rose was inducted into the Reds Hall of Fame. His wife Yolanda said, “We belong to a family with Pete Rose and all the Reds. Everyone is so excited for this blessing.”34

Last revised: June 26, 2016

Acknowledgments

Grateful acknowledgment to Santico Alcala and Yolanda Mejía for their assistance with this story. Thanks also to Malcolm Allen for additional input and the introduction to Santico, who in turn introduced Yolanda.

Other sources

http://history.winterballdata.com (Dominican statistics)

All e-mail cited is in author’s possession.

Notes

Upon arriving in the United States in the spring of 1956, without knowing a single person, ignorant of the native language, customs, and food, and unaware of racism, Felipe Alou was armed with nothing but his mind, courage, determination and talent. No Dominican had ever played in the major leagues, and there were as yet only a handful of dark-skinned Latinos playing in the US. Over the course of the next five decades, Alou would become and remain one of the most respected figures in baseball, an All-Star player, a team leader, and a successful manager. While he was admired throughout baseball, among his fellow Dominicans, who would soon be plentiful, he was a revered hero.

“Felipe was really the first,” remembered Manny Mota, “the guy who cleared the way. He was an inspiration to everybody [in the Dominican Republic]. He was a good example.”1 Juan Marichal, like Mota a fellow Dominican, agreed. “Everybody respects Felipe Alou,” he recalled. “He was the leader of most of the Latin players.”2 Willie Mays, a teammate of all of these players, remembered, “It was like a family when they came over.”3 These men helped define the baseball of their time, and Alou was both a leader and a friend to many of them.

Felipe Rojas Alou was born on May 12, 1935 in Bajos de Haina, San Cristóbal, on the southern coast of the Dominican Republic, a few miles from Santo Domingo. (His nickname at home is El Panqué [Sweet Bread] de Haina.) The first child born to José Rojas and Virginia Alou, he was followed by María, Mateo, Jesús, Juan and Virginia. José also had two children with a previous wife who had died young. Though José was dark-skinned and Virginia (descending from Spaniards) was white, Felipe did not give this much thought—race was not a big issue in his country.

José Rojas was a carpenter and blacksmith who built their small four-room house, and many of the other houses in the vicinity. The Rojas family had very little money, as they were often at the mercy of their neighbors’ ability to pay their bills. World War II brought further hardship, causing José to turn to fishing to feed his family. Although they did not always have food, their well-built home afforded them shelter that not everyone in their neighborhood had.4 Felipe swam in the nearby ocean, and was an avid fisherman—a hobby he kept up the rest of his life.

In keeping with the Latin custom, this man is known in full as Felipe Rojas Alou, with each parent contributing half of the double surname. The paternal half is normally used in everyday life, and in the Dominican people know Felipe, Mateo, and Jesús as the Rojas brothers. During Felipe’s time in the American minor leagues he began to be called (incorrectly) Felipe Alou, rhyming (again incorrectly) with “lew” rather than “low.” However, he did not feel empowered enough to correct the error. Two of his brothers, Mateo and Jesús, followed him to American baseball and also, because of the error with Felipe, assumed the surname Alou during their Stateside careers. Similarly, three of Felipe’s sons played professionally, one becoming a star, and all of them used the name Alou even though it was not a part of their name at all (it being their grandmother’s maiden name, not their mother’s). For convenience, this biography will refer to the subject by the name most readers are familiar with: Felipe Alou.

Alou spent six years in local schools and went to high school in Santo Domingo, a 12-mile trip he often made on foot. He also worked on his uncle’s farm and helped his father with his carpentry business. An excellent student, he became a member of the Dominican national track team, running sprints and throwing the discus and javelin. As a senior in high school, he participated in the 1954 Central-American Games in Mexico City. Though track kept him from playing high school baseball, he did play and star for local amateur teams.5

In 1954 Alou entered the University of Santo Domingo in its pre-med program, part of his parents’ dream that he become a doctor. Alou batted cleanup for the team that won the 1955 collegiate championship. He returned to Mexico City for the Pan-American Games, intending to run sprints and throw the javelin, but at the last minute was removed from the track team and placed on the baseball team. He got four hits in the final game against the United States as the Dominican Republic won the gold medal.6

After the tournament Alou received many offers from the major leagues, which at first he had no intention of taking. His resolution lasted until his father and uncle both lost their jobs. As it happened, his university coach, Horacio Martínez, doubled as a bird dog scout for the New York Giants. “Rabbit” Martínez had played shortstop for Alex Pómpez, owner of the New York Cubans, and later a Giants scout. Alou signed in November 1955 for $200, which paid off his parents’ grocery bill. More importantly, he had a job. Despite his parents’ mixed feelings, “we needed somebody to start contributing some earnings to the house.”7

Alou began his professional career in Lake Charles, Louisiana, helping to integrate the Evangeline League. Soon after he arrived, the league voted to expel Lake Charles and Lafayette (the two clubs that had black players).8

Instead, the blacks were shifted to other teams in other leagues; Alou, having just arrived in the United States, rode a bus to Cocoa, Florida to play in the Florida State League. Desperately homesick, and stung by racism for the first time in his life, he pulled it together enough to hit a league-leading .380 with 21 home runs. On September 23, far away in New York, Ozzie Virgil made his debut with the Giants, becoming the first Dominican native to play in the major leagues. (Because Virgil had gone to high school in New York city, his path to the majors was different than Alou’s.)

Alou began 1957 at Triple-A Minneapolis, but his .211 average in 24 games led to a demotion to Springfield, Massachusetts, where he recovered with a .306 average and 12 home runs. It could have been better—Alou was hitting over .380 in mid-season before injuring his right leg on a slide into home plate; he hobbled the rest of the year. Nonetheless, his season earned him an invitation to major league camp in 1958 and a raise to $750 a month. Alou spent very little of it—he kept enough to live on and sent the rest home to his family. During the offseason, the New York Giants moved to San Francisco, and their top minor-league affiliate was now in Phoenix, where Alou was ultimately assigned. Batting leadoff for the first time, he hit .319 with 13 home runs in just 55 games before the Giants brought him to the big leagues.

On June 8 Alou became the second Dominican major leaguer, playing right field and leading off at San Francisco’s Seals Stadium. He singled and doubled off Cincinnati’s Brooks Lawrence in his first two at-bats, and, three days later, got his first home run off Pittsburgh’s Vernon Law. After a hot start that kept him over .300 for a month, he cooled down in July and finished at .253 with 4 home runs in 182 at-bats.

In his first few years Alou could never quite establish himself as a regular player, hampered mostly by the competition on his own team. Beginning in about 1958, a large wave of young players, mostly African-Americans and Latinos, arrived with the Giants. In just this single season, the Giants debuted Alou, Orlando Cepeda, Willie Kirkland, and Leon Wagner. Bill White had a fine rookie year in 1956, went into the Army, came back in late 1958 and had no place to play. Felipe Alou competed with all these guys, along with several others on their way; Willie McCovey and José Pagán joined the club in 1959.

Most of these players were outfielders and first basemen. Alou had the advantage of being athletic enough to play center field, but with the peerless Willie Mays on hand, that skill did not help Alou get on the field. He played as a fourth outfielder in 1959, but with McCovey hitting .372 with 29 home runs for Phoenix in late July, the Giants wanted to bring McCovey up and send Alou back down. With just a year’s seniority under his belt, the 24-year-old told the Giants he would not go back to the minors. His wife was going through a difficult pregnancy, and Alou did not believe the move to Phoenix and the return to San Francisco in September would help. Instead, he told Giants manager Bill Rigney that they would go home. The Alous checked out of their apartment and booked flights to Santo Domingo. The Giants backed down, and instead made room for McCovey by making Hank Sauer a coach.9

Still, the addition of McCovey meant that either he or Orlando Cepeda had to play the outfield, and, with Willie Mays out there already, that left just one spot for Alou and several other qualified players to fight for. Over the 1959 and 1960 seasons combined, Alou hit .269 with 18 home runs in 569 at bats. In 1961, under new manager Al Dark, Alou played most of the time, got 447 at-bats, and responded with 18 home runs and a .289 average.

While Alou’s star was rising in his profession, something else became even more central to his life. “The day I joined the Giants in San Francisco was one of the most important days of my life,” recalled Alou. “That was the day my new teammate Al Worthington introduced me to Jesús Christ.” Alou had often read the Bible in the minor leagues because he had a Spanish-language version and it became his only reading material. But because of Worthington, and later Lindy McDaniel (“who baptized me into the new faith”), Alou became one of the more devout Christians in baseball. His devotion caused some discomfort within his own family, but they remained very close.10

Felipe’s brother Mateo, generally called Matty in the States, signed with the Giants before the 1957 season and began to work his way up through the minors. He debuted in late 1960, and reached the majors full time in 1961, hitting .310 in 200 at-bats. Although his presence was great for Felipe personally, Matty also was another outfielder—by September, Dark was platooning the two Alous in right field. Meanwhile, 19-year-old brother Jesús, yet another outfielder, was hitting .336 for a Giants affiliate in the Northwest League.

Felipe finally broke through as a full-time player in 1962, winning the right field job outright and keeping it all season. In 605 at-bats, Alou hit .316 with 25 home runs. He was selected to the NL All-Star team in July, coming in for Roberto Clemente and hitting a sacrifice fly in his only plate appearance. More importantly, the Giants won the NL pennant, overcoming a four-game deficit with seven games to go to tie the Dodgers, then winning a three-game pennant playoff. In the playoff series, Alou was 4-for-12 with two doubles.

The 1962 World Series was a classic seven-game affair pitting the Giants and the New York Yankees. Alou played every inning in right field, and managed 7 hits in 29 at-bats. But he has never forgotten his last chance, in the ninth inning of the final game, with the Giants trailing 1-0. Matty led off with a bunt single, and Felipe tried to sacrifice him to second base. “I was asked to bunt, and I bunted poorly and the ball went foul. Then, with the infield charging for the bunt, I swung at a bad pitch and fouled it off for strike two. Then I struck out.”

“That was the lowest point of my career. This is something I am going to die with because I failed in that situation.”11 Alou was not often asked to bunt, but he did not blame Dark. He believed, then and later, that he should have been practicing bunting in case he was asked. Years later, as a manager, he obsessed over his clubs being capable of bunting. After another out, Willie Mays doubled Matty to third, but they were both stranded when McCovey lined out to second base, ending the game and Series.

The Giants fell back to third place in 1963, though Alou had another fine season—20 home runs and a .281 batting average. The highlight of the year came in September when his brother Jesús was recalled from Triple-A Tacoma to join Felipe and Matty. Late in the game on September 15, Jesús and Matty replaced Mays and McCovey, creating an all-Alou outfield. The brothers repeated this two more times that month, and appeared in the box score together a few other times. This feat has never been repeated in the regular season, and Felipe has a theory as to why. “Because people don’t want to have children,” he reasoned. The odds of three boys, all ballplayers, all on the same team, are quite remote.12

Meanwhile, in 1963 Alou found himself embroiled in some politics with the baseball establishment. Throughout his professional career, Felipe returned home every October and played baseball in the Dominican Winter League. On his way up to the majors, he won back-to-back batting titles in 1958-59 and 1959-60. A growing list of fellow major leaguers joined Alou, including his brothers, Manny Mota, Juan Marichal, and more. The Alous and Marichal usually played for Leones del Escogido in Santo Domingo, which won five of six championships beginning with the 1955-56 season. In 1956, Escogido club president Paco Martínez Alba — brother-in-law of Rafael Trujillo, the long-time Dominican strongman — formed a working agreement with the Giants.

Trujillo was assassinated in 1961, leaving the country in the hands of the military. The Winter League season was shortened in 1961-62, and cancelled outright in 1962-63. The Dominican government arranged a series of games with a touring team of Cuban players who were living in the US (exiled from their own country, and their own winter league). Among those who participated were Felipe Alou and Juan Marichal. Baseball commissioner Ford Frick, deeming these games “unauthorized,” fined the players $250 each.

Many of the Dominican players were upset, but it was Alou who went public. In the spring of 1963, Alou suggested that Latin players have a representative in the commissioner’s office, someone who understood Latin culture and politics, and could explain their unique set of problems. “They do not understand,” Alou said, “that these are our people and we owe it to them to play for them.”13 In December 1965, Commissioner William Eckert hired Bobby Maduro to fill exactly this position.

Alou expanded on his people’s grievances in a courageous first-person account in Sport (as told to Arnold Hano) that fall. “When the military junta ‘asked’ you to do something, you did it. If I had not played, I would have been called a Communist.” Most Latin players came from very impoverished circumstances, and earning the extra money in the off-season (there were no other jobs available) helped feed huge extended families. In the US, the players were often isolated from their teammates by language, and often criticized or even disciplined for speaking Spanish amongst themselves. Alou was very complimentary of the United States, calling it a “wonderful country,” but left no doubt where his heart lay. “I am a Dominican. It is my country. And I love it.”14 Alou pulled no punches, criticizing Frick and also Alvin Dark, his own manager. In the words of writer Rob Ruck, “Nobody had ever spoken so eloquently or forcefully about Latin ballplayers, much less prescribed how baseball could and should address their unique concerns.”15

In early December, not long after the article in Sport appeared, the Giants traded Alou to the Milwaukee Braves as part of a seven-player trade. Whether the deal was related to Alou’s outspokenness is unclear, but his Latino teammates, including Cepeda, Marichal, and Pagán, were devastated. “I think that was one of the biggest mistakes the Giants ever made,” said Marichal decades later.16 The Giants did have a surplus of outfielders, and needed the pitching they acquired. Jesús Alou, who many thought would surpass both his brothers, was anointed as the new Giants right fielder.

Alou spent the next six years with the Braves. Before reporting in 1964 he had injured his knee playing in the Dominican Winter League. He played through it, knowing that the Braves needed him to play center field, but he got off to a slow start hitting and fielding. In June manager Bobby Bragan (faced with an outfield surplus with the sudden emergence of Rico Carty, a rookie Dominican) asked Alou to play first base, and a few games later he tore cartilage in his knee reaching for a ground ball. He missed a month of action, and hit just .253 with nine home runs on the season. In 1965 he recovered nicely, alternating between first base and the outfield, hitting .297 with 23 home runs.

In 1966 the Braves moved to Atlanta, and Alou responded to the hot climate with his best season. Again playing first base and all three outfield positions, Alou hit .327 with 31 home runs, leading the NL with 218 hits, 122 runs scored, and 355 total bases. He lost out on the league batting title to his brother Matty (.342), who had been traded to Pittsburgh and was capitalizing on his first chance at regular playing time. Felipe returned to the All-Star Game, though he did not see any action.

The Atlanta writers named Alou the team MVP, and some of his teammates were in awe. “I’ve never seen anyone stand out head and shoulders the way Felipe did,” said catcher Joe Torre. “I’ve never seen anyone hit so consistently well all season long,” added Henry Aaron. Alou parried such talk: “If a team isn’t going right, what can one man do to help? I think this stuff about leading a team, I wonder if that is really possible.” But it was not just his ballplaying. Gene Oliver, a white teammate who lost his first base job to Alou, said, “He is the kind of man you hope your kid will grow up to be.”17

Alou struggled in 1967, suffering from bone chips in his elbow and falling to .274 with just 15 home runs. He recovered to hit .317 in 1968 (a year that saw league averages plummet to .243), playing in the All-Star game again. His batting average was third highest in the league, and he tied Pete Rose for the lead with 210 hits. After three years of moving around the diamond, Alou played 156 times in center field under new manager Lum Harris.

Alou got off to a great start in 1969, hitting well over .300 through May. On June 2 he broke a finger and missed two weeks after he was hit by a pitch thrown by the Cardinals’ Chuck Taylor. During his absence the Braves acquired Tony González from San Diego, and when Alou returned the two platooned in center field. During the Braves’ successful drive for the division title, and the subsequent playoff loss to the Mets, Alou got little playing time. For the season he hit just .282 with five home runs. With an outfield surplus, Atlanta dealt the 34-year-old to Oakland for pitcher Jim Nash over the winter.

No longer a star player, in 1970 Alou was the elder statesman on a young A’s team filled with up and coming stars. He hit .271 in 154 games. Just a few days into the 1971 season, Oakland dealt Alou to the Yankees for two young pitchers, making room for Joe Rudi in left field. Alou played most of the next three years in New York, hitting .289, .278 and finally .236, moving between the outfield and first base all three seasons. He played 19 games for Montreal in September 1973, and got three at bats for Milwaukee the next April before drawing his final release. Felipe was sad, saying he would “have to get used to the life of a man who can’t play baseball.”18

Alou joined the Montreal Expos organization as an instructor in 1976, but suffered the tragedy of his life in 1976 when his oldest boy, Felipe Jr., an aspiring ballplayer, jumped into a shallow pool and drowned. Alou was so broken up he did not work at all that season, and could not talk about the tragedy for many years. He rejoined the Expos the next year, and spent the next seventeen years as a minor league manager (with a few stints as a major league coach). In the minors, he piloted West Palm Beach, Memphis, Denver, Wichita, and Indianapolis, earning a reputation as a serious and respected teacher of young players. He apparently was offered the job in 1985 to manage the San Francisco Giants but turned it down out of loyalty to the Expos.

In the winter months, Felipe transitioned from player to manager of his longtime team, the Leones del Escogido in the Dominican Republic. Alou managed the club to four league championships (1980-81, 1981-82; 1989-90, 1991-92). Previously, he had also won two Venezuelan titles as skipper of the Caracas Leones (1977-78, 1979-80). In the mid-1980s, he managed Caguas in the Puerto Rican Winter League as well.

The genuinely devoted Alou, who did not drink or smoke or socialize much, has been married four times and has fathered eleven children. As a young man he married María Beltré, from his hometown, and the couple had four children: Felipe Jr., María, José and Moisés. He and Beverley Martin, from Atlanta, had three girls: Christia, Cheri, and Jennifer. His third wife was Elsa Brens, from the Dominican, and the couple had Felipe José and Luis Emilio. In 1985, he married Lucie Gagnon, a French-Canadian, and had two more children, Valerie and Felipe Jr.

“People ask how a man who likes to be home with his family gets married four times,” Alou said in 1995. “All the evils that go on in life, the evils of the life of a traveling ballplayer, I wasn’t immune to that. But I loved all my wives and children. … I’ve been a lucky man. I had two children in my 50’s, and God gave us other Felipes.”19 Among his children, José and Felipe José became minor league players, and Moisés made it to the Majors.

In 1986 Alou returned to manage at Single-A West Palm Beach, and remained there for six years, an eternity for a minor-league manager. In 1992 he returned to the major leagues as the bench coach for manager Tom Runnells. After a sluggish start (17-20), general manager Dan Duquette fired Runnells and hired Alou to finish the season. The young team responded with a 70-55 record to finish a strong second to the Pittsburgh Pirates. The 57-year-old Alou’s job was secure. “The biggest mistake I’ve made in my career,” said Duquette, “was not recognizing his ability then to be a terrific major league manager. He’s one of the best in the game.”20 He was the first of his countrymen to manage a big-league team.

Alou took over a Montreal club filled with young talent, including Larry Walker, Marquis Grissom, Delino DeShields and Wil Cordero. One of the team’s best relief pitchers was Mel Rojas, who was Felipe’s nephew (the son of his half-brother). The team’s left fielder was 25-year-old Moisés Alou, Felipe’s son. Moisés had not grown up with Felipe (his parents had divorced when Moisés was two), but they talked frequently and saw each other occasionally over the winter months. “I was the happiest kid in the world,” Moisés recalled. “He was the most famous player, maybe the most famous person, on the island, and he was my father.“21 Alou was a good young player who developed rapidly under his father’s tutelage, turning into a six-time All-Star and one of the better hitters in the National League.

The Expos finished 94-68 in 1993, just three games behind the first-place Phillies. Over the off-season, Duquette traded second baseman DeShields to Los Angeles for 21-year-old pitcher Pedro Martínez, a Dominican who joined Ken Hill and Jeff Fassero to give Alou one of the league’s best starting staffs. The fortified club soared to the best record in baseball in 1994, a great team that could hit, field, run and pitch. Unfortunately for Alou and his team, the season was ended in early August by a player’s strike, and the club was not able to continue its quest for a championship. The club’s 74-40 pace, if maintained over the full schedule, would have yielded 105 wins, the most since the 1986 Mets. Alou was named the National League Manager of the Year.

Compounding the tragedy, the team’s ownership was not willing to spend the necessary money to keep the team intact. Before the 1995 season got underway, the Expos had lost Walker, Grissom, Hill, and John Wetteland. Alou’s club fell all the way to last place in 1995, before clawing their way back to 88 wins and second place in 1996. But soon Cordero and Fassero departed, followed by Moisés Alou and Pedro Martínez. As the club continued to develop good players (Vladimir Guerrero, Rondell White, Orlando Cabrera, and Javier Vázquez arrived in the late 1990s), the club’s five straight fourth-place finishes did not harm Alou’s reputation as a manager. It was understood that Alou was doing a fine job with his youngsters, but that the team was not willing to keep them once they attained the seniority that allowed them to earn big money. After another mediocre start in 2001 (21-32), Alou finally was released as manager after nine years.

He spent 2002 as the bench coach for the Tigers (working under Luis Pujols, who had been Alou’s bench coach in Montreal). After the 2002 season Alou returned to San Francisco to manage the Giants. Under Dusty Baker, the club had reached the World Series in 2002, but after the season Baker left the club in a contract dispute, joining the Chicago Cubs. The 67-year-old Alou took over.

The Giants’ team and personality was dominated by the late-career Barry Bonds, who had set the single-season home run record in 2001 and whose days were now filled with home runs, bases on balls and (ever increasingly) steroid allegations. Alou’s first club won 100 games, an improvement on the World Series team that had won 95 and the NL wild card. Unfortunately, the 2003 club was upset in playoffs by the young Florida Marlins. Bonds missed 30 games but managed to hit .341 with 45 home runs and 148 walks. The next season Bonds walked a record 232 times and won the batting title, but the club fell to 91 wins, and then to 75 wins in 2005 with Bonds hurt. Moisés Alou rejoined his father in 2005, and had two pretty good seasons with the Giants. After the 2006 season, the 71-year-old Felipe Alou was released from his job as manager.

Alou remained a beloved figure in San Francisco, and was offered a job as a special assistant to general manager Brian Sabean. “I am truly overjoyed to have Felipe remain with the Giants organization,” said Sabean. “As he was during his four years as our manager, Felipe will continue to be a huge asset to the ballclub going forward.”22 Alou has worked as a major-league scout, and minor-league instructor, helping Sabean on player evaluation. In 2010 Alou received his first championship ring after the Giants defeated the Rangers in the World Series.

In 2012 he was beginning his sixth season in this position, 57 years after signing his first contract with the Giants. He had begun his career as a stranger in a strange land, but had become one of baseball’s most respected men. A three-time All-Star turned into an award-winning manager, who helped many of the game’s greatest stars as they began their careers. But he remains most famous as the eldest in one of baseball’s greatest families, the brother and father to fellow All-Stars. Very few men have left a greater mark on baseball than Felipe Rojas Alou.

Last revised: May 1, 2012

Sources

Thanks to Rory Costello for his help, especially for his straightening out my understanding of Felipe Rojas Alou’s name.

Notes

1 Michael Farber, “Diamond Heirs,” Sports Illustrated, June 19, 1985.

2 Rob Ruck, Raceball—How the Major Leagues Colonized the Black and Latin Game (Boston: Beacon Press, 2011), 164.

3 Rob Ruck, Raceball, 154.

4 Felipe Alou with Herm Weiskopf, My Life and Baseball (Waco, Texas: Word Books, 1967), 1-13.

5 Alou and Weiskopf, My Life and Baseball, 14-17.

6 Alou and Weiskopf, My Life and Baseball, 18-21.

7 Steve Bitker, The Original San Francisco Giants: The Giants of ’58 (Sports Publishing, Inc., 2001), 68.

8 The Sporting News, May 16, 1956, 37.

9 Steve Bitker, The Original San Francisco Giants, 68.

10 Steve Bitker, The Original San Francisco Giants, 66.

11 Steve Bitker, The Original San Francisco Giants, 69.

12 Steve Bitker, The Original San Francisco Giants, 70.

13 Bob Stevens, “Felipe Suggests Latins Have Rep in Frick’s Office,” The Sporting News, March 16, 1963: 11.

14 Felipe Alou with Arnold Hano, “Latin-American Ballplayers Need a Bill of Rights,” Sport, November 1963: 21.

15 Rob Ruck, Raceball, 164.

16 Rob Ruck, Raceball, 164.

17 John Devaney, “Felipe Alou: The Gentle Howitzer,” Sport, June 1967, 63.

18 Lou Chapman, “Brewers Salute Tom Murphy as Bullpen Savior,” The Sporting News, May 18, 1974, 9.

19 Michael Farber, “Diamond Heirs.”

20 Michael Farber, “Diamond Heirs.”

21 Michael Farber, “Diamond Heirs.”

22 Associated Press, “Alou returns to Giants as special assistant,” ESPN.com, http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/wire?section=mlb&id=2721755, accessed February 27, 2012.

He enjoyed a 15-year career in the major leagues and today is well into his sixth decade working in baseball, but Jesús Alou is destined to be remembered as the third brother in an extraordinary baseball family. He might have accomplished less as a player than his two All-Star siblings, but those comparisons are unfair. Jesús had a fine career in his own right as part of the first great wave of Dominican players that came to the major leagues in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Jesús Alou was the 13th Dominican in the majors, though just third in his own family.

José Rojas and Virginia Alou raised six children (Felipe, María, Mateo, Jesús, Juan and Virginia) in their small home in Bajos de Haina, San Cristóbal, near Santo Domingo on the southern coast of the Dominican Republic. Rojas, a carpenter and blacksmith who built their home and others in the neighborhood, also fathered two children with a previous wife who had passed away. Though José was black and Virginia white, this was not unusual in the Dominican and the children knew little racism in their homeland—they were Dominicans. The family was poor, like most people they knew. “We all helped [our father] in the shop,” recalled Jesús, “but no money was coming in because everyone was poor around there. I was happy, though, just thinking about where my next meal might come from.”1

Jesús María Rojas Alou was born on March 24, 1942. In keeping with the Latino custom, each parent contributed half of his double surname, but he is known in everyday life as Jesús Rojas in his homeland. While Felipe was playing in the US minor leagues, a team official mistakenly began identifying him as Felipe Alou, and he did not feel empowered to correct the error. When Mateo and Jesús followed him to the States, they used the Alou surname in order to associate with Felipe.

If this were not enough, many American writers and broadcasters were uncomfortable with his first name (properly pronounced “hay-SOOS”). Although there have been more than a dozen players named Jesús in the major leagues, Jesús Alou was the first, and is still the most prominent. Before his first season with the Giants, a San Francisco writer asked local religious leaders about the situation, and they all agreed that he needed a nickname, that reading “Jesus Saves Giants” in the morning paper would not do. The paper asked readers to write in with their suggestions, which many did.2 His Latino teammates often called him Chuchito, but the writers often called him Jay. “What,” the subject asked in 1965, “is wrong with my real name, Jesús? It is a common name in Latin America like Joe or Tom or Frank in the United States. My parents named me Jesús and I am proud of my name.”3 Thankfully, by the end of his career, everyone, even the writers, called him Jesús.

When Jesús was born, Felipe was nearly seven years old, while Mateo (later known mainly as “Matty” in the U.S.) was three. Unlike his older brothers, Jesús came to baseball slowly and somewhat reluctantly. “I wouldn’t even go and watch Felipe and Mateo play on the lots around our home,” he recalled. “I went fishing.”4 When he did play, the brothers used bats that they made on their father’s lathe.5 In fact, it was mainly his brothers’ success that led Frank (Chick) Genovese, who managed the other Rojas brothers on Leones del Escogido in the Dominican Winter League, to pressure Jesús to give baseball a try. Genovese’s cause was joined by Horacio Martínez, a former Negro Leaguer who worked as a bird dog for New York Giants scout Alejandro Pómpez and helped run the Escogido team. In late 1958 the 16-year-old Jesús signed to be the team’s batting practice pitcher.

At about the same time, Genovese signed Jesús for the San Francisco Giants organization, as he had done a few years earlier with Felipe and Mateo. The man who would now be known as Jesús Alou had very little organized baseball experience and the Giants’ optimism was largely based on the talents of Felipe, who had made the major leagues, and Mateo, who had hit .321 for St. Cloud the previous year. Jesús was assigned to Hastings, Nebraska, which had a team in the short-season Nebraska State League. Alou pitched just two games, allowing 11 runs in five innings, though he did manage to finish 2-for-3 as a batter. “I don’t win. I don’t lose,” Alou recalled of his summer in Nebraska. “I don’t do much of anything except brood.”6

The next winter Alou hurt his arm throwing batting practice for Escogido, and thought his reluctant baseball experiment might have ended before he turned 18. He reported to the minor league camp for the Giants in 1960, and was assigned to Artesia (New Mexico), a Class-D affiliate. Manager George Genovese, the brother of Chick, wanted Alou to give up pitching and play the outfield, like his brothers. Again Alou balked, suggesting instead that he just go home. He finally agreed, and played the entire year in center field. His hitting was great (.352 with 11 home runs and 33 doubles), though his outfield play was a bit raw due to his sore arm. “It was a tougher year on Gil Garrido, our shortstop, than it was for me,” Alou remembered. “My arm was so bad that every time a ball was hit out to me Garrido had to race almost to my side to take the cutoff throw.”7

Tough year or not, Garrido, a future major leaguer from Panama, hit .362 to win the batting title, while Alou led the league with 188 hits. Both were named to the league’s postseason All-Star team. After the Artesia season was over, the 18-year-old Alou played a few games with Eugene (Oregon) of the Northwest League, where he hit .350 in 20 at-bats.

Alou’s remaining years in the minor leagues were equally successful. Spending the 1961 season back in Eugene, he hit .336, led the league in hits, and was named a postseason All-Star. The next year in El Paso (Texas League), the 20-year-old Alou hit .346. Finally reaching the top rung of the ladder (Triple-A Tacoma) in 1963, Alou hit .324 with 210 hits (a total that broke Matty’s former Tacoma all-time record). He was an All-Star at every level, and had done everything he could to earn a spot with the Giants. On September 10, 1963, he finally made it, pinch-hitting against the New York Mets, grounding out against Carlton Willey to lead off the eighth. Willey then retired Mateo and Felipe for a 1-2-3 inning. The three brothers also played the outfield together briefly five days later. During his call-up, Jesús hit .250 in 24 at-bats.

As his major-league career was starting, many people believed that he would surpass both his brothers as a player. Among the believers were his brothers. “Jesús represents our family now,” said Felipe. “He has the right approach to baseball. Matty and I are, how you say it? We’re satisfied. We’re in the majors doing the best we can. But Jesús, he is a restless man. If he can’t be supreme, he doesn’t want to be at all. He has to be the greatest.”8 As evidence, people could point to his performance with Escogido, where the three brothers had formed the outfield over several winters. As early as 1961, Alejandro Pómpez had said, “Jesús Alou hits the curve ball twice as good as most kids who have been around much longer. The day will come when he’ll outshine both Felipe and Matty.”9

Jesús had already outgrown both of his brothers, reaching 6’2” and 190 pounds by the time of his debut. George Genovese, who had managed Jesús a few times in the minors, was optimistic. “He has live hands and a fast bat and he attacks the ball with great aggressiveness,” he said. “When he puts on another 15 pounds, he will have more power than Felipe.”10 Added manager Al Dark, “We think young Alou is one of the finest players our farm system has developed in recent years.”11

Thoughts of an all-Alou outfield in San Francisco were unrealistic, however. The team already had star performers in center field (Willie Mays), left field (Willie McCovey), and first base (Orlando Cepeda). Felipe Alou had established himself as a good player in right field, while Matty Alou was behind Harvey Kuenn among the extra outfielders. After the season, the Giants partly dealt with the logjam by trading Felipe to the Braves. They announced that Jesús, and not Matty, would get first crack at the right-field job.

The biggest flaw in Jesús’s game, then and later, was his inability to take a walk. Even in the 1960s this was remarked upon, though more as a curiosity than a flaw. In 1963 baseball increased the dimension of the strike zone from the bottom of the knee to the top of the shoulders, which did not affect Jesús at all. As a Tacoma writer remarked, “Jesús has a personal strike zone which far exceeds anything considered by rulesmakers.”12 Teammate Juan Marichal remembered, “One time. . . a pitch [came in] about level with Jesus’s head. Jesus swung at it and hit a home run to right field. He was that type of hitter.”13 But the Giants were ready to live with his approach. “He swings at quite a few bad balls,” admitted farm director Carl Hubbell, “but I call him one of those ‘they shall not pass’ hitters. If he can reach a ball, he’ll swing.”14

Alou played fairly regularly in 1964, hitting .274 but with little power (three home runs) or plate discipline (13 walks). On July 10 he enjoyed the game of his career, when he went 6-for-6 with a home run in a Giant victory in Chicago’s Wrigley Field. His season ended abruptly on September 4 when he was spiked at second base by New York’s Ron Hunt, resulting in 91 stitches in his foot, ankle, and calf. He came back the next year to play 143 games, batting .298 with nine home runs. At a time when the league hit just .249, his average was impressive, but his 13 walks gave him only a .317 on-base percentage, just over the league average. With Alou’s skill set, he was going to have to hit .320 to be a star, and most observers believed that he would. He turned just 23 in 1965.

Alou reported in 1966 determined to improve his batting eye. “I know pitchers are getting me to swing at bad pitches,” he admitted. “I try to cut it down this year. Sometimes maybe I forget, but I am going to cut it way down, I think.”15 Instead, he took a step back, and when he was hitting just .232 with two walks in nearly full-time play on June 13, he was optioned to Phoenix for two weeks, ostensibly because of a sore arm. He hit better upon his return, and got his average up to .259. It was a big year for the other Alou brothers: Matty, traded to the Pirates the previous winter, hit .342 to capture the league batting title; and Felipe, playing for the Braves, finished second at .327 while also clubbing 31 home runs. The talk of Jesús being the best of the Alou brothers had quieted down.

After the 1966 season, Jesús allowed that he wanted to be traded, reasoning that his brothers had found success after leaving San Francisco’s Candlestick Park, whose cold winds created difficulties for both hitters and outfielders. During the winter meetings, the Giants reportedly talked to other clubs about Alou, but held on to him.

In 1967 Alou played more or less full-time, and returned to his 1965 levels of hitting: .292 in 510 at bats, though again with little power (five home runs) and few walks (14). Oddly, the Giants used Alou as their primary leadoff hitter. As manager Herman Franks explained, Alou’s swinging and missing at so many bad pitches made him a bad hit-and-run guy, so he didn’t like him up with men on base. “So,” said Franks, “the leadoff position is where he can do the least harm and definitely the most good.”16 Alou hit .308 as the leadoff batter, and hit .337 when leading off innings.

The 26-year-old Alou played left and right fields for the Giants in 1968, starting 97 games and playing parts of 23 others. He regressed a bit from his 1967 comeback, hitting just .263 with no home runs and nine walks in 436 plate appearances. This turned out to be his final go-round with the Giants, as on October 15 Alou was selected by the Montreal Expos in an expansion draft to stock the two new National League teams.

Montreal reportedly turned down several trade offers for Alou, including one from the Astros for Mike Cuellar. After several weeks of speculation, on January 22 the Expos dealt Alou and Donn Clendenon to the Astros for outfielder Rusty Staub. Six weeks later Clendenon announced that he would retire rather than report to Houston, nullifying the trade for a few weeks. Eventually the Expos substituted two pitchers and some money to get the deal done. Houston manager Harry Walker coveted Alou, as he wanted more speed in the outfield. Walker had long fancied himself a hitting guru, and his biggest success story had been Matty Alou, who became a consistent .330 hitter after joining up with Walker in Pittsburgh in 1966.

Jesús Alou began the 1969 season as the Astros’ right fielder and leadoff hitter, and stroked three hits in his first game. He then went into a long slump that lasted most of the year, though his season was partly saved by a .328 final month. On June 10, while playing left field, Alou was involved in a brutal collision with shortstop Héctor Torres. His teammate’s forehead hit Alou’s face and caused him to swallow his tongue. Pirates trainer Tony Bartirome may have saved the unconscious Alou’s life when he pried open his mouth, inserted a rubber tube and breathed into it, which opened his air passage enough so that Alou could resume breathing. Alou and Torres were each carried off the field and rushed to the hospital—both players suffered concussions while Alou fractured his jaw. He missed six weeks of action. For the season, he hit just .248.

Alou was not a regular to start the 1970 season, but his consistent hitting eventually got him an everyday role. He ended up hitting .306 in 115 games, with a career-high 21 walks. “To me, hitting .300 is not all that big an issue,” he said late in the year. “What is important for me as the leadoff hitter is to get on base. I think I’ve been good, actually, ever since I came out of the hospital last year.”17 Once again he excelled as a leadoff hitter—he hit .392 leading off games, and hit .328 when leading off an inning. In 1971, he started even hotter, hitting over .350 into June, before slowly dropping off. A bad September left him at .279 for the season.

Through it all, baseball people liked having Jesús Alou around. Jim Bouton, an Astros teammate in 1969 and 1970, described him in his second book, I’m Glad You Didn’t Take It Personally. “We called him J. or Jesus, never hay-soos. . . J. is one of the most delicate, sensitive, nicest men I have ever met. He’d walk a mile out of his way to drop a coin in some beggar’s cup.” Bouton then went on to describe how Alou’s sensitivity made him a comic foil for practical joker Doug Rader’s most disgusting antics.

“Alou is popular with his teammates because of his inherent good nature and philosophical way of looking at things,” said another writer in 1971. “And Alou is interesting to watch during a game.” He drew much comment throughout his career for all his mannerisms in the batter’s box—he held the bat vertical directly behind his right ear, then repeatedly rotated his neck. “People write letters asking why I jerk my neck,” Alou said. “I can’t answer except to say it’s not a back problem. It’s just a mental problem.”18 Early in his career Dodger pitcher Don Drysdale thought Alou might be trying to steal the catcher’s signs, and subsequently knocked Alou down with a pitch.19 Yet the habit remained.

Alou also had a very self-deprecating sense of humor. Late in his career he failed to reach a fly ball in the outfield, and observed, “Ten years ago, I would have overrun it.”20 When reminiscing about his years in the game, he would often recall moments when he forgot how many outs there were or the time he overran a base.21 Despite his relatively modest accomplishments, he stayed in the game a long time because his managers and teammates liked him so much. He was quiet and dignified, and often could be seen reading a Bible at his locker.

As Jimmy Wynn recounted in his autobiography, though, Harry Walker’s inveterate tinkering with hitters and their approach at the plate managed to infuriate even “The J. Alou” — as Jesús jocularly referred to himself. “The Hat” went so far as to break Alou’s bat in order to make sure that his player used a Harry Walker model. Another clubhouse incident a few days later finally set Alou off, and Wynn later wrote, “We are laughing in shock over the discovery that he is capable of anger at this level.”22

With the emergence of Bob Watson and Cesar Cedeño, and the presence of Wynn, Alou no longer had a regular job after the 1971 season. He hit .312 in 1972 as a reserve outfielder and pinch-hitter, but just .236 in the same role the following season. On July 31, 1973, his contract was sold to the Oakland Athletics.

The A’s had won the World Series in 1972 and would repeat the next two seasons. Alou played 20 games over the last two months of the 1973 season, mainly in left field, and hit .306. When regular center fielder Bill North sprained his ankle that September, it opened the door for Jesús to play in the postseason. He hit 2-for-6 in the ALCS, but just 3-for-19 in the World Series. The next year he stayed with the A’s the entire year and got 232 plate appearances, mainly as a designated hitter, hitting .262. He hit just twice in the postseason, including a pinch single in the first game of the ALCS. Matty Alou had helped win a World Series for the A’s in 1972, and now Jesús had won back-to-back with the same club.

The next spring Alou was released. “Maybe I’m overrating myself,” he said. “I think this team needs a guy who does the type of job I can do.”23 He was soon picked up by the New York Mets. “I was offered more money to play with my brother, Matty, in Japan,” Alou said, “but I prefer to play in the United States.” Alou served as a reserve outfielder and pinch-hitter, hitting .265 in 108 plate appearances.

In March 1976 he was released again, and this time he headed back to the Dominican, where he remained for two years. Besides playing winter ball in his homeland, he and a friend tried to start a business. “We were going to start a watch-assembly plant in the Dominican Republic,” he recalled. “We would buy the parts in other countries and assemble the watches there. But the government down there didn’t like the idea.”24 After two years away, Alou returned to the major leagues with the Astros in 1978, and hit .324 in a reserve role. When he returned the next year, the 37-year-old took on the added role of batting coach. He hit .256 this time around in just 43 at bats, though his relatively high walk total (6) gave him a respectable .349 on base percentage.

After the 1979 season Alou drew his release, and his major-league career was over. He finished with a respectable .280 batting average, but his walk rate of just 3 per 100 plate appearances was the lowest in the 20th century for someone who played 1,000 games. He played parts of 15 seasons in the majors, and won two World Series. In the Dominican, he starred for many years for Escogido with his two brothers. He was Rookie of the Year in 1960-61. His lifetime stats at home were .302 with 20 homers and 339 RBIs in 20 seasons (12 for Escogido and 8 for archrival Licey). He played in five Caribbean Series (1973, 1974, 1977, 1978, and 1980), hitting .351 with two homers and 13 RBIs. One of his highlights in a Dominican uniform came during the 1973 edition in Caracas, Venezuela, when he was 12 for 24 (.500) as Licey won the tournament.25

Jesús Alou married Angela Hanley in the late 1960s, and the couple raised five children—Angela, Jesús Jr., María de Jesús, Claudia, and Jeimy—in the Dominican Republic. After his playing career ended, Alou moved back home and remained there, still fishing and swimming in the nearby waters in the summer. He lived not far from where he grew up, and not far from the homes of his brothers and sisters. “I guess we look much richer to the people here than we really are,” he once observed.

Although he did some managing in the Dominican winter league, Alou turned to scouting when his pitching coach with Escogido, Bob Gebhard, became an executive with the Montreal Expos. Jesús said, “I imagine he saw me working with kids. Even when I was a player, I liked to work with kids.” In typical form, he added, “I have very high blood pressure. I don’t think I can stand managing.”26

He continued to work for American baseball, moving from the Expos to the Marlins. In 2002, he became the Dominican scouting director for the Boston Red Sox. He also served as director of the team’s Dominican Summer League operations, much the same role as he had held with the Marlins’ Dominican academy.

Jesús came back to San Francisco in 2003 for Opening Day, joined by his two brothers, one of whom (Felipe) was now managing the Giants. They had all accomplished so much in the game, forty years after playing in the same outfield. “I have never dreamed anything in baseball,” Jesús said. “Everything has been a surprise. Every day is a new surprise. Felipe being manager in San Francisco makes me proud. It’s another surprise.”27

Dominicans have come to play a huge role in American baseball, following in the giant footsteps of Felipe, Mateo, and Jesús Alou. Late in his career, Jesús was asked to compare the skills of the three Alous. “Felipe is a very tough guy in baseball,” he said, “tougher than all of us. Matty was smaller and had to take more advantage of his ability, the guy who does more thinking. Me, I wasn’t as tough as Felipe or as thinking as Matty. One thing we had in common: we didn’t like to strike out too much, maybe because we used to play with rubber balls in our backyard. As long as a guy didn’t strike out, he could keep batting, and we all liked to bat.”28 The brothers played over 5,000 major-league games between them.

Jesus died on March 10, 2023 in his beloved Santo Domingo. He spent 60 years in the game as a player, and was still working for the Red Sox at the time of his passing. He was a vital part of a great baseball family, and his legacy will live on.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Rory Costello for his editing and for adding a few additional stories to the article. Thanks also to Gabriel Schechter, Rod Nelson, and Matías Alou.

Notes

1 Joseph Durso, “We Band of Brothers,” The New York Times, August 14, 1975.

2 Prescott Sullivan, “Wanted—Name for New Right Fielder!” San Francisco Examiner, March 6, 1964.

3 Bob Stevens, “Jesús Alou Could Be the Best in Family,” The Sporting News, July 3, 1965, 7.

4 Bob Stevens, “The Little Alou,” Sport, September 1965, 81.

5 Jack McDonald, “No. 3 Alou May Gain No. 1 Spot,” The Sporting News, April 6, 1963, 10.

6 Stevens, “The Little Alou,” 81.

7 Stevens, “The Little Alou,” 81.

8 Stevens, “The Little Alou,” 80.

9 Jack McDonald, “Giants Phenoms Train in Lap of Luxury,” The Sporting News, April 12, 1961, 9.

10 McDonald, “No. 3 Alou May Gain No. 1 Spot,” 10.

11 Jack McDonald, “Giants,” The Sporting News, February 22, 1964, 24.

12 Ed Honeywell, “Jesús Alou Gives Up Passes to Hit Away,” The Sporting News, August 10, 1963, 33.

13 Juan Marichal with Lew Freedman, Juan Marichal: My Journey from the Dominican Republic to Cooperstown, Minneapolis, Minnesota: MVP Books, 2011, 114. Marichal’s memory was fuzzy about the details. He recalled it as being in San Francisco against Jim Bunning of the Phillies, but SABR’s Home Run Log shows no such record.

14 Jack McDonald, “Giants Paint Pennant Picture With Jesús Alou and Jim Ray Hart.” The Sporting News, January 4, 1964, 10.

15 Jack McDonald, “Those Bad Pitches Look Too Juicy for Jesús Alou to Resist,” The Sporting News, April 2, 1966, 17.

16 Bob Stevens, “Alou a Goliath in Giant Leadoff Spot,” The Sporting News, July 1, 1967, 16T.

17 John Wilson, “Jay Alou Giving Brothers Lesson in Swatting Art,” The Sporting News, August 29, 1970, 17.

18 John Wilson, “A Sizzling Bat Pushes Alou Into Astros’ Lineup,” The Sporting News, June 26, 1971 24.

19 Stevens, “The Little Alou,” 80.

20 Gordon Verrell, “Dodgers Tap Rookie Wall to Add Bullpen Depth,” The Sporting News, January 10, 1976, 28.

21 Mike Mandel, SF Giants. An Oral History (Santa Cruz: self-published, 1979), 149.

22 Jimmy Wynn and Bill McCurdy, Toy Cannon: The Autobiography of Baseball’s Jimmy Wynn, Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Co., 2010, 121-122.

23 Ron Bergman, “Happy Charlie Does Jig Over Hippity-Hoppy,” The Sporting News, April 19. 1975, 5.

24 Harry Shattuck, “Bat Artist Alou Doubles as Astro bat tutor,” The Sporting News, March 17, 1979, 51.

25 Gustavo Rodríguzez, “Jesús Alou: Ganó la triple corona en SC en 1973,” Hoy (Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, January 26, 2012.

26 Gordon Edes, “Alou Acts as Scout, Dreams as a Player,” South Florida Sun-Sentinel, February 8, 1994.

27 Associated Press, “Alou reunion takes place in San Francisco,” Albany Times-Union, April 8, 2003.

28 Joseph Durso, “We Band of Brothers,” The New York Times, August 14, 1975.

 Most famous today for being the second of three baseball-playing brothers, Mateo Alou was part of the first wave of Dominicans who helped change the very culture of American baseball in the 1960s. After years of sporadic playing time, often competing with his brothers, he finally left them and became a batting champion, and one of baseball’s unique and interesting stars.

Mateo Rojas Alou was born on December 22, 1938, in Bajos de Haina, San Cristóbal, not far from Santo Domingo on the southern coast of the Dominican Republic. His father, José Rojas, was a carpenter and blacksmith who built the family home and many of the others in the neighborhood. Rojas fathered two children with his first wife, who died young, then six more with Virginia Alou. Mateo was her second of four boys. Virginia was white, though Mateo and his siblings did not think of themselves as belonging to any race — they were Dominicans. They were also poor, as José’s income was dependent on the local economy and the ability of his customers to pay him. The Rojas family had a house, but they did not always have food.

The subject is known in his home country as Mateo Rojas Alou, informally Mateo Rojas, and he and his brothers are known as the Rojas brothers. Early in Felipe’s minor-league days he began to be called Felipe Alou (also mispronounced “Al-oo” instead of “Al-oh”), and the mistake was never corrected. The brothers Felipe, Mateo and Jesús are therefore all known in the US as Alou, and Mateo was often Anglicized to Matty in the States. For this article, the subject will be referred to as Mateo or Matty Alou.

Mateo later said that his father played baseball as a boy until he saw a friend die after being struck by a ball, though Felipe did not remember this. “I can say for sure my father never threw a ball to me,” Felipe recalled.1 The boys spent hours in the nearby ocean fishing for grouper or snapper, helping out their father in his shop, or playing ball in their yard. Their ball was often a coconut husk or half a rubber ball, their bat a tree limb, and their gloves made from strips of canvas. Unlike Felipe, who planned to be a doctor and spent a year in college, Mateo left school after eighth grade and hoped to become a sailor. In the meantime he caddied at the Santo Domingo Golf Club and played more baseball.

In 1956 the 17-year-old Mateo Alou played for Aviación Militar, the Dominican Air Force team, sponsored by General Ramfis Trujillo, the son of the Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo. Alou’s teammates included future major-league teammates Juan Marichal and Manny Mota. Although they were all members of the Air Force, they were mainly ballplayers recruited because the younger Trujillo wanted to field the best baseball team in the Caribbean. “We were soldiers,” laughed Mota. “The only thing, we have no guns.” It was still serious business — when the team lost a double-header in Manzanillo, the General launched an investigation, and accused the players of drinking (a charge Marichal denies). The entire team was put in jail for five days.2

In late 1955 Felipe had signed a baseball contract with Horacio Martínez, a former Negro Leaguer who worked as a bird dog for the New York Giants scout Alejandro Pómpez. With the considerable help of Pómpez and Martínez, the Giants got a jump on the rest of baseball in the Caribbean, especially the fertile Dominican Republic, inking Marichal, Mota, and eventually all three Alou brothers. Mateo signed in the winter of 1956-57, at the age of 18.

Unlikely many blacks and Latinos of the era, Mateo Alou spent the bulk of his minor league days outside of the deep South. But even in Michigan City, Indiana, where he began his career in 1957, he and Manny Mota were turned away from a restaurant because of their skin color. During spring training in Florida one year, Mota and Alou were placed in a police lineup because a white woman said a black ballplayer had molested her.3 The Dominicans had not encountered much racism in their own country, but in the US they had to do so while also not understanding the language. “The ballplayers always treat us good,” Alou recalled. “The only trouble we had was in the streets, the restaurants, the hotels, all those things. We used to cry but we didn’t fight.”4

Alou hit just .247 for Michigan City in full-time play in 1957. He then played winter ball at home in the Dominican League for the first time. Promoted to St. Cloud of the Northern League in 1958, he recovered to hit .321 for the first-place club and made the postseason All-Star team as an outfielder. For 1959 he reached Single-A Springfield, Massachusetts, playing with several future major leaguers, including Mota, Marichal, and Tom Haller. Springfield won the Eastern League championship, with Alou contributing a .288 average and 11 home runs to the cause.

Unlike older brother Felipe, who grew to a chiseled 6-feet and 200 pounds, or his younger brother Jesús, who was even taller, Mateo was later listed officially at 5-9 and 160 pounds as a major leaguer (though he was likely shorter and lighter, especially in the minors).5 Unlike his brothers, he was left-handed, and got a lot of bunt singles and infield hits. “Nobody taught me how to play ball, nobody taught me how to hit,” Alou recalled. “But I practiced, I had good reflexes, was quick moving. Good eyes. And it came naturally.”6

Alou spent the 1960 season with the Tacoma Giants of the Pacific Coast League. This was another good club filled with future major-league players, and Alou hit .306 with 14 home runs as the center fielder. In September he earned a callup to San Francisco, and appeared in four games at the end of the year. In his first big league at-bat, he singled off the Dodgers’ Larry Sherry.

Alou’s rise to stardom was slow and sometimes frustrating, and he believed he was not given the opportunities he deserved. In truth, he faced some pretty stiff competition, including Willie Mays in center field (Alou’s best position) and his brother Felipe in right field. In 1961 Alou made the club and played parts of 81 games in the outfield or as a pinch-hitter, batting .310 with six home runs in 200 at-bats. He was just 23 years old and behind a few other players on his team, but after the season farm director Carl Hubbell suggested he would not trade Matty Alou for the Dodgers stars Willie Davis and Tommy Davis.7

The next season he played the same role, batting .292 in 195 at-bats, and had a big part in the National League pennant chase. In the last seven games of the regular season, he played six complete games, and hit 14-for-27 (.510). In the decisive game of the three-game playoff series with the Dodgers, with the Giants trailing 4-2 in the ninth inning, Alou led off with a pinch-hit single that launched the game-winning rally. He played in six of the seven World Series games, getting four hits in 12 at-bats. In the ninth inning of the final game, with the Giants down 1-0 to the Yankees, Alou led off with a pinch-hit bunt single, advanced to third base on Willie Mays’ two-out double, but was stranded there when Willie McCovey lined out. There was talk over that winter that third-base coach Whitey Lockman should not have held Alou at third on Mays’ hit, but most observers, including Alou himself, felt that he would have been out easily at home plate.

Alou’s transition to the big leagues was aided immeasurably by the presence of so many other Latino players on the Giants. Besides his brother Felipe, his teammates included Dominicans Marichal and Mota and Puerto Ricans José Pagán and Orlando Cepeda, all of whom were very close. When he first arrived in San Francisco Mateo and Marichal lived in the home of an older woman named Blanche Johnson, who taught them to speak English, and cooked both American and Dominican food for them.8

On October 24, 1962, Mateo married María Teresa Vásquez in the Dominican Republic. During the 1963 season he, Felipe, Marichal, and their three wives lived together in a house in San Francisco. “We got along very, very well together,” recalled Marichal. “Felipe is the godfather of my oldest daughter, Rosie, and I am the godfather of a daughter of his. And Mateo is the godfather of my second girl, Elsie, while I’m the godfather of his daughter [Teresa]. That is a serious obligation for a Dominican, to be a godfather.”9 The couples spent a lot of time together away from the park. Mateo, the former caddy, taught the others to play golf, while the wives helped each other make their way in a strange country. After the season, they all returned to their homeland for the winter baseball season.

In spring training of 1963, working hard in hopes of earning more playing time, Alou badly hurt his knee running to first base during an exhibition game in El Paso, Texas. He played through it, but struggled all summer long. Felipe, who often acted as the reserved Mateo’s spokesman with club management, urged the Giants to send his brother to a doctor. Instead, in early August, they sent him to Tacoma. He returned in September, but it was a lost year: 11 hits in 76 at-bats for a .145 batting average. The only good memory from the season came in September, when younger brother Jesús joined the Giants and helped form an all-Alou outfield late in the game on September 15. The three played in a same game a few other times, but their time as teammates was brief — after the season, Felipe was dealt to the Milwaukee Braves.

Heading into the 1964 season, Mateo had been passed by Jesús on the Giants depth chart. With Willie Mays and Willie McCovey in the outfield, and the veteran Harvey Kuenn still productive, Mateo returned to his fifth-outfielder/pinch-hitter role. Hitting just .219 on June 2, Alou was struck on the wrist by a pitch from Pittsburgh’s Bob Veale, breaking a bone, and spent five weeks home in the Dominican Republic. He hit better upon his return (.282), so well that he was used fairly regularly in September. He managed to get into 110 games, including 49 starts, and hit .264. For a man who had very little power and drew few walks, the batting average was too low for an outfielder even in the 1960s.

Even so, based on his strong second half, in 1965 new manager Herman Franks gave Alou a lot of playing time — but he did not hit. “’65 was my worst year in baseball,” recalled Alou, “because they gave me a chance and I didn’t do anything.” He hit just .231 in 324 at-bats. His most memorable game that season came on August 26 at Pittsburgh’s Forbes Field when he pitched the final two innings of an 8-0 loss. He allowed no runs and struck out three, including Willie Stargell twice. “I just threw him slow curve, slow curve,” Alou said. “And I know I would get him out again if I faced him.”10

Despite his star turn on the mound, it came as no surprise when the Giants traded Alou to the Pirates on December 1, 1965. In later years the Giants were criticized for their handling of Alou, although they gave him 1,131 plate appearances and he had not contributed much since 1962. Alou welcomed the deal, later saying, “My brother didn’t tell me anything about Willie Mays. I just signed because I liked to play the game.”11

Pittsburgh manager Harry Walker had coveted Alou, and had big plans for him. Walker spent many years as a hitting instructor in the game, usually trying to get everyone to choke up, and hit the ball down and to the opposite field, as Walker himself had done as a player. This approach backfired with many people, but Alou was his best and most famous success story. “The Hat” worked tirelessly with Alou, getting him to stop trying to pull the ball and instead hit nearly everything up the middle or to left field. To force this, he gave Alou a much bigger bat — 38 ounces — and asked him to stroke down on the ball and use his speed. As a pull hitter, Alou had held the bat low and swung with an uppercut. Walker had him hold the bat high and straight up, forcing him to swing downward on the ball. Walker set up a platoon in centerfield with Alou and old friend Manny Mota, giving the left-handed Alou most of the at-bats, and hit Alou in the leadoff position whenever he played.

Alou took to the new batting style extremely well. Bunting and slapping singles, Alou put up a league-leading .342 batting average, more than 100 points higher than his effort in 1965. Since Mota was also hitting very well, finishing at .332, the platoon in center field remained — Alou started 121 games, just twice against a left-handed starter, but managed 535 at-bats. Finishing second was Atlanta’s Felipe Alou at .327. Mateo still did not walk much or hit for power, but at a time when the league’s on-base percentage was .313, Alou’s .373 mark was eighth highest in the league, and tops among players who primarily hit leadoff for their teams.

Alou’s sudden fame raised a lot of questions about what had changed for him. He credited Walker’s tutelage, escaping San Francisco’s challenging Candlestick Park, and platooning with Mota, which allowed him plenty of rest. Late in the season, when it appeared that one of the Alous might win the batting title, Felipe allowed that he was rooting for his brother. “It would be a wonderful thing for Matty to win it,” said Felipe. “Wonderful for the Alous, and wonderful for baseball in the Dominican Republic. We always sort of took care of Matty because he was so small. Now look at him leading all of us in hitting!”12

Alou’s next two years were nearly carbon copies of 1966. He continued to platoon with Mota, his roommate and best friend, and both men continued to hit. In 1967 Alou hit .338 (third in the league) in 550 at bats, starting just four times against left-handers, while Mota hit .321, also backing up the other outfield positions. (Walker could not easily play both of them — his left fielder was Willie Stargell, and his right fielder was Roberto Clemente.) The acquisition of Maury Wills moved Alou out of the leadoff spot in the order, and by 1968 he was often hitting third or fourth. In 1968 Alou hit .332, just three points behind Pete Rose for the batting title, in 598 at-bats. He also played in his first All-Star Game, legging out an infield single off Sam McDowell in his only at-bat.

After the 1968 season the Pirates lost Mota to the Montreal Expos in the expansion draft. Although Alou had faced lefties a bit more in 1968, the next year he became a full-time player for the first time in his career. Playing 162 games, he led the league in at-bats, hits (231), singles (183), and doubles (41), while hitting .331 at the top of the order. He played the entire All-Star Game in center field, garnering two hits and a walk in five appearances in the NL’s 9-3 win. The 30-year-old Alou, after hitting .330 or higher for four straight seasons, had become a full-fledged star and one of the more interesting players in the game. He was a leadoff hitter who did not walk much — just 42 times in 1969 — yet he was valuable because he was able to maintain his high batting average. His 698 at-bats set a new major-league record, since broken.

Although he faced occasional criticism for his defense, especially for being shy about crashing into fences, Alou had a strong and accurate throwing arm and often was among the league leaders in outfield assists, finishing first with 15 in 1970. “I play deep because this is a big park and the ball carries deep. I’m not fence shy. They said that in San Francisco. You know, sometimes everybody want you to be Willie Mays. Sometimes they say, ‘Why aren’t you like Willie Mays?’ Well, there is only one Willie Mays.”13

In 1970 Alou slipped to .297, but still finished with 201 hits, fifth best in the league. The Pirates had been a good team for a few years but finally broke through and won the Eastern Division, and Alou finished 3-for-12 in the three-game loss to the Reds. During the offseason the Pirates, wanting to make room in center field for youngster Al Oliver, sent him to the Cardinals in a four-player deal. Thus, Alou missed out on the Pirates championship season of 1971. “I think of myself mostly as a Pirate,” Mateo said years later. “Because they gave me confidence. They treat me good, and I had the best years of my life there.”14

Alou spent most of the next two seasons for the Cardinals and played well. He hit .315 in 1971, with 192 hits, playing center field for half the season and (after the recall of rookie José Cruz) mostly first base in the second half. In 1972 he switched between first base and right field and hit .314. In late August he was traded to the Oakland A’s, a young team on the verge of winning their first of three straight championships. He played nearly every day the rest of the season in right field, hitting .281. He played well in the ALCS (.381 with four doubles), but slumped in the World Series (just 1-for-24). Still, after just missing in 1962 Alou finally tasted the champagne of a World Series victory.

Not long after the Series, Alou was traded again, this time to the New York Yankees, reuniting with his brother Felipe. He hit well in New York, .296 in 123 games as the regular right fielder, but when the team fell out of contention they sold him back to the Cardinals, who were in contention for a division title, on September 6. (On the very same day, the club sold Felipe to the Montreal Expos.) Mateo was not thrilled with the trade, delayed reporting for a few days, and was used solely as a pinch-hitter in the waning weeks of the pennant race. After the season the Cardinals sold him to the San Diego Padres, but after hitting just .188 in 81 at-bats he drew his release in July 1974, ending his major-league career. He ended with a .307 career average over 14 seasons, with three All-Star appearances and two trips to the World Series.

The 35-year-old Alou next took his career to Japan, spending the rest of the 1974 season and two more with the Taiheiyo Club Lions in the Nippon Pro League. He hit .312 in his first half-season, then .282 and .261 his next two years. He finished with a .283 lifetime average in Japan. “I didn’t like playing there really,” Alou recalled. “I played there because I had to. I had three kids to support. It was too hard there. Too much practice, too much traveling, had to travel almost every day.”15

Alou returned home. A star for 15 seasons with Leones del Escogido in the Dominican Winter League, his .327 career average is second only to Manny Mota’s .333 in league history. He won batting titles in 1966-67 (.363) and 1968-69 (.390). He later coached and managed in the league for many years. While the Alou brothers gained fame for manning the same outfield for the Giants for a parts of a few games in 1963, this was not such a big deal to the Rojas brothers — in the Winter League, for many seasons they formed the Escogido outfield, and still dominate the all-time leader boards for the club. For the 1961-62 and 1962-63 winters, when political unrest shut down the Dominican league, Mateo played winter ball in Venezuela.

Although Alou spent most of his post-playing years in his homeland, he worked for several major league organizations over the years. He scouted for the Tigers for a while in the late 1980s. He also spent many years as the Dominican scouting supervisor for the San Francisco Giants. He coached a single season (1994) for a club in the Dominican Summer League (a circuit affiliated with the US minor leagues). In 2007 he was honored at San Francisco’s AT&T Park, celebrating his induction to the Hispanic Heritage Baseball Museum Hall of Fame. Brother Felipe, then manager of the Giants, had been inducted in 2003.

Mateo remained a private person who was not often in the news in the States. His 1962 marriage to Teresa lasted the rest of his life. They raised three children — Mateo Jr., Matías, and Teresa — primarily in their homeland. Mateo died at age 72 in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic on November 3, 2011, after suffering a stroke. He had stopped working for the Giants a few years earlier for health reasons. He was survived by his wife of 49 years, his three children, four grandchildren, three brothers and two sisters.

An earlier version of this article appeared in “Mustaches and Mayhem: Charlie O’s Three Time Champions: The Oakland Athletics: 1972-74″ (SABR, 2015), edited by Chip Greene. 

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Rory Costello for his assistance.

Notes

1 Michael Farber, “Diamond Heirs,” Sports Illustrated, June 19, 1985.

2 Rob Ruck, The Tropic of Baseball (Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 1998), 70-71.

3 Rob Ruck, Raceball — How the Major Leagues Colonized the Black and Latin Game (Boston: Beacon Press, 2011), 153-4.

4 Mike Mandel, SF Giants. An Oral History (Santa Cruz: self-published, 1979), 123

5 Charles Einstein, “Alou Alou,” Sport, September 1962: 25.

6 Mike Mandel, SF Giants, 123.

7 The Sporting News, May 2, 1962.

8 Juan Marichal with Charles Einstein, A Pitcher’s Story (New York: Doubleday, 1967), 100-101.

9 Rob Ruck, The Tropic of Baseball, 78.

10 Mike Mandel, SF Giants, 124.

11 Mike Mandel, SF Giants, 123.

12 The Sporting News, September 24, 1966.

13 Lou Prato, “Matty Alou: ‘Wait, Wait, Wait,’ Sport, October 1968: 38.

14 Mike Mandel, SF Giants, 124.

15 Mike Mandel, SF Giants, 125.

Joaquín Andújar was a fierce competitor and entertaining showman for 13 major-league seasons. The hard-throwing right-hander was the first starting pitcher from the Dominican Republic to earn a World Series victory, and no big leaguer won more games in the 1984 and 1985 seasons combined.

With his emotional, all-out style of play, Andújar also won a Gold Glove and homered from both sides of the plate, but his volcanic temper also led to an infamous World Series ejection that marred the four-time All-Star’s reputation. Andújar was an unpredictable athlete whose career can perhaps best be described by his own signature quote: “One word in America says it all – you never know.”1

Joaquín Andújar Sabino was born on December 21, 1952, in San Pedro de Macoris, a sugar mill town on the Dominican Republic’s southeastern coast. He was the only child of Jose Joaquín Andújar and Clara Sabino, a short-lived couple who split up before he could walk. His paternal grandparents, Saturno and Juana Garcia Andújar, raised him in their zinc-roofed home between San Pedro de Macoris’s famed Catedral San Pedro Apostol to the east, and the Iguamo River to the west.

During Andújar’s formative years, the Dominican Republic was enduring the final trimester of Rafael L. Trujillo’s three decades of dictatorship. Most of the country’s resources were firmly controlled by “El Jefe,” including the seasonal sugar industry, which was San Pedro de Macoris’s chief employer. Andújar’s grandfather worked at the Ingenio Porvenir, second oldest of the seven sugar mills dotting the city. Porvenir means “future” and, for Andújar and most of his peers, growing up to a life of labor there was indeed a probable outcome.

The 1960s were as turbulent in the Dominican Republic as they were in the United States. Andújar was 8 years old when Trujillo was assassinated in 1961. By the year he turned 13, tens of thousands of US troops occupied the country briefly to quell a Dominican civil war following a series of regime changes. “Trying to Prevent Another Cuba” was the snag line on a Time magazine cover story describing the events of 1965. Meanwhile, the first wave of Dominican ballplayers was establishing a pipeline that would soon see their country surpass Cuba as the majors’ primary source of Latin American talent.

Andújar actually preferred basketball initially but, like much of his country, he was fascinated when the 1962 San Francisco Giants surged to the National League pennant with four Dominicans on the roster. The first two big leaguers from San Pedro de Macoris – Amado Samuel of the Milwaukee Braves and Manny Jimenez of the Kansas City Athletics – debuted the same year. Baseball had been popular in the Dominican back to the late nineteenth century, but suddenly it was everywhere, and Andújar began playing as much as he could. “Without a good glove, a decent bat or a pair of cleats, because everybody is very poor,” he recalled. “We used to make a rag ball, or we bought a rubber ball and played in the streets.”2

Andújar’s first amateur club was called Jabon Hispano and, when he got older, he played for a team managed by Pedro Gonzalez, the first Dominican to play for the New York Yankees. Andújar was a switch-hitting center fielder who usually hit cleanup, an all-or-nothing free swinger with a combustible temper. Once, he destroyed his own jersey when Gonzalez took him out of a game. It was a big deal, because the incident occurred around the same time Andújar quit attending Jose Joaquín Perez High School because his family couldn’t afford to buy him pants or shoes. With his grandfather nearing retirement age, the boiler room at Ingenio Porvenir looked increasingly like the setting for Andújar’s future.

Tetelo Vargas Stadium opened in San Pedro de Macoris just before Andújar’s7th birthday. The Estrellas Orientales of the Dominican winter league played there, and Andújar spent a good chunk of his teen years shagging balls for them and studying major leaguers like Braves slugger Rico Carty up close. The facility was available to youth leagues, too, and it was there that Wilfredo Calvino noticed a particularly strong Andújar throw from center field. Calvino was a former minor-league catcher from Cuba who scouted for the Cincinnati Reds. “He asked me if I wanted to become a pitcher,” Andújar said. “I told him that I didn’t care, that the only thing I wanted was to go to the United States to make money and help my family and myself.”3

Andújar signed with the Reds in November 1969, and reported to rookie league the following summer along with two other 17-year-old Calvino signees from San Pedro. Incredibly all three of them would play in the major leagues. Santo Alcala was a tall, happy pitcher who’d room with Andújar in the minors for most of the next five years, while Arturo DeFreites was a serious, muscular third baseman who’d wallop 32 homers one year in Triple A when he filled out. On a diet of hot dogs and French fries because he didn’t know how to order anything else in English, Andújar struck out more batters than any right-handed pitcher in the Gulf Coast League in 1970, including a handful in the circuit’s all-star game. Upon returning home, he joined the legendary Leones del Escogido – winner of half of the last dozen Dominican League championships – for seven appearances before his 18th birthday.

A promotion to the Northern League Sioux Falls Packers in 1971 proved extremely challenging, however. Tougher competition, real road trips, and a manager who didn’t speak Spanish added up to a difficult season. Andújar led the team in wild pitches and was demoted to the bullpen. At the end of the season, manager Dave Pavlesic told the high-kicking Andújar , “You’re not Juan Marichal. You’d better learn how to pitch.”4

Andújar got 93⅓ innings of much-needed experience that winter for Escogido. He led the Dominican League in walks, but fashioned an impressive 2.93 ERA and the Reds noticed. While Alcala and DeFreites went to a co-op Single-A team to play for a Spanish-speaking manager, Cincinnati promoted Andújar to Double A. The Eastern League hitters were one challenge, but pitching for Les Aigles des Trois-Rivieres meant “home” games were played in the French-speaking Canadian province of Quebec. Against all odds Andújar thrived, winning seven of his first eight decisions before rolling his ankle and literally limping to a 7-6 final record.

Still hobbling in winter ball, Andújar was traded in midseason to the Estrellas Orientales. The four-player deal allowed Escogido to recover the contractual rights to Juan Marichal. Andújar was thrilled to pitch for his hometown team, which featured lots of Houston Astros through a working agreement with the National League franchise. Cesar Cedeno and J.R. Richard were two of the club’s stars that winter, but it was Estrellas manager (and Astros coach) Hub Kittle who’d have the biggest impact on Andújar’sfuture. “Everything I have, I owe to Hub Kittle,” Andújar remarked years later.5

The Reds invited Andújar to his first big-league spring training in 1973, but sent him to Triple A, where he didn’t care for Indianapolis Indians skipper Vern Rapp. “I tell (Reds farm director Chief) Bender in spring training I no like to go to Indianapolis. I told them I no like manager. He gives you hell when you lose,” Andújar explained.6

Andújar walked too many batters and in June was sent back to Trois-Rivieres, where he proceeded to show he had nothing left to prove in Double A by going 5-2 with a 1.98 ERA. He followed that up with a 2.53 mark in winter ball, where he cut down his leg kick and walk rate while learning from “El Coyote,” Hub Kittle’s nickname in the Dominican.

Back at Indianapolis in 1974, Andújar made 17 starts and 16 relief appearances as Rapp jerked him in and out of the rotation. The low point came in July when Andújar responded to an early hook by destroying a dugout water cooler, which prompted Rapp to suspend him. Andújar finished 8-8 with a 3.57 ERA and two saves as Indianapolis made it to the league finals before falling to the Tulsa Oilers. The championship series went the distance with several extra-inning contests, but Rapp used Andújar only as a pinch-runner.

Back in the Dominican, however, Kittle was more than happy to give him the ball. Andújar responded by winning six of seven decisions and the Dominican League’s native-pitcher-of-the-year honors. “They said he had a million-dollar arm and a ten-cent head. But that’s not true. He’s a very intelligent person,” Kittle observed.7

The Estrellas came up just short in their championship series as well, but Andújar was selected to accompany the triumphant Aguilas Cibaenas to Puerto Rico for the Caribbean Series. He beat Venezuela in his lone start.

Andújar arrived at spring training in 1975 with Reds manager Sparky Anderson hoping some special treatment would unlock his potential, as it had for another volatile Dominican, Pedro Borbon, a few years before. Instead, Andújar began a third straight season in Indianapolis. Before he even got into a game, Rapp told him he was going back to Double A. “Vern Rapp grabs me and says if I don’t like it I can fight him,” Andújar said. “I think to myself, Joaquín , you be making wrong move fighting with Vern Rapp.”8

Injuries limited Andújar to just 62 innings at Trois-Rivieres and, two days after the Reds won the World Series, they traded Andújar to the last-place Houston Astros for pitchers Luis Sanchez and Carlos Alfonso, neither of whom pitched a single inning for Cincinnati. Andújar went 7-2 for the Estrellas to repeat as native-pitcher-of-the-year in what proved to be his last winter with Kittle, who left the Astros organization as part of their organizational shakeup

On Opening Day 1976, Andújar made his major-league debut in – of all places – Cincinnati, walking the first two batters he faced to force in a run. He didn’t pitch much for the first two months, but beat the Reds, 2-1, with a complete-game two-hitter on June 1 for his first major-league win. He became the first Dominican ever named Player of the Week after shutting out the Cubs in his next start. By mid-July, he’d beaten the Reds twice more with complete games, and pitched back-to-back 1-0 shutouts. Pitching for a sub-.500 club, Andújar finished his rookie season 9-10 with a 3.60 ERA.

Andújar got off to a slow start in 1977, but reeled off six straight victories. With a 10-5 midseason record, he was named to Sparky Anderson’s National League All-Star squad. A pulled hamstring in his last start before the break kept him out of action, and Andújar won only once more after missing six weeks. He proved he was healthy in 14 starts that winter, rejoining the Leones del Escogido in the Dominican capital of Santo Domingo for the first time in five years. Andújar also married the former Walkiria Damaris Saez in the offseason, and expected big things from himself in 1978.

After predicting a 25-win season in spring training, Andújar pitched well early in 1978, though poor run support prevented his record from reflecting it. He hurt himself swinging for the fences during batting practice in May, however, then ticked off manager Bill Virdon by swinging too hard in his first game back and aggravating the injury. Andújar exited one game with a debilitating case of jock itch, then suffered another hamstring pull that knocked him out of action for nearly two months. After finishing a lost Astros season in the bullpen, he recovered to lead the Dominican League in complete games for Escogido and pitch in another Caribbean Series before spring training.

Andújar’santics didn’t endear him to his manager, never mind opponents, but many fans got a kick out of his gunslinger routine in which he pointed his index finger at vanquished hitters like a pistol. In his early years, he’d even pretend to blow the gunsmoke away and return the gun to his holster.

The 1979 Astros got off to a great start with Andújar excelling in a swingman role. When he finally rejoined the rotation, he won Pitcher of the Month honors in June and returned to the All-Star Game with an 11-5 first-half record. Andújar pitched in the game at the Seattle Kingdome. Over the course of the next month, he became a father when son Jesse was born, and hit his first big-league home run, an inside-the-park blast with a man aboard at the Astrodome to beat Montreal’s Bill “Spaceman” Lee, 2-1.

The Astros coughed up a 10-game division lead, however, as Andújar lost seven of eight decisions after the break and was sent back to the bullpen. Houston agreed to swap him to the World Series champion Pittsburgh Pirates for aging slugger Bill Robinson at the winter meetings, but Robinson nixed the deal by exercising his 10-5 rights. Andújar didn’t know who he’d be pitching for on Opening Day, but he enjoyed another strong winter campaign for Escogido. In February he beat Venezuela in his only start to help the Dominican Republic win the Caribbean Series on their home turf.

Andújar had his first six-figure salary heading into 1980 after winning his arbitration case, but few opportunities to start after Houston signed Nolan Ryan to a free-agent contract. One year after pitching in the All-Star Game, Andújar failed to win a single game in a first half in which he rarely got to pitch at all. The Astros kept him as insurance in case somebody got hurt, which proved to be all too prescient when ace J.R. Richard suffered a tragic stroke in July. Andújar posted a 1.19 ERA in August when the Astros turned to him in desperation, but was returned to the bullpen for a third straight year by season’s end. Houston survived a one-game tiebreaker to win the National League West. When the Astros finally won a tense NLCS Game Two in Philadelphia for the franchise’s first-ever postseason victory, Andújar got credit for a save. They lost the NLCS in five games.

Andújar’swinter season ended abruptly when he got into a dispute about complimentary tickets with Escogido’s front office. The Leones won their first title in a dozen years without him, and the Astros kept making it abundantly clear that they weren’t relying on Andújar either by acquiring two more proven starting pitchers. Andújar offered to pitch for free as he languished as the last man on the pitching staff for two months. His agents implored him to wait quietly for his impending free agency. Finally, in the first week of June, he was traded to the St. Louis Cardinals. Before he could even get into a game with his new team, major-league players walked out on strike for more than seven weeks.

When play resumed, however, Andújar won six of seven decisions for Cardinals manager Whitey Herzog and a St. Louis pitching coach he knew very well, Hub Kittle. “Before the Cardinals got me, I was like a plant that needed water,” he said. “Whitey and Hub, they poured water on me, and I grew to be a tree.”9

Andújar signed a three-year free-agent contract to return to St. Louis, and it paid immediate dividends in 1982. His control was better than ever and he was an important part of an exciting team that got off to a hot start. By the All-Star break, Andújar had the second-lowest ERA in the National League, but not enough victories to earn a spot on the team. Though he continued to pitch effectively, his record slipped to 8-10 by early August before he reeled off seven straight wins to close the regular season. His 5-0 record in September earned him NL Pitcher of the Month honors and helped the Cardinals win their division. Andújar won the pennant-clincher in Atlanta in the NLCS, then took on the high-scoring Milwaukee Brewers in the World Series.

Andújar was the only player on the field wearing short sleeves on a cold night as he carried a shutout into the seventh inning against the highest-scoring team in two decades. His evening ended abruptly when Ted Simmons hit a wicked one-hopper that caromed off Andújar’sright knee into foul territory. Writhing and screaming in obvious agony, he nevertheless became the first pitcher from the Dominican Republic to win a World Series game when reliever Bruce Sutter nailed down the final outs.

Andújar spent several days on crutches, and it appeared unlikely that he’d be able to pitch if the Series went the distance. When Game Seven of the 1982 fall classic got underway at Busch Stadium, however, Andújar was back on the mound to demonstrate why he’d been calling himself “One Tough Dominican” all season. Andújar got through seven innings with a lead, then had to be hauled off the field by several teammates after Milwaukee’s Jim Gantner profanely called him a hot dog. Six outs later, the Cardinals were World Series champions. Andújar figured his 2-0 series record and 1.35 ERA were Series MVP numbers, but the honors went to his catcher, Darrell Porter. Even one of the losing Brewers got more votes than Andújar .

In 1983 he won his first two decisions to extend his winning streak to 12 before his season unraveled due to too many overthrown, straight, high fastballs. In June the Cardinals lost leadoff hitter Lonnie Smith to drug rehab and star first baseman Keith Hernandez to a trade. Andújar was healthy enough to start 34 games, but finished the season with a miserable 6-16 record. “God is still my amigo,” he insisted. “He must be someplace else. Maybe He’s watching the American League.”10

Andújar was one of the most aggressive, and unusual, hitters in baseball history. He struck out in more than half of his at-bats, usually swinging as hard as he could. He was a switch-hitter, but not in the usual sense. “If the pitcher has good control, I will bat left-handed against a right-handed pitcher. I bat right-handed against pitchers who don’t have good control, or if I don’t know them, because I don’t want to get hit in the right arm. I bat right-handed with nobody on base because I’m a power hitter from that side. I bat left-handed with men on base so I can make better contact and drive in runs.”11

In 1984, he homered both right-handed and left-handed – including a grand slam – and won a Gold Glove. Andújar also earned National League Comeback Player of the Year honors after winning his 20th game with just two games to play in the regular season. Andújar skipped the All-Star Game to be with his ailing grandfather, and finished a distant fourth in Cy Young voting despite being the league’s only 20-game winner. After the season, he received a hero’s welcome, however, when more than 10,000 Dominicans welcomed his flight back to Santo Domingo. “I grew up here. I never moved from here. People appreciate that,” he explained. “I hope I die here, but you never know.”12

St. Louis rewarded Andújar with a three-year contract that made him just the third Dominican to average more than $1 million annually. He was the Cardinals’ Opening Day starter in 1985 and raced off to a 12-1 start that kept the Redbirds afloat in what would prove to be a season-long dogfight with the young New York Mets in the NL East. Andújar appeared on the cover of The Sporting News with his friend and fellow Dominican, Reds ace Mario Soto. Both pitchers had been involved in multiple bench-clearing incidents in recent seasons, and Andújar led the league in hit batters for the second consecutive year. In the article, titled “So Good … So Misunderstood,” Andújar said: “Nolan Ryan pitches inside, and I don’t see anybody fighting Nolan Ryan. Steve Carlton pitches inside to everybody, nobody says anything. But when Joaquín Andújar and Mario Soto pitch inside, everybody goes to the mound and fights. If they love to fight, they should go to war and fight. They should go to the Middle East.”13

Andújar’srecord was 15-4 in the first half, but San Diego Padres manager Dick Williams decided to choose his All-Star Game starting pitcher based on a one-game showdown between Andújar and San Diego’s LaMarr Hoyt. Andújar was so put off by the idea that he vowed never to attend another All-Star Game in his life. As unlikely as it was at the time, he’d never be invited back anyway. Andújar won a career-high 21 games in 1985, despite struggling through a 6-8 record in the second half. To make matters worse, in September, former Cardinals teammates Lonnie Smith and Keith Hernandez both identified him as a cocaine user in the sensational drug trial taking place in Pittsburgh.

The Cardinals went 101-61 to win the NL East and ousted the Los Angeles Dodgers in a six-game NLCS, but Andújar’sstruggles continued. He was bombed by the Kansas City Royals in Game Three of the World Series, which proved to be his last appearance in St. Louis as a Cardinal. The Redbirds nearly won their second World Series championship in four years, but blew a ninth-inning lead in Game Six following a controversial call by first-base umpire Don Denkinger. St. Louis was already trailing Game Seven, 9-0 in the fourth inning, when Whitey Herzog called on Andújar – whom he’d chosen not to start – to pitch mop-up relief with Denkinger calling balls and strikes. He gave up a single and a base on balls. The walk caused Andújar to lose his cool, charging and bumping Denkinger, and getting ejected.

Though Andújar’s41 wins over two seasons were unsurpassed in the majors, the Cardinals took the best offer they could get for him, sending him the Oakland A’s for pitcher Tim Conroy and catcher Mike Heath in December of 1985. In addition to a 10-game suspension for his World Series outburst, Andújar faced up to a one-year ban from Commissioner Peter Ueberroth in the fallout from the drug trial. Unlike the six other players – including Smith and Hernandez – facing the most severe punishment, Andújar was never called to testify.

As it turned out, Andújar missed only the first five games of 1986 before a series of injuries caused him to spend time on the disabled list for the first time in eight seasons. He talked about retirement before coming on strong to go 12-7 for an Oakland club that finished 10 games under .500.

In 1987 he arrived late for spring training, which wasn’t unusual, but injured himself going all out in his first day of drills, which was. The birth of his second son, Christopher, was about the only highlight in a season that saw him post a 6.08 ERA and average less than five innings in the 13 starts he was able to make. When Oakland general manager Sandy Alderson reflected on the trade he put together to acquire Andújar , he said, “Both teams got nothing, but our nothing was louder than theirs.”14

Andújar took a substantial pay cut to return to the Houston Astros in 1988, but endured a pulled muscle in his side and knee surgery in April alone. In his first appearance back in St. Louis since being traded by the Cardinals, he surrendered a walk-off home run to fellow Dominican Tony Peña. When he drilled Peña with a fastball a few weeks later, he was fined and suspended by NL President Chub Feeney. “There is some guy, some big guy in United States baseball, he doesn’t want me in baseball. He wants me out of the game,” Andújar said.15

Andújar’s4.00 ERA wasn’t terrible, but he couldn’t go deep enough into games to stay in the starting rotation. He kept asking for his release, but faded quietly to the end of his major-league career with a lifetime 127-118 record.

In 1989 no team would guarantee Andújar a major-league roster spot, so he stayed home in the Dominican until the Gold Coast Suns of the newly formed Senior League of Professional Baseball offered him an opportunity. Just before his 37th birthday, Andújar went 5-0 with a minuscule 1.31 ERA to earn an incentive-laden deal and invitation to spring training from the Montreal Expos. A gimpy leg and an abscessed tooth limited him to two appearances, however, and the Expos released him before Opening Day when he made it clear he wouldn’t pitch in the minors.

When Whitey Herzog became the California Angels’ senior vice president after the 1991 season, he hired Andújar as a scout, but the arrangement proved to be short-lived. The Angels weren’t willing to invest much in Latin scouting, and Andújar still wanted to pitch. Several teams expressed interest in signing him when he made a comeback attempt with the Estrellas in late 1993, but knee problems and a freak car accident convinced Andújar that he should retire once and for all after only two starts.

Andújar continued to help young players around San Pedro de Macoris, assisting the San Francisco Giants Dominican Summer Leaguers and the Estrellas, particularly when his old friend Arturo DeFreites was their skipper. The Chicago White Sox noticed his ability to help young pitchers and brought him to spring training one season, but he refused their offer of a job when he found out it would be at the expense of one of his friends. Instead Andújar coached informally, but consistently, and played softball to keep his swing in shape. Investments in a construction business, and later a trucking company, did little except drain his bank account, however. In 2003 Andújar returned to St. Louis for the first time in 15 years to throw out a ceremonial first pitch at Busch Stadium to a loud ovation. “I live in the Dominican, but my heart still is in St. Louis,” he said.16

Two years later, Major League Baseball made Andújar one of 15 finalists for a Latino Legends team that would be chosen through fan voting. He finished 10th among pitchers. Andújar’slast appearance at Busch came in 2007, for the 25th anniversary of the 1982 World Series champions. St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist Rick Hummel described him as looking “smaller than we remembered him.”17

The Hall of Fame of San Pedro de Macoris inducted Andújar as a member in 2011, and the Caribbean Series made him a member of its Hall of Fame a year later. Andújar missed both ceremonies for undisclosed health reasons. The truth was that diabetes was taking a toll on “One Tough Dominican.” Andújar also went through a divorce, lost his big home and moved to an apartment in Santo Domingo, where he survived on his major-league pension.

Joaquín Andújar died on September 8, 2015. Many sports fans in the United States learned the news from the Instagram feed of Robinson Cano, the most prominent player from San Pedro de Macoris at the time. Cano called it a “big pain for all baseball fans, especially all Dominicans, but even more so for all of us who had the chance to know you and learn from your example.”

Just over a month before Andújar’s death, the Dominican Republic enjoyed a proud moment when Juan Marichal joined Pedro Martinez on stage at the latter’s induction ceremony at the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Two of the only three Dominicans with multiple 20-win seasons stood smiling and holding their country’s flag aloft. Precisely 15 years after Marichal’s last 20-win season, and 15 years before Martinez’s first, Andújar won 20 for the first of two consecutive years. “Andújar was in the middle of every dream I had because he was one of the best pitchers we ever had in the Dominican Republic,” remarked Martinez.18

Notes

1 Kenny Hand, “Andújar Gets Shot Against L.A. Tonight,” Houston Post, September 9, 1980: 2D.

2 Julio Gonzalez, “Joaquin: Facing the Future With a View from the Past,” Oakland A’s Magazine, Volume 6, Number 2: 14.

3 Gonzalez: 12.

4 Dave Pavlesic, interview with author, May 31, 2006.

5 The Sporting News, November 5, 1984: 49.

6 Duke De Luca, “Andújar Slows Down Phils,” Reading Eagle, June 30, 1973: 6.

7 Rick Hummel, “ Andújar’sSecret? Daddy Knows Best,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, June 3, 1982.

8 Kenny Hand, “Ayyyayyaya, Joaquin. Andújar Makes Astros Happy with Jokes, Pitching,” Houston Post, May 22, 1977.

9 Steve Wulf, “Here’s a Hot Dog You’ve Got to Relish,” Sports Illustrated, January 24, 1983: 32.

10 Rick Hummel, “Andújar : God Is Still My Amigo,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 22, 1983: B1.

11 Rick Hummel, “Sport Interview: Joaquin Andújar ,” Sport, September 1985: 27.

12 Rick Hummel, “Youneverknow What to Expect From Cards’ Ace,” The Sporting News 1985 Baseball Yearbook, 120.

13 Rick Hummel, “So Good … So Misunderstood,” The Sporting News, June 17, 1985: 3.

14 David H. Nathan, The McFarland Baseball Quotations Dictionary (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland), 2000.

15 Neil Hohlfeld, “Could ‘Someone Big’ Be Out to Get Andújar ?” The Sporting News, June 27, 1988: 21.

16 Rick Hummel, “ Andújar’sHeart Remains in St. Louis,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 26, 2003.

17 Derek Goold, “Colorful Cardinals Ace Andújar Dies,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, September 8, 2015.

18 Joey Nowak, “Former All-Star Pitcher Joaquin Andújar Dies,” mlb.com, September 8, 2015. mlb.com/news/joaquin-Andújar -dies-at-62/c-148062060.

Traded to the Colorado Rockies in late 1997, Astacio proved a pitcher could have success hurling half his games in the mile-high hitters’ paradise Coors Field. “I didn’t put doubts in my mind (about pitching in Coors),” said Astacio, who twice led the league in home runs allowed with the Rockies. “Just get the ball, go to the mound, make some good pitches and see what happens.”1 In parts of five seasons in Denver, Astacio won 53 games (which ranked sixth in franchise history as of 2017) despite a 5.43 ERA, and his 17-win, 210-strikeout campaign in 1999 still ranks among the best single seasons in Rockies’ history.

“He’s the pitcher who mentally has not been affected by pitching in Colorado,” said one GM. “Pedro has always tended to throw strikes. He’s aggressive with his stuff and trusts his stuff is good enough.”2 Astacio’s teammates were equally impressed with his dogged determination. “He was a battler,” said teammate Todd Helton. “He wouldn’t back down. He could give up three early runs and you’d never know it.”3

Pedro Julio (Pura) Astacio was born on November 28, 1968, in Hato Mayor, in the eastern Dominican Republic. He grew up on a rural farm between Hato Mayor and coastal San Pedro de Macoris, where his father, Fulgencio, planted crops and tended to livestock on about 100 acres. Astacio’s mother died when he was 8, leaving his father the sole provider for his six children (three boys and three girls). Like almost all boys on the baseball-crazed island, Pedro loved baseball. According to one story, he learned to pitch by using an old tractor tire as a strike zone.4 By the time Astacio was a student at Pilar Rondon High School, he was on the radar of big-league scouts. On November 21, 1987, 19-year-old Astacio signed with legendary Los Angeles Dodgers scout Ralph Avila and Elvio Jimenez.

Astacio’s first taste of professional baseball came a few months later when he donned the uniform of the Tigres de Licey in Santo Domingo in the Dominican Winter League. Though he hurled only one game, he’d return to that club to pitch occasionally for the next eight seasons (through 1995-1996), compiling a 13-10 record.5 In the spring of 1988 Astacio arrived in Campo Las Palmas, at the Dodgers visionary baseball academy Avila founded the year before.6 That camp would serve as a model for almost all other big-league teams and produced dozens of major leaguers, among them Pedro and Ramon Martinez, Raul Mondesi, and Jose Offerman, but Pedro was the first protégé to reach the majors. Astacio’s 4-2 record with 2.08 ERA in the Dominican Summer League earned him a promotion to the Dodgers farm system in 1989.

Over the next three years Astacio progressed through the Dodgers system. He earned All-Star honors in the Rookie Gulf Coast League in 1989 and two years later had advanced to the Double-A San Antonio Missions in the Texas League. Though he struggled (4-11, 4.78 ERA) facing more experienced hitters in the Texas League, the Dodgers were impressed enough to invite him to spring training in 1992.

The 23-year-old Astacio surprised the coaching staff by going 2-2 with a 1.42 ERA in the Grapefruit League.7 Nonetheless, he began the 1992 season with Triple-A Albuquerque, where he was converted into a reliever. Astacio struggled in his new role, yet a series of events conspired to lead to his unexpected promotion to the Dodgers. Following the riots that had engulfed Los Angeles from April 29 to May 4 after four police officers were acquitted of using excessive force against Rodney King, the Dodgers were forced to play four doubleheaders in six days in early July. Desperately needing pitching, the club called up Astacio as an emergency starter. In what was described as the “finest debut in franchise history,” Astacio tossed a five-hit shutout and fanned 10 (a new team record for debuts) to beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 2-0, in the second game of a twin bill on July 3.8 “It was hard to believe what I was seeing,” said teammate Brett Butler. “[H]e’s toying with major-league hitters.9 Astacio exhibited the kind of enthusiasm and raw emotion that would define his career – on and off the diamond – by jumping around after strikeouts and openly celebrating.

Astacio’s roller-coaster ride was in its infancy. He was returned to Albuquerque after his next start, five days later, then recalled a month later to replace the injured Tom Candiotti. He tossed another shutout in three starts, and despite an eye-popping 1.42 ERA (six earned runs in 38 innings) was demoted again. Back with the Dodgers in September, Astacio was the feel-good story in the Dodgers’ otherwise forgettable season and worst record in the majors. Astacio finished with a 5-5 slate, including four shutouts in 11 starts, and a 1.98 ERA in 82 innings.

Standing 6-feet-2 and weighing about 175 pounds, Astacio had a “good, lean power pitcher’s body with a long trunk,” according to one scout.10 Indeed, Astacio was primarily a fastball pitcher with a bullwhip-like delivery that created late ball movement. Astacio struggled with mechanics his entire career. One scout described them as “poor [because] he hyperextends his elbow which throws off his command” and added “[h]e also arches his head, tightening his back, further contributing to his inconsistent command.”11 Astacio also had a big overhand curve and a changeup, and was never shy to challenge pitchers inside as evidenced by twice leading the league in hit batsmen.

Astacio’s rookie success surprised everyone, yet the Dodgers were careful to temper their expectations in 1993. Slated for the fifth spot in the rotation after a productive spring, Astacio struggled early in the campaign. “It’s his command,” said skipper Tom Lasorda. “He’s not getting the ball where he wants to or where he’s supposed to.”12 By the end of July Astacio’s 4.74 ERA (easily the highest on the staff) threatened his role in the starting rotation. In almost a repeat performance from a year earlier, Astacio caught fire, going 7-3 and posting a 1.82 ERA in 74⅓ innings over the last two months of the season. “He’s not flying off the handle anymore and making dumb pitches,” said catcher Mike Piazza of Astacio’s transformation. “He realizes that every pitch has a purpose.”13 Called the “ace of the staff” by sportswriter Gordon Verrell, Astacio fashioned consecutive shutouts in September as part of a career-best 21⅓ scoreless innings. While the Dodgers split their 162 games to finish in fourth place in the NL West, Astacio led the steam with 14 victories and was the only starter with a winning record, while his 186⅓ innings were just short of the 200-inning barrier his mound mates Orel Hershiser, Ramon Martinez, Candiotti, and Kevin Gross all surpassed.

During Astacio’s remaining tenure with the Dodgers, the right-hander flashed the brilliance that many experts had expected; however, he often struggled mightily, and rarely found a middle ground. Frustrations – by both the pitcher and the organization – grew as Astacio’s inconsistencies baffled his managers. One scout called Astacio “probably the most inconsistent 60-grade pitcher in the game.”14

Astacio had a scare in spring training in 1994, when team physicians detected a heart murmur. Although the diagnosis was ultimately determined to be insignificant, Astacio was sidelined for much of camp. Nonetheless he was ready to start the season and fanned 11 in his debut, a 6-0 loss to Atlanta on April 8. Astacio seemed to catch his stride during a six-start stretch beginning June 14, going 3-1 with a 1.88 ERA and holding batters to a .175 average, and leading sportswriter Tim Kawakami of the Los Angeles Times to declare, “There’s no doubt Pedro has established himself as one of the top pitchers in the division.”15 Such a comment typified glowing perceptions of Astacio. In stark contrast were those voiced just weeks later when he failed to make it through the third inning in consecutive starts. Pitching coach Ron Perranoski said that Astacio’s lack of English made it “difficult to make adjustments” during the game, suggesting that his struggles would continue because of a language barrier.16 The Dodgers were in first place in the NL West when the players union began its strike on August 12, resulting in the cancellation of the rest of the regular season and postseason. Astacio finished with a 6-8 record and 4.29 ERA (highest among the club’s starters) in 149 innings.

While baseball executives and union representatives haggled in the offseason over the future of baseball, Dodgers brass wondered what to do with the erratic, streaky Astacio, whose potential seemed as limitless as his flameout as a starter was likely. One report described Astacio as “teetering this close to mental disaster all the time” during the 1994 campaign, leading many to wonder if the high-strung flinger might be better suited as a reliever.17 Calls for Astacio’s banishment to the bullpen intensified when he went winless in his first five starts of the 1995 campaign before blanking the New York Mets on six hits on May 24, thereby recording his first victory since June 25 of the previous year. Losses in his next five consecutive starts resulted in his demotion. Beat reporter Bob Nightengale of the Los Angeles Times suggested that Astacio’s “emotional fluctuations” and not his ability were the root cause of his “mystery struggles.”18 Used primarily in mop-up and low-leverage situations, Astacio fared better in the bullpen (3.40 ERA vs. 4.82 as a starter), or as team VP Fred Claire said, “had better focus.”19 The Dodgers captured their first division crown since they won the World Series in 1988. Astacio pitched in relief in each contest of the three-game sweep by the Cincinnati Reds, yielding just a hit in 3⅓ scoreless innings.

Astacio arrived at camp skeptical about the Dodgers’ claim that he had a chance to regain a spot in the starting rotation. “They said it’s my job to lose, but that doesn’t mean anything,” he said. “[L]ast year they told me I’d be back in the rotation.”20 After blowing up in his debut, Astacio produced his best and most consistent season in Dodgers blue. Though he didn’t complete any of his 32 starts, he proved to be a dependable workhorse, logging 211⅔ innings with a sturdy 3.44 ERA (including a 2.95 clip over the last three months). Poor run support contributed to his misleading 9-8 record. According to the Los Angeles Times, three factors led to Astacio’s success: He quickened his pace on the mound (he had been one of the NL’s slowest workers), he relied much more on his fastball, and he seemed less demonstrative.21 Astacio joined Hideo Nomo (16-11), Ismael Valdez (15-7), and Ramon Martinez (15-6) to anchor the NL’s best staff (a major-league-low 3.46 ERA) as the Dodgers finished in second place and captured a wild-card berth in Lasorda’s final season in the dugout. The team was once again swept in the NLCS, this time by the Atlanta Braves. In his only appearance, Astacio hurled 1⅔ scoreless innings in Game Two.

The now 28-year-old Astacio arrived in camp in 1997 after yet another offseason filled with trade rumors, and also a new skipper, Bill Russell, who replaced the legendary Lasorda after 21 seasons. Astacio got off to a hot start, winning his first three decisions, while producing a 2.00 ERA a month into the season. In one of those victories, he tossed seven hitless innings against the Mets at Shea Stadium before yielding a leadoff double in the eighth. “He’s one of the most underrated guys in this league,” gushed pitching coach Dave Wallace.22 Astacio then lost his next seven decisions, during which time he had an ugly altercation. Yanked after surrendering five runs in four dismal innings against the Cardinals in Los Angeles on national television, a visibly angered Astacio confronted Russell in the dugout and had to be restrained by third-base coach Joe Amaltifano after a shoving match.23 (Three days earlier Valdes and Russell had a similar dugout confrontation.) Astacio immediately apologized in the press, but his fate was sealed. “When something like that happens in the dugout with the cameras there, you have to pay the consequences,” said VP Claire, who fined Astacio an undisclosed amount.24 Normally a quiet player in the clubhouse, Astacio was considered by some as too emotionally volatile to be consistently successful; on the other hand, some reporters sympathized with the pitcher, suggesting that the Dodgers never helped him settle into a rhythm as a starter and put too much pressure on him to conform to the “Dodger Way.” On August 19, the Dodgers shipped Astacio to the Colorado Rockies for All-Star second baseman Eric Young. “[Astacio] has great ability, character and work ethic,” said Claire about the transaction. “He pitched some outstanding games, (but never with consistency.)”25

Astacio wasted no time proving his worth to Rockies manager Don Baylor following the loss of the fan favorite Young. After fanning eight in a 6⅔-inning no-decision in his debut against the Houston Astros, in the Astrodome, Astacio won five consecutive decisions. Those victories included a career-high 12-strikeout performance in eight scoreless innings against Atlanta and an emotional six-inning outing with nine punchouts versus his former team in Los Angeles. After just six starts, pitching coach Frank Funk pronounced Astacio the best pitcher ever to wear a Rockies uniform.26 The Rockies went 23-14 after acquiring Astacio to finish with a winning record (83-79; third place NL West) for the third consecutive season since they entered the league as an expansion team in 1993. “He came in and really took charge,” said Funk of Astacio (5-1, 4.25 ERA in seven starts), and really fired up our ball club.”27

A hot free-agent commodity in the offseason, Astacio signed a four-year deal worth more than $24 million with the Rockies. “He’s one of our leaders,” said Funk when spring training opened. “He has that aggressive, I-love-to-play attitude. He’s got the work ethic of a high-school kid in his first major-league camp.”28 The Rockies, with the signing of free-agent pitcher Darryl Kile, were expected to challenge the San Francisco Giants and the Dodgers for the West crown in 1998. And then the season started. Astacio struggled mightily, yielding 27 earned runs in his first 20 innings (12.15 ERA). He’s fighting with his control,” said skipper Don Baylor. “He’s up in the (strike) zone, and behind in the counts. You can’t pitch like that.”29 While the Rockies limped to a 77-85 record, Astacio took a beating, producing the highest ERA in the majors among starters (6.23), tied for the major-league lead with 39 gopher balls, and led the NL by hitting 17 batters; still, he went 13-14, made 34 starts, set a new team record with 170 punchouts, and exceeded the 200-inning mark for the third straight season. Nonetheless, rumors swirled that Astacio’s arm was injured – it wasn’t. “[Astacio] bears no resemblance from the nasty right-hander” from 1997, wrote Denver sportswriter Ray McNulty.30 Beat reporter Mike Klis noted that Astacio relied more on breaking balls instead of his heater.31 Like all hurlers, Astacio had to adjust his pitching in Coors Field, with its thin air, where balls flew out of the park at a record pace in an era of home-run records. And that process wasn’t easy, as the split in Astacio’s home and away ERA indicated (7.39 to 4.90).

Astacio reached the heights and depths of his career in 1999, but for vastly different reasons. On the field he enjoyed his best season, consistently pitching deep into ballgames despite yielding a league-leading 38 home runs. His victory against the Milwaukee Brewers on June 6 might best capture Astacio’s career at Coors Field. In 7⅔ innings, he surrendered four round-trippers and five runs while fanning 10 and emerged the victor when the Rockies exploded for eight runs (and also smashed four home runs) in the seventh. On July 6, he took revenge against the Dodgers, tossing a complete game with 10 punchouts and drove in the go-ahead run in a 5-2 victory at Coors Field. Not known as good hitter (.133 career average), Astacio had his most productive season at the plate, collecting 20 hits.

Just as Astacio seemed to realize the potential many had predicted for him, he was arrested on August 12 after a violent altercation with his estranged, pregnant wife, Ana, allegedly striking her in the face.32 (It was his second marriage. His first, to Dorca Garcia Thomas, ended in divorce in 1995.)

Neither suspended nor fined by either the Rockies or Major League Baseball, Astacio took the mound three days after the incident and tossed eight innings, fanning 11 in a 12-4 victory over the Montreal Expos in Denver, where the initial chorus of boos gradually turned to cheers for the pitcher. While the Rockies plunged to a last-place finish, Astacio completed a career year despite his legal distractions. He won 17 games (tying Kevin Ritz from 1996 for the franchise record), and set new club records in innings (232), complete games (7), and strikeouts (210, third best in the NL).

Astacio’s charge of domestic abuse cast a dark shadow over his best season and raised questions about his future. On January 28, Astacio pleaded guilty to third-degree assault and received two years deferred judgment, thereby avoiding jail.33 Soon thereafter the Department of Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS) informed Astacio that a felony or misdemeanor involving domestic violence was a deportable offense. (Astacio was a citizen of the Dominican Republic and had since reconciled with Ana.) Apparently unaware of the legal ramification of his plea, Astacio left the Rockies spring training in March and was granted permission to withdraw his guilty plea in an effort to remain in the United States with the formal trial set for early July. (The trial was subsequently deferred to November.) Despite his legal troubles, Astacio was the Rockies’ Opening Day starter. After losing his first two starts, he won his next six decisions. Included was a four-start stretch with at least 10 strikeouts. He fanned 10 or more seven times during the season, and matched his career high of 12 punchouts in seven overpowering innings, yielding just two hits and one run in a 2-1 victory over the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Feld on August 1. Seemingly headed to matching his totals from the previous season, Astacio injured his left oblique on September 1, making only three very brief starts thereafter before he was shelved the last two weeks of the season. He concluded the campaign with a 12-9 slate (5.27 ERA in 196⅓ innings) and racked up 193 strikeouts. Weeks after the season, he underwent arthroscopic surgery on his left knee to remove damaged cartilage that had bothered him for two years.

Astacio’s legal woes were far from over. On November 13, he pleaded guilty to lesser charges, a single count of spousal harassment, and was sentenced to six months’ probation; however, his residency status was still unclear.34 INS eventually abandoned deportation procedures by the beginning of spring training. Astacio opened his 10th big-league season red-hot. On April 22, he tossed two-hit ball over eight innings to beat the Arizona Diamondbacks in Phoenix, 2-1, to improve his record to 3-1 and lower his ERA to 1.93 after four starts. And then the bottom dropped out. He won only three of his next 15 decisions with an ERA well north of 6.00, prompting trade rumors as the Rockies were headed to their second straight last-place finish in the NL West in three years. Despite Astacio’s horrendous numbers, contenders still sought his services. In a cost-cutting move, the Rockies shipped Astacio, due to be a free agent at season’s end, to the Houston Astros for pitcher Scott Elarton. Astacio had a renaissance of sorts (2-1, 3.14 ERA) before shoulder pain ended his season after just four starts.

Astacio was diagnosed with a torn labrum in the offseason, but decided to forgo possible season-ending surgery given his status as a free agent. The Mets took a chance a chance on the 33-year-old hurler, signing him to a two-year contract in January. Reunited with former Dodgers teammate Mike Piazza, Astacio emerged as one of the surprises of the season, winning his first three starts. On April 27, he threw 7⅓ hitless frames against the Brewers at Shea Stadium, ultimately tossing eight innings in a 2-1 victory. Mets beat writer Rafael Hermoso reported that the team was impressed with Astacio’s “maturity” and “preparation” and how he mentored young hurlers on the club.35 Teammates gave him the moniker Mule for his ability to carry them late into innings. On August 6, he tossed a complete-game three-hitter and fanned 10 (the 20th and final time he reached double digits in strikeouts) to beat the Brewers in Milwaukee, improving his record to 11-4 and lowering his ERA to 2.95 before the clock stuck midnight in his fairy-tale season. As the pain in his shoulder intensified, Astacio collapsed in his final nine starts, yielding 54 earned runs in 45 innings (10.80 ERA) while losing seven of eight decisions. Through it all, Astacio still took the mound every five days and never became a distraction for the last-place Mets. On the contrary, Hermoso described Astacio as “one of most jubilant members of the Mets’ clubhouse, joking about almost everything and dismissing poor performances as if he had a bad hair day.”36

Astacio spent four more seasons in the big leagues, battling an array of arm and shoulder injuries, chasing a dream. Occasionally he found lightning in a bottle. He made only seven appearances for the Mets in 2003, signed in the middle of the 2004 season with the Boston Red Sox, making five appearances in September during their historic run to the World Series (he was not on the postseason roster), and made 22 combined starts for the Texas Rangers and San Diego Padres in 2005. His 4-2 slate and 3.17 ERA for San Diego earned him his first and only postseason start. In Game Two of the NLCS he lasted only four innings yielding four runs (two earned) and was collared with the loss, 6-2, to the Cardinals in St. Louis. The 37-year-old Astacio finished his 15-year big-league career with the Washington Nationals in 2006, splitting 10 decisions in 17 starts, one of which was his second two-hitter for his 12th and final shutout, blanking the Braves, 5-0, on August 15 in the nation’s capital.

The typically modest, media-shy Astacio was never an All-Star but he retired as one of the most productive pitchers from the Dominican Republic. At the time of his retirement following the 2006 season, his 129 victories (124 losses) ranked fourth behind Juan Marichal (243) and brothers Pedro Martinez (206)37 and Ramon Martinez (135). (Astacio’s total has since been passed by Bartolo Colon’s 235 and Ervin Santana’s 144, both as of 2017.) Astacio also became just the fourth Dominican hurler to log at least 2,000 innings, joining Marichal, Pedro Martinez, and Joaquin Andujar.

After his active playing days Astacio returned to his longtime residence and ranch in San Pedro Macoris, near where he grew up. In 2013, he donned a big-league uniform for the first time in seven years when he returned to the Rockies as a special assistant coach during spring training. As of 2017 Astacio still resided primarily in the Dominican Republic.

Last revised: March 1, 2018

This biography originally appeared in “Major League Baseball A Mile High: The First Quarter Century of the Colorado Rockies” (SABR, 2018), edited by Bill Nowlin and Paul T. Parker.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author also accessed Retrosheet.org, Baseball-Reference.com, the SABR Minor Leagues Database, accessed online at Baseball-Reference.com, SABR.org, and The Sporting News archive via Paper of Record.

Notes

1 Owen Perkins, “In Camp With Rox as Coach, Astacio Thrilled to Help,” MLB.com, February 28, 2013. m.mlb.com/news/article/42093506/in-camp-with-colorado-rockies-as-coach-pedro-astacio-thrilled-to-help/.

2 Quote by New York Mets GM Steve Phillips in Tyler Kepner, “Astacio’s Health Is a Key Issue,” New York Times, January 18, 2002: D2.

3 Perkins.

4 Randy Franz, “Performance Does the Talking,” Orange County Register (Anaheim, California), March 26 1993: C1.

5 Pedro Astacio page, WinterBall Data, winterballdata.com/.

6 Ken Baxter, “Avila Led the Charge in MLB’s Latin Revolution,” ESPN, October 2, 2006. espn.com/espn/hispanichistory/news/story?id=2607258.

7 Allan Malamud, “(Notes) on a Scorecard,” Los Angeles Times, July 6, 1992: C3.

8 Gordon Verrell, “LA Dodgers. Fly on the Wall,” The Sporting News, July 13, 1992: 21.

9 Ibid.

10 “Scouting Report: Pedro Astacio,” The Sporting News, August 13, 2001: 35.

11 Ibid.

12 Steve Dilbeck, “Astacio’s Having Problems,” San Bernardino (California) Sun, May 11, 1993:  C2.

13 Associated Press, “Astacio, Dodgers blank Marlins,” San Bernardino (California) Sun, September 13, 1993: C2.

14 “Scouting Report: Pedro Astacio.”

15 Tim Kawakami, “Baseball Daily Report,” Los Angeles Times, July 6, 1994: C9.

16 Maryann Hudson, “Baseball Daily Report,” Los Angeles Times, July 24, 1994: C7.

17 “Caught on the Fly,” The Sporting News, March 25, 1996: 5.

18 Bob Nightengale, “Dodgers Reconsidering Astacio’s Starting Role,” Los Angeles Times, June 16, 1995: C5.

19 Gordon Verrell, “Los Angeles Dodgers,” The Sporting News, February 19 1996: 23.

20 Bob Nightengale, “(Baseball) Daily Report,” Los Angeles Times, February 24, 1996: C6.

21 Bob Nightengale, “He Gets By With Help From Friends,” Los Angeles Times, July 26, 1996: C1.

22 Bob Nightengale, “Los Angeles Dodgers,” The Sporting News, April 28, 1997: 27.

23 Chris Baker, “Call It Dodger Blew – As in a Fuse,” Los Angeles Times, June 9, 1997: C1.

24 Steve Springer, “Dodger Report,” Los Angeles Times, June 10, 1997: C6.

25 Ross Newhan, “Baylor Looks for a Change From Astacio,” Los Angeles Times, August 24, 1997: C9.

26 Mike Klis, “‘Dodger Way’ Isn’t Working Well,” Gazette (Colorado Springs, Colorado), September 21, 1997: SP 11.

27 Ray McNulty, “A Rockies’ Attitude Adjustment,” Gazette (Colorado Springs, Colorado), February 26, 1997: SP1.

28 Rob McNulty, “Preview,” Gazette (Colorado Springs, Colorado), February 26, 1998: SP2.

29 Tony DeMarco, “Colorado Rockies,” The Sporting News, April 27, 1999: 37.

30 Ray McNulty, “Rockies Better Batters in Beer-League Title,” Gazette (Colorado Springs, Colorado), September 8, 1998: SP4.

31 Mike Klis, “Colorado,” The Sporting News, May 22, 2000: 48.

32 “Rockies’ Astacio Arrested,” CBS News, August 12, 1999. cbsnews.com/news/rockies-astacio-arrested/.

33 “Rockies P Astacio Avoids Prison,” CBS News, January 28, 2000. cbsnews.com/news/rockies-p-astacio-avoids-prison/.

34 Associated Press, “Astacio Sentenced to Supervised Probation,” ESPN, November 13, 2000.  a.espncdn.com/mlb/news/2000/1113/876164.html.

35 Rafael Hermoso, “It’s Astacio’s Turn to Take a Run at a No-Hitter,” New York Times, April 28, 2002: G4.

36 Rafael Hermoso, “With Astacio Hurt, Mets Look to Cone,” New York Times, March 21, 2003: S3.

37 Pedro Martinez was still active at time and had 206 victories; he finished with 219.

Batista’s batting stance was so extreme that the Batting Stance Guy, Gar Ryness, blew out his back imitating it stance for his book, Batting Stance Guy: A Love Letter to Baseball. Ryness wrote, “He stands with his front foot planted in the far back corner of the box, body facing the pitcher, bat in the clouds. If a kid in T-ball did that, any self-respecting coach would be on him in a flash, rearranging just about everything.”1

But that stance aided Batista during 11 major-league seasons spread among six teams, and one season in the Japanese Pacific League. Helped him make two All-Star Game appearances, and hit 221 career home runs. Batista split duties at third base, second base, shortstop, and DH; 807 out of his 1,188 games were played at third.

Leocadio Francisco Batista Hernandez was born on December 9, 1973, in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic. According to Miguel Tejada, a friend, Batista’s parents lived in Mao Valverde Province in the Dominican Republic. Their occupation was raising animals like goats, pigs, and cattle.2

Batista graduated from Liceo Juan de Jesus high school. He became interested in baseball by watching his two older brothers, Ramirez and Vicente, who eventually turned pro, play the game. “I learned from them, they both were professional players in the states but they only got to Double A,” he said.3

In 1991, at the age of 17, Batista signed with the Oakland Athletics out of high school. His best season in the minors was 1994 for the Modesto A’s in the Class-A California League, when he slugged 17 home runs and hit .281/.359/.459 in 119 games. In 1996, batting .322 for Triple-A Edmonton (Pacific Coast League), the 22-year-old Batista earned a call-up to the Athletics on June 3. In his major-league debut that night, Batista, playing third base and batting ninth, went 0-for-3 against Kansas City’s Kevin Appier with two strikeouts. In 1996 and 1997, he bounced back and forth between Edmonton and Oakland.

Batista played some shortstop for the A’s, but was dogged by his poor defensive play at the position, and in 1997 Miguel Tejada took over the position. After the season Batista was unprotected by Oakland and was taken in the expansion draft by the Arizona Diamondbacks as the 27th pick. Meanwhile, Batista, mired in a 0-for-28 hitless streak in the Dominican winter league, adopted his wide-open left-footed stance. He said he didn’t know why he chose such a bizarre, unique stance. “I tried to do something different,” he said. “And right away I got a hit with that kind of stance and it’s been working for me since that day.”4

The new stance gave him consistent major-league home run power. Batista slugged 18 home runs for the Diamondbacks in 1998. Defensively, he bounced between third base, shortstop, and second base in 106 games. He didn’t settle into a full-time role and hit .273 with those 18 home runs. In 1999 he settled in at shortstop, playing in 44 games (.257, 5 home runs) for the Diamondbacks. On June 11 he was traded to the Toronto Blue Jays with right-handed pitcher John Frascatore for left-handed pitcher Dan Plesac. In 98 games for the Blue Jays he batted .285 with 26 homers.

With Toronto for the full 2000 season, Batista posted his best season, batting .263 with 41 home runs and 114 runs batted in. This earned Batista his first of two All-Star Game appearances. But in 2001 he regressed. Batting just .207 with 13 home runs in 72 games, Batista was sent to the Baltimore Orioles on waivers. This was Batista’s fourth big-league club in just five seasons. For the Orioles the rest of the season, Batista batted .266 with 12 home runs.

Batista played in 161 games for the Orioles in 2002, batted .244 with 31 homers, and earned his second All-Star Game selection.

In 2003 Batista again played in 161 games. His production fell off slightly: .235, with 26 home runs. After the season he opted for free agency. He signed with the Montreal Expos for one year at $1.5 million. The Expos became his fifth big-league team in seven major-league seasons. For the Expos he batted .241, slugged 32 home runs and drove in 110 runs, seventh highest in the National League.

Hitting 89 home runs and driving in 296 runs over three seasons should have been enough for Batista to earn another major-league contract. Tampa Bay, Detroit, and Houston reportedly offered him deals. But none came close to the two-year, $15 million contract he signed with the Fukuoka Daiei Hawks of the Japan Pacific League. The deal also included a $5 million signing bonus. The Hawks, were looking to splurge on a young major-league talent, offered him well over the $1.5 million the Expos had paid him. Batista, now 31 years old, took the offer and crossed the Pacific to play Japanese baseball.

In Japan Batista played in 135 out of the season’s 136 games, batted .263, and hit 27 home runs. Perhaps this should have been enough for him to deserve another shot in the JPL. But it was not to be. Possibly Batista was too laid-back in Japan and seemed lackadaisical. Perhaps, it was the adjustment to Japanese culture. He had some unusual behavior on the field in Japan. See, for instance, a video that turns up in a web search of “Tony Batista scares pitcher.”5 One Japanese beat writer dubbed Batista “Mr. Nonchalant.”6 But most likely it was the fact he was the highest-paid player on the team but didn’t produce the highest numbers. Although Batista finished a league leader in several statistical categories, apparently his numbers didn’t justify his salary and the Hawks wanted younger talent. Batista was 31. Rather than pay another $15 million, the Hawks bought out his contract for $4.5 million.

Two days after getting his release, on December 15, 2005, Batista inked another deal to return to the United States with a one-year, $1.25 million contract with the Minnesota Twins. His bat was expected to fill a power void in the Twins lineup and he would serve in a needed role at third base and designated hitter.

The Twins’ hopes were not met. In 50 games, Batista batted just .236 with 5 home runs, and was released on June 14. Twins manager Ron Gardenhire said, “If you are not going to hit home runs, then you’ve got to be able to run. We were hoping that Tony would hit a few more home runs.”7

Batista played winter ball in the Dominican Republic in the 2006-2007 season for the first time in the eight years since he adopted his trademark batting stance. Batista needed the winter league to help market himself for another big-league contract at the age of 32. He batted only .213 in 18 games, and signed a minor-league deal with the Washington Nationals with an invitation to spring training. Batista made the 2007 Nationals roster in spring training but had little power impact, hitting only two home runs in 80 games.

At the age of 34, Batista returned to play 16 games in the Dominican Winter League and again landed a minor-league deal with the Nationals. This time he didn’t make the major-league, and played only 17 games at Triple-A Columbus. He played winter ball again, but was unable to attract even a minor-league contract.

According to Baseball-Reference.com, Batista made just shy of $40 million playing in the major leagues and Japan. He donated a large portion of his salary to charities and churches and saw himself as a Christian missionary.

When his team played on the road, Batista made it a practice to donate to local churches. He once asked his Kansas City taxi driver to take him to any church. The driver randomly selected Country Club Christian Church, where Batista asked to see the minister. The minster was tired after that Monday after officiating at three weddings and preaching three times the weekend before. Batista instructed her to open the Bible and turn to Malachi 3:10: “Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith salt the Lord of Hosts. If I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.” Batista then spoke a little bit in broken English and said, “I am convinced of this.” He gave her a thick white envelope with the Fairmont Hotel logo. Batista left and said something about the taxicab still waiting outside. Inside the envelope was $16,400. The church finance director said later, “It revives your faith in people. I still think players are paid too much but there are ones who are blessed.”8

Batista said to a reporter in 2006, “God uses me. Everywhere I go I talk about Him and the power he has.” Batista was almost always available before and after game for an autograph.9 But the memory of that awkward wide-open stance remains in the hearts of baseball fans.

Last revised: October 29, 2022

Sources

The author consulted Tony Batista’s player file at the National Baseball Hall of Fame Library, and relied upon baseball-reference.com.

Notes

1 Gar Ryness and Dewart Caleb, Batting Stance Guy: A Love Letter to Baseball (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2010), 36-41.

2 Miguel Tejada, email correspondence with Julio Rodriguez, July 23, 2018.

3 Steve Riach, Life Lessons From Baseball (Colorado Springs: Honor Books, 2004), 13-17.

4 Riach.

5 “Throwback Sports Clip Of The Week: Tony Batista Scares The Hell Out Of Asian Pitcher!,” YouTube.com, December 2, 2011. youtube.com/watch?v=lUiQlPzcm44.

6 Wayne Graczyk, “Batista’s Number Didn’t Justify His Massive Salary,” Japan Times, December 18, 2005.

7 Jayson Williams, “Line Up Redo Puts Batista out, Bartlett In,” St. Paul Pioneer Press, June 24, 2006.

8 Joe Capozzi, “Batista’s Gift to Church Exemplifies Generosity,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, August 5, 2002.

9 Jonathan Weeks, Latino Stars in Major League Baseball: From Bobby Abreu to Carlos Zambrano (New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2017), 6-8.

Miguel Batista is regarded as one of the more interesting individuals to don a major-league uniform. Throughout his 18-year pitching career, Batista’s travels took him to 11 different teams, for which he toiled as both a starter and a reliever. A deeply philosophical person, he stood out from the average ballplayer with his unquenchable desire to find something bigger and more fulfilling than baseball. Batista’s athletic prowess brought him considerable wealth, but his outside interests brought out a new level of understanding the world beyond the ballpark. His love for the written word led him to publish a book of poetry in Spanish titled Sentimientos en Blanco y Negro (Feelings in Black and White) and a novel, The Avenger of Blood, a thriller about a serial killer.

His many passions off the mound didn’t exactly win over many of his teammates throughout his major-league career. And his career stats indicate a pitcher who was inconsistent. But Miguel Batista would like to be remembered as a decent human being who just happened to play major-league baseball. “When I die, I don’t want people to remember me by saying, ‘He was a great baseball player,’ “Batista says. “I want them to say, ‘He was a great man. A great human being.’ That’s how I want to be remembered.”1

Miguel Descartes Batista Jerez was born on February 19, 1971, in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. Many of the young men who grew up in the Dominican Republic had dreams of playing major-league baseball, but Batista’s first love was the written word. His grandmother instilled in him the maxim that the greatest investment in the world was a book. As an adolescent, Miguel scribbled thoughts into a journal to compensate for having no close friends while growing up in San Pedro de Macoris. “Writing started for me being a loner,” Batista said in 2006. “As a kid, I had a problem. Kids my age didn’t want to talk about things that interested me. That pushed me away. I started writing when I was 12 or 13.”2By his mid-teens, he started to write poetry but mostly kept it to himself.

Batista didn’t start playing baseball until he was 15. He developed an eye-popping fastball but had trouble controlling it. Two weeks after his 17th birthday, he had an encounter that would change his life. Israel Frias, a minor-league catcher with the Baltimore Orioles, told him of a tryout camp in nearby Ingenio Santa Fe. Of the 60 players at the tryout, Batista was the only pitcher,3 and he was the only person to sign a deal; he inked a contract with the Montreal Expos.

The Expos sent Batista to their Rookie League team in the Gulf Coast League. In his second year, 1991, Batista posted an 11-5 record for Rockford of the Class-A Midwest League. After the season he was snapped up by the Pittsburgh Pirates in the Rule 5 draft. Batista opened the 1992 season with the Pirates and made his major-league debut on April 11, giving up a two-run home run in relief to Ruben Amaro as the Pirates lost to the Philadelphia Phillies, 7-4. Twelve days later, he was returned to the Expos. Before his next major-league appearance, Batista spent the next four years honing his craft in the minor leagues.

Batista spent the rest of the 1992 season with West Palm Beach of the Class-A Florida State League (7-7, 3.79 ERA). With Harrisburg of the Double-A Eastern League in 1993, he posted a 13-5 mark with an ERA of 4.34. In 1994 he pitched in only three games, and after the season he was released by the Expos. Batista signed with the Florida Marlins and in 1995 at Triple-A Charlotte, he began to be used more as a reliever than a starter. In August 1996 Batista was called up by the Marlins and pitched out the bullpen in nine games. After the season Batista was sent to the Chicago Cubs on waivers.

Batista began the 1997 campaign with Triple-A Iowa. His command improved significantly, and the Cubs called him up in August. His first appearance for the Cubs was a start on August 11 in which he gave up two runs in seven innings as the Cubs lost to the Los Angeles Dodgers, 2-1.

Batista’s next four appearances were out of the bullpen. He got five more opportunities to earn a spot in the Cubs rotation, but an 0-4 record with an 8.72 ERA in those five starts nixed that idea. After the season the Cubs traded Batista to the Montreal Expos for left fielder Henry Rodriguez.

For the next two seasons, Batista worked mostly out of the bullpen, but Expos manager Felipe Alou gave him some starts as well. His most notable victory came on April 14, 1999, when he pitched a complete game against the Milwaukee Brewers, striking out six and walking none as the Expos cruised to a 15-1 victory.

Three weeks into the 2000 season, the Expos sent Batista to the Kansas City Royals for right-hander Brad Rigby. Playing for his fifth club, Batista continued to struggle with his control. In his only season with the Royals he posted a 2-6 mark with a 7.74 ERA and a WHIP of 1.754. Combined with his 14.04 early-season ERA with Montreal, his ERA for the entire season ballooned to 8.54 and his WHIP increased to 1.867.

Released by the Royals after the season, Batista signed with the Arizona Diamondbacks. The Diamondbacks were looking to make a return trip to the postseason after winning the NL West division crown in 2000. With Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling powering Arizona’s pitching staff, it appeared that Batista would mostly be relegated to the same duties he’d become used to since he arrived in the big leagues.

The 2001 season was a dream year for the four-year-old Diamondbacks franchise. They defeated the New York Yankees in a dramatic seven-game World Series. Batista had the best season of his career, going 11-8 with an ERA of 3.36. His WHIP was 1.242 and his pitching WAR was 2.6. Batista started 18 games, going 6-6. Opponents hit .226 against him. He made the most of his first trip to the postseason. In Game Three of the NLDS, he struck out four Cardinals in six innings of a 5-3 victory. Batista started the fifth game of the World Series and said the Yankees mystique didn’t faze him one bit. “I don’t care if they’re the angels of Jesus Christ,” Batista said. “I still have to go out there, do my job and beat them.”4

The decision to hand the ball to Batista for an important Game Five showdown was a gutsy move by Diamondbacks manager Bob Brenly. Diamondbacks ace Curt Schilling would have been a logical choice, but he had been moved up to start Game Four. However, Brenly was confident that Batista could cope with the pressure. “I hate to put anybody in that position, but Miguel has shown throughout the course of the season that he is not your regular run-of-the-mill pitcher,” Brenly said. “He is able to handle things because of his resilient arm and resilient mind. He is able to pitch one day, come back and pitch two days in relief after that. It’s an amazing quality I have not seen recently in any pitcher in the major leagues.”5

Batista came through with a 7⅔-inning performance in which he struck out six, walked five, and allowed no runs. However, the Diamondbacks couldn’t hold the 2-0 lead as they lost in extra innings.

Batista stood out among his teammates by being an iconoclast. He was likely the only big-league player to have a framed photo of Albert Einstein sitting on the top shelf of his locker. And while many players enjoyed, fishing, hunting, and playing golf, Batista enjoyed reading, writing, and going to museums. He enjoyed the game and the opportunities it provided him, but the search for truth in this complicated world was extremely important to him. “I have never been around anybody like Miguel Batista,” Brenly said. “He is a refreshing breath of fresh air. Not that this a criticism, but if you are not talking about fantasy football or baseball or girls, most ballplayers don’t have much to say. Miguel has got opinions on everything. He’s extremely well read, extremely well spoken and a very thoughtful, caring human being. He’s a great pitcher on top of it.”6

In 2002, his second season with the Diamondbacks, Batista pitched in 36 games (29 starts) and finished the regular season with an 8-9 record, with a 4.29 ERA. In the NLDS, as the Diamondbacks were swept by the Cardinals, Batista started the deciding Game Three, giving up four runs in 3⅔ innings. The following year, The Sporting News named Batista its number one good guy in major-league baseball for his numerous charitable causes, specifically his $50,000 contribution to build a baseball field on tribal land in Arizona.7 He also began an education-oriented program called Imagine That. Its objective was to encourage fourth- through sixth-graders to use their creativity to develop new ideas.

On the pitching mound, Batista finished the 2003 season tied for the Diamondbacks team lead in wins with 10. His WAR was 4.3, the best of his career. Batista’s most notable pitching performance was an 11-strikeout effort in a 3-2 loss to the Florida Marlins on July 28.

Batista was a free agent after the season and signed a three-year, $13.1 million deal with the Toronto Blue Jays. In his first season, 2004, Batista pitched poorly and lost his job as a starter toward the end of the season. In 2005 he became the Blue Jays’ closer and had 31 saves, but also eight blown saves. After the season it was back to the Diamondbacks, as the Blue Jays traded Batista and Orlando Hudson to Arizona for Troy Glaus and Sergio Santos.

With the Diamondbacks, Batista returned to the starting rotation. In his first start, he struck out 11 in seven innings on the third game of the season, as Arizona defeated the Colorado Rockies, 12-5. On September 12, as Batista made an unsuccessful start against the Washington Nationals, the English version of his novel The Avenger of Blood was published. The thriller centered on a 14-year-old boy accused of committing a series of brutal slayings. (It got mixed reviews.)

After the season the Diamondbacks offered Batista arbitration, but were not willing to commit to a long-term deal with the free-agent right-hander. On December 14, 2006, he signed a three-year, $24 million contract with the Seattle Mariners. In 2007, his first year with his new club, Batista won a career-high 16 victories. In 2008, however, he had one of the worst seasons of his career, posting a 4-14 mark with a 6.26 ERA. The next season the Mariners moved him to long relief. While Batista was adjusting to his new role, he was earning praise for his humanitarian work as the club recognized him as its candidate for the Roberto Clemente award.

Released by the Mariners after the season, Batista inked a minor-league contract with the Washington Nationals, and won a bullpen job in spring training. He made one start, though: On July 27, with just 10 minutes to go before the first pitch, Batista was called to pitch for injured right-hander Stephen Strasburg. The Nationals faithful peppered Batista with a chorus of boos as they hoped to see their talented ace. But Batista turned those jeers into cheers as he tossed five scoreless innings, striking out six and walking just one as the Nationals beat the Atlanta Braves, 3-0.

Batista understood the fans’ frustration. “Imagine if you go to see Miss Universe, then you end up having Miss Iowa, you might get those kind of boos,” Batista said. “But it’s okay. They have to understand that as an organization we have to make sure that the kid is fine. You don’t want to expose him out there and screw up his future.”8

Batista’s attempt at self-deprecating humor, offended Miss Iowa, Katherine Connors, who responded, “I know I can throw a pitch or two! The question is, can Miguel Batista walk the runway in a swimsuit?”9

Batista apologized to her and was her batterymate as she threw out the ceremonial first pitch at a Nationals game a couple of days later.

A free agent again after the season, Batista signed with the St. Louis Cardinals for 2011. He was released on June 22 after pitching only 29⅓ innings. The New York Mets picked him up, and Batista won his 100th major-league game in the majors on September 1, getting the 7-5 victory in a start against the Marlins. In the final game of the season, Batista started against Cincinnati and pitched a two-hit shutout. The 2012 season was not so successful: After posting a 1-3 mark with a 4.82 ERA, he was released by the Mets on July 26.

The next day Batista signed with the Atlanta Braves. After pitching in five games out of the bullpen, he was released. On January 19, 2013, Batista, now 41, signed a minor-league deal with the Colorado Rockies, but was released in spring training.

A year later, on April 9, 2013, Batista, in hopes of resuming his big-league career, signed a minor-league contract with the Blue Jays and was assigned to the Triple-A Buffalo Bisons. He was released by the Jays on May 21. Until 2015 he pitched a few games in the Dominican Winter League.

Batista’s career was filled with ups and downs. He posted a 102-115 record with a 4.48 ERA. One might argue, though, that a true measure of his success was what he accomplished off the field. In 2012 the Miguel Batista Foundation celebrated its 10th anniversary. The objective of the foundation is to promote both youth baseball and education in the Dominican Republic.

Last revised: October 29, 2022

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted baseball-reference.com and retrosheet.org.

Notes

1 Geoff Baker, “M’s Batista Striking the Right Notes,” Seattle Times, August 17, 2007. https://www.seattletimes.com/sports/mariners/ms-batista-striking-the-right-notes/

2 “Batista Shows He Has the Write Stuff,” Seattle Times, October 22, 2006. seattletimes.com/sports/baseball-notebook-batista-shows-he-has-the-write-stuff/.

3 Gustavo Olivo Pena, Acento.com. “Miguel Batista: ‘Mi abuela decia que un libro era la mejor inversion del mundo,’” August 17, 2011. acento.com.do/2011/actualidad/6142-miguel-batista-mi-abuela-decia-que-un-libro-era-la-mejor-inversion-del-mundo/

4 Chris Baldwin, “Yanks’ Aura Means Nothing to Batista,” Daily Record (Morristown, New Jersey), November 1, 2001: D7.

5 David Heuschkel, “For Batista It’s a No-Brainer,” Hartford Courant, November 1, 2001: C5.

6 Heuschkel.

7 The Sporting News, July 7, 2003: 13.

8 Gene Wang, “Miguel Batista Turns Boos to Cheers as the Washington Nationals Beat the Atlanta Braves, 3-0,” Washington Post,” July 29, 2010, washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/27/AR2010072706093.html.

9 Jim Caple, “Miss Iowa USA Sounds Off About Miguel Batista,” ESPN.com, espn.com/espn/page2/index/_/id/5420051.

José Joaquín Bautista Arias was born in Baní, on July 26, 1964. “Not July 25 like it says in most record books,” he clarified.2 He was one of Joaquín and Gloria (Arias) Bautista’s six children before their divorce – four boys and two girls. Including subsequent half-siblings, José was one of 16 children.

Like most Dominicans, Joaquín, a carpenter, was Catholic. But Gloria, who came to the Dominican Republic from Spain as a child, was Jewish. “My father… respected my mother’s religion,” José said.3 “My parents never said, ‘You have to be this.’”4 Among his siblings, José was the most curious about Judaism. “My mama said she could see I was really interested when I was very young,” he recalled. Since anti-Jewish sentiment wasn’t unusual among his peers, he explained, “I was told, ‘Don’t say [that you’re Jewish] … But I had it inside me.”5 He celebrated Hanukkah and remembered his mother lighting candles each Friday night to mark the beginning of the Sabbath. Since Baní – 40 miles southwest of Santo Domingo on the country’s southern coast – did not have a synagogue, José attended services only occasionally on visits to larger cities.

Baseball, on the other hand, was everywhere. Shortly before José’s 13th birthday, Baní’s first major-leaguer debuted: Cincinnati Reds pitcher Mario Soto. “I followed him a lot when I was little,” Bautista said. “I always said I was going to throw harder than him.”6 Four Bautista brothers played the sport professionally, beginning with Ramón, a 17-year-old pitcher when he started in the San Francisco Giants’ chain in 1980.7 The New York Yankees wanted to sign 15-year-old José that same year, but his parents wouldn’t allow it. “I was crying then, too,” he said. “I wanted to be a baseball player.”8

On April 25, 1981, José signed with the New York Mets through scout Eddy Toledo for a $2,000 bonus. “He was a skinny kid and threw only 77 miles an hour, but he had great control,” recalled Mets’ scouting director Joe McIlvaine.9 Bautista explained, “I have all these tires in my backyard… The biggest tire in the middle and four other tires on the corner[s] of the plate. Then I throw the ball through them. That’s where I got my control.”10

As the rookie-level Appalachian League’s youngest player in 1981, Bautista went 3-6 with a 4.64 ERA for the Kingsport (Tennessee) Mets. “I cried every night. I want[ed] to go home, to be with my mother,” he said.11 He spoke almost no English but supplemented what he learned from team-provided classes with postseason night courses in Florida. “I was thinking of what my mother taught me,” he said. “Think big. Think of what’s ahead.”12

Bautista took a step backward when he returned to Kingsport in 1982 – going 0-4 with an 8.92 ERA. In 1983, his 49-year-old mother died, and his career almost ended following a summer in the rookie-level Gulf Coast League. Despite posting a 2.31 ERA, his 44:32 strikeout-to-walk ratio didn’t impress. “The Mets wanted to release me,” he recalled. “But the pitching coach said no.”13

In 1984, Bautista blossomed with a Columbia (South Carolina) Mets club that compiled the Single-A South Atlantic League’s best regular-season record. From June 21 to August 8, he won nine straight decisions.14 He finished 13-4 with a 3.13 ERA and just 35 bases on balls in 135 innings – one of the circuit’s best walk rates. He built on that success with the Lynchburg (Virginia) Mets of the Single-A Carolina League in 1985. Bautista’s 15-8 (2.34 ERA) record included a seven-inning no-hitter on May 26.15 The Mets added the 6-foot-1, 177-pounder to their 40-man roster.

Bautista had debuted with the Dominican Winter League’s Águilas Cibaeñas by making a single appearance two winters earlier, but he spent the entire 1985-86 campaign in the team’s starting rotation. Following a 5-4 (2.71) regular season, he went 2-0 in the playoffs – including a complete game in the Águilas’ triumphant championship series. At the Caribbean Series in Maracaibo, Venezuela, Bautista pitched once for the Dominican Republic, but lost to the host country, 2-0.

Bautista was hit hard for the Jackson (Mississippi) Mets of the Double-A Texas League to begin 1986, so he was demoted to Lynchburg after seven outings and split 16 decisions. In the Dominican League, he went 3-3 with a 5.40 ERA in his first dozen appearances, including playoffs, but when the Águilas defended their title by defeating the Estrellas Orientales, he earned final series MVP honors by winning both of his starts with a 1.59 ERA.

Still, Bautista had no chance to crack the Mets’ big-league roster in 1987 – the defending World Series champions boasted the majors’ top pitching staff. He returned to Jackson and lost his first three decisions while battling arm troubles.16 Bautista rebounded to go 10-2 the rest of the way, though, walking just five batters over his final 46 frames.17 It wasn’t enough to earn a September call-up. “They said I was too young,” he said. “They said I wasn’t ready.”18 In fact, the pitching-rich Mets boasted so many talented arms that Bautista was left off the 40-man roster. “We just couldn’t protect everyone,” McIlvaine explained. “He was [player number] 41.”19

That offseason, Bautista recalled, “[The Mets] didn’t want me to pitch winter ball because they didn’t want any scouts to see me.”20 He joined the Águilas anyway and was deep into an 8-3 (2.95) campaign – leading the Dominican League in victories and winning a Gold Glove – as baseball’s Rule 5 Draft approached. Several teams expressed their interest outright but, unbeknownst to Bautista, Baltimore scout George Lauzerique and coaches Minnie Mendoza and John Hart had also taken notice. On December 7, the Orioles invested $50,000 to draft Bautista second overall – the club’s first Rule 5 selection in a decade. Doug Melvin, Baltimore’s player personnel director, said he expected immediate help based on Bautista’s .639 winning percentage and 2.6:1 strikeout-to-walk ratio over the previous four years.21 Baltimore GM Roland Hemond shared one Dodgers coach’s endorsement, reporting, “[Manny Mota] pointed to his chest and said, ‘The guy has heart.’”22

“This is my big chance,” Bautista said in spring training 1988.23 If he didn’t remain in the majors all season, the Mets planned to reclaim him.24 That summer, Orioles pitching coach Herm Starrette confessed, “I can’t lie to you. I didn’t want to come north with him, but we had to keep him.” Under Starrette’s tutelage, Bautista moved from the right side of the pitching rubber to the left, raised his release point from almost sidearm to nearly overhand, and reduced the upper body movement in his motion. Starrette contrasted Bautista with another Baltimore rookie, Oswald Peraza. “If I tell them to be in the bullpen before a game, Ozzie gets there 10 minutes early and José comes running in at the last minute… José’s a good kid… There’s no fear in him. He’ll challenge the hitters.”25

Initially, Bautista was the last pitcher on the Orioles’ staff. He debuted on April 9, 1988, entering a contest that Baltimore trailed, 9-0, with one out in the third inning in Cleveland. After walking Joe Carter to load the bases, he struck out Mel Hall looking and induced a lineout to escape further damage. Bautista pitched three more innings, allowing single runs in each frame. During Baltimore’s record 21-game losing streak to open the season, he relieved seven times and worked 18 2/3 innings. He moved into the rotation in mid-May and notched his first big-league victory in his second start, throwing seven innings of five-hit ball against the Angels at Memorial Stadium on May 18. On June 24, Bautista outdueled the Red Sox’s Roger Clemens at Fenway Park. By the All-Star break, he was 5-6 with a 4.12 ERA for an Orioles team that was already 31 games below .500. “No doubt, he’s been the most pleasant surprise of the first half,” remarked Baltimore manager Frank Robinson.26

Bautista’s forkball was his best pitch. It broke so sharply that Orioles catcher Terry Kennedy caught only one of Bautista’s last 16 starts because he had difficulties gloving it.27 In August, Bautista posted an AL-best 1.79 ERA, including limiting the Brewers to one unearned run in a complete-game victory. His most impressive performance came in Seattle on September 3. Bautista lost, 2-1, to Mark Langston, but needed only 70 pitches to go the distance on a four-hitter in a contest that was over in one hour and 45 minutes – the quickest big-league game of 1988.28

With 171 2/3 innings, Bautista became the first Baltimore rookie since Tom Phoebus in 1967 to lead the team in that category. However, plagued by the majors’ worst run support in 1988 – 2.72 runs per start – he lost nine of 10 second-half decisions and finished 6-15 (4.30). “He hasn’t gotten the wins, but he’s done a hell of a job,” remarked Robinson.29

Following a reduced winter workload for the Águilas, Bautista entered 1989 with a secure spot in the Orioles’ rotation. “This guy is going to be an outstanding pitcher, and he’s not that far away,” Robinson predicted. “He is much more mature this spring.”30 In Baltimore’s second game of the season, Bautista beat Boston, retiring 18 consecutive batters in one stretch. The Royals took him deep three times in his next outing, though. By May 19, Bautista had allowed an AL-worst 11 homers – two that night in Cleveland after he started despite a bad back. “I didn’t say anything to anyone,” he recalled. “I tried to be tough.”31 Robinson explained his decision to shift Bautista into the bullpen by saying, “His velocity is down. His location is bad. His forkball isn’t good.”32 Instead, the pitcher was placed on the disabled list a few days later.33

On May 29, Bautista began a rehabilitation assignment with the Rochester Red Wings of the Triple-A International League. He returned to the majors on June 17, beating the best team in baseball – the Oakland Athletics – in a nationally televised contest. The next day, Bautista became furious when the Orioles optioned him back to Rochester because they needed a fresh arm. “I took the first one, I took this one, but I’m not going to take anymore,” he said.34 Less than a week later, Baltimore received special permission to bring him back following pitcher Mickey Weston’s injury, but Bautista allowed four homers in two relief appearances and was demoted again on June 30.35 He rejoined the Orioles in September, but appeared in just two lopsided defeats and finished 1989 with a 3-4 (5.31) major league record.

In spring training 1990, a reporter noticed Bautista cautioning younger players not to speak Spanish too loudly in the clubhouse because, “Some players get mad. They think these guys talking Spanish are talking about them. They yell, `Speak English!’” During camp, Robinson cited Bautista as an example of why Major League Baseball should offer more assistance to Latin American players adjusting to the United States. “Even with Bautista, who speaks pretty good English, you don’t know exactly how much he understands,” noted the skipper. “If you ask him if he understands, he just nods.”36

Despite ongoing back problems, Bautista started the season with the Orioles.37 “He has the pitches and stuff to be a starter, but right now… his role with the club is in the bullpen,” Robinson explained.38 After four appearances, Bautista was demoted to Rochester when Mark Williamson came off the disabled list. He lost his first four Triple-A decisions, and remained there for four months, other than a six-day call-up in June.39 After meeting with Bautista’s agent in July, Melvin said, “It was a case of if [Bautista] wasn’t in our plans, could we do something? But, right now, he is in our plans.”40 Bautista went 7-8 (4.06) in 27 appearances (13 starts) for the Red Wings before returning to Baltimore when Williamson broke a finger on August 18. With the Orioles, Bautista was 1-0 with a 4.05 ERA in 22 outings.

In 1991, Bautista made Baltimore’s Opening Day roster as a reliever again. On April 18, he surrendered an 11th inning walk-off homer to Robin Yount in Milwaukee on a pitch the future Hall of Famer described as “a fastball right down the middle.”41 After four appearances, Bautista’s ERA was 20.77, and the Orioles demoted him to the Miami Miracle of the Single-A Florida State League. Citing Bautista’s preference to start, Melvin said, “We didn’t have room for him in Triple-A or Double-A.”42 But Bautista later revealed, “I had an argument with my manager, Frank Robinson. I ran my mouth a little bit. I shouldn’t have done that.”43

In late May, he asked for his release when he was loaned to the Oklahoma City 89ers in the Triple-A American Association – a Texas Rangers affiliate – but it wasn’t granted. After he went 0-3 with a 5.29 ERA in 11 outings, Oklahoma City returned him to Miami. There, aware that a poor performance could end his career, Bautista fashioned an 8-2 (2.71) record. The Orioles purchased his contract, but he pitched just one scoreless inning on August 14, before he cleared waivers and returned to Rochester. “This has been a lost season for me. I want to get it over with and start again,” he remarked.44

Bautista became a free agent and signed with the Kansas City Royals. In 1992, he won his only start in Double-A, but spent the bulk of the season in the American Association, going 2-10 (4.90) for Omaha. That winter, after a three-year absence, he returned to the Dominican League. “I had to,” he said. “It was the only way I was going to go back to the big leagues.”45 He went 4-3 with a 2.93 ERA in 70 2/3 innings (including playoffs) to help the Águilas win another championship. He impressed scout Dan Monzon enough to earn a contract offer from the Chicago Cubs. “I didn’t want to sign him because I had seen him when he was with Baltimore and thought it was the same old [Bautista],” confessed Cubs GM Larry Himes. “But Danny told me he was a different pitcher.”46

That offseason, Bautista married Lea Robitschek, a native of Caracas, Venezuela whom he’d met in Miami. After they started dating, Bautista recalled, “She said, ‘You have to be kidding me. You’re Jewish, too?’” Bautista added, “She’s my big help. She’s my pitching coach at home. She records games on the VCR and points out stuff I’m doing wrong.”47 Bautista adopted Lea’s two previous children, and the couple had two of their own. “I consider all four of them mine,” he said, naming Raquel, Leo, Tammy, and Gloria.48 (Bautista also had a son, José Jr., from a previous marriage.49)

Bautista entered the 1993 season with a 10-20 career record, but he went 10-3 with a 2.82 ERA in 58 appearances (seven starts) for the Cubs. “I did not have any real injuries and, more importantly, I increased my concentration on the mound,” he explained. “Location is the key to my success.”50 On June 11, after Chicago catcher Rick Wilkins was hit by a pitch after placing a hard tag on a baserunner in San Francisco, Bautista was ejected for drilling Giants’ pitcher Trevor Wilson in retaliation. Bautista was suspended for three games, and admitted, “Sure, I hit him. Had to. You’ve got to defend your guys.”51

In July and August, Bautista worked in more than half of the Cubs games. He finished the season in the starting rotation and damaged the Giants’ playoff hopes with his first complete game in five years on September 14. He also stroked an RBI single. “This game was José Bautista. He’s done this for us all year,” raved Cubs manager Jim Lefebvre. Bautista’s ability to start or relieve prompted the skipper to call him “that kind of pitcher who can do everything for you.”52

The Cubs more than quadrupled Bautista’s salary – from $155,000 to $695,000 – and kept him even busier in 1994.53 He saw action in six straight April contests and pitched four straight days in May. With 58 appearances in Chicago’s first 108 games, he led the majors and was on pace to surpass the Cubs’ single-season record of 84 relief outings.54 “They used to tell me I had an elastic arm because I could throw every day and not get hurt,” he said. “Once in a while, I’d get hurt, but I’d still pitch.”55 Pitching coach Moe Drabowsky observed, “He has a very resilient arm… and he throws four different pitches for strikes consistently.”56 Bautista’s strikeout rate of 5.8 per nine innings in ’94 was his personal best, and he issued only 10 unintentional walks in 69 1/3 frames.

When the Cubs’ traveling secretary mentioned that he was observing Shabbat, “Me too” was Bautista’s reply. “No one knew I was Jewish until I was with the Cubs,” Bautista said. “The other players always joked I couldn’t be Jewish. They look at my color and don’t believe it.”57 After Bautista was featured in the New York Jewish Week newspaper that summer, Jewish fans started approaching him. “I’d say, ‘Shalom’ and they’d invite me to their homes,” he said.58 He planned to rest his arm on Yom Kippur – the Jewish day of atonement – in September, but his season ended abruptly when a line drive drilled him in his pitching elbow on August 5.59 Less than a week later, major-league players went on strike, eventually canceling the remainder of the schedule. “I was able to spend time with my family, which I had not had the chance to do before,” Bautista said. He became a free agent and proved his arm was sound in winter ball by making 11 regular season appearances and five playoff starts for the Águilas.

Bautista signed with the Giants after the strike was settled in April 1995. “Chicago offered me a one-year contract, but San Francisco offered me two years,” he explained.60 “Ten years ago, I played the game more out of love than for the money, but since then everything has changed. In the Dominican Republic, you just love to play baseball. In the U.S., they changed all of that and put something else in your mind.”61 Bautista allowed back-to-back homers in his Giants debut, the first of 24 times he was taken deep in 100 2/3 innings. His wife was hospitalized for two months in Venezuela, and Bautista finished with a 3-8 record and 6.44 ERA.62 The more he pressed and overthrew, the less his forkball broke.63 After the season, Giants manager Dusty Baker asked his friend and former teammate Dave Stewart to help Bautista’s mechanics. “[Stewart] gave me an idea how to hold the ball, keep the ball down and make it work,” said Bautista, who posted a 1.88 ERA in four starts for the Águilas that winter.64

In the Giants’ clubhouse, Bautista’s locker was near that of star left fielder Barry Bonds. When Bonds asked if he was going to say, “Good morning” one day when the pitcher felt “kind of like a grouch,” Bautista replied that he was there to work, not to make friends. “From that day on, I was his best friend,” Bautista recalled. “He’d call me in the room and say, ‘Hey, let’s go eat.’”65

In 1996, Bautista posted his lowest WHIP (1.163) as a major leaguer along with a 3.36 ERA in 37 appearances. However, he was experiencing numbness and cold sensations in his right index finger.66 On September 11, he was diagnosed with an axillary artery aneurysm in his throwing shoulder and a blood clot in his pitching hand.67 Bautista was hospitalized for a week, and some doctors told him he would never pitch again.68

In January 1997, Bautista signed with the Detroit Tigers, but he was released in late March and landed in extended spring training with the Mets. Shortly after Opening Day, though, Detroit called back and summoned him to the majors.69 He appeared in 21 games, going 2-2 (6.69) before he was released again on July 21. The St. Louis Cardinals signed him on August 2 and sent him to their Louisville Redbirds affiliate, where he hurled 17 2/3 scoreless innings in the American Association to earn a promotion. Bautista made his final 11 major-league appearances with the Cardinals and finished his big-league career with a 32-42 record and 4.62 ERA in 312 games (49 starts) for five teams.

After posting a 35-31 (3.12) mark over nine seasons with the Águilas (including playoffs), Bautista completed his Dominican League career with the Santo Domingo-based Leones del Escogido that winter by compiling a 4.87 ERA in a dozen relief outings. In 1998, he made three starts for the Yankees’ Norwich Navigators club in the Double-A Eastern League, but his ERA was 15.12. He’d lost about four miles per hour off his fastball since suffering his aneurysm and began contemplating retirement. His wife encouraged him to keep trying, so he caught on with the White Sox organization in June and made 35 appearances for the Calgary Cannons in the Triple-A Pacific Coast League. One of his Calgary teammates was a Dominican pitcher who’d idolized him as a youngster, Nelson Cruz. Bautista, said Cruz, “made me more relaxed… helped me deal with depression.”70

Bautista nearly made the Montreal Expos in 1999, but the club acquired Bobby Ayala right before Opening Day.71 Bautista began the year with the Ottawa Lynx in the International League and finished it with the Mets’ Norfolk (Virginia) Tides affiliate in the same circuit. His overall IL ERA was 5.43, similar to his 5.40 mark for the Tigres de Aragua in the Venezuelan League that winter. Bautista’s friend Junior Noboa was surprised when he called asking about a good Mexican League team to join.72 Despite a 5.52 ERA, Bautista led the Sultanes de Monterrey in wins (nine), starts and innings in 2000. His arm felt better than it had since his aneurysm, but he declined an opportunity to pitch his 21st professional season with the Sultanes in 2001. “I said I better stop. I didn’t want to end up with no arm,” he explained. “I didn’t want to pitch any more, and I retired.”73

Although Bautista was in no hurry to begin a coaching career, when his wife encouraged him to assess the demand for his services, the Royals, Marlins, and White Sox all expressed interest within weeks. “Luis Silverio, a coach for Kansas City, said, ‘José, we need you,’ so I said ‘okay,’” he recalled.74 From 2001-2007, Bautista was a pitching coach for Royals’ rookie-level and Single-A clubs in Burlington, Vermont and Idaho Falls. He moved to the White Sox organization in 2008, where his roles included managing the Great Falls (Montana) Voyagers in the rookie-level Pioneer League for part of 2009 and serving as a roving pitching instructor for the organization’s Latin American prospects. Beginning in 2011, Bautista spent nine seasons as the Kannapolis (North Carolina) Intimidators’ pitching coach in the Single-A South Atlantic League, save for 2016 and 2017, when he filled the same role with the Winston-Salem Dash and Birmingham Barons, respectively.

He was scheduled to return to the Intimidators in 2020, but the season was canceled because of the worldwide coronavirus pandemic, ending (at least temporarily) his 40-year professional baseball career. As of 2021, Bautista and his wife reside in Pembroke Pines, Florida. “I wouldn’t change anything about my life,” he said in 2006. “The only thing I would change is me getting older.”75

Last revised: December 6, 2021

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Rod Nelson from SABR’s Scouts Committee for research assistance.

This biography was reviewed by Gregory H. Wolf and Rory Costello and checked for accuracy by members of SABR’s fact-checking team.

Sources

In addition to sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted www.baseball-reference.com and www.retrosheet.org.

José Bautista’s Dominican League statistics from https://stats.winterballdata.com/players?key=297 (Subscription service. Last accessed April 12, 2021).

Notes

1 The number of Jews in the Dominican Republic (population 3.9 million when Bautista was born in 1964 and 10.9 million as of 2020) peaked around 1,000 in 1943. Rhonda Spivak, “Sordid Secrets in the Dominican Republic: Dictator Wanted to Take in Jews Fleeing the Nazis to ‘Whiten the Island,’” Winnipeg Jewish Review, January 13, 2012, https://www.winnipegjewishreview.com/article_detail.cfm?id=2002 (last accessed November 14, 2021).

2 José Bautista, Interview with Marc Katz, May 22-24, 2006 (hereafter Bautista-Katz interview).

3 Bautista-Katz interview.

4 George Robinson, “On the Mound with Pride: A Dominican Righthander the Only Jew in Majors?” New York Jewish Week, July 14, 1994: 22.

5 Robinson, “On the Mound with Pride: A Dominican Righthander the Only Jew in Majors?”

6 Bautista-Katz interview.

7 Benny Bautista (b. 1965) was an outfielder/second baseman in the Baltimore Orioles system from 1984-87, and Angel Bautista (b.1967) pitched 23 games for a St. Louis Cardinals rookie-level team in 1984-85.

8 Bautista-Katz interview.

9 Jack Lang, Bill Madden, “Down on the Farm,” Daily News (New York, New York), August 4, 1985: 60.

10 Tim Kurkjian, “Buried by Mets, Bautista Prefers Orioles’ Numbers,” Baltimore Sun, February 23, 1988: 1D.

11 Mike Littwin, “Latins Still Face Major Barriers,” Sun Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, Florida), March 25, 1990: 15C.

12 Bautista-Katz interview.

13 Bautista-Katz interview.

14 1988 Baltimore Orioles Media Guide: 120.

15 “Pirates Endure No Hitter, 2 Hitter,” Washington Post, May 27, 1985: E5.

16 Bill Madden, “Met Prospect for the Birds,” Daily News, December 8, 1987: C28.

17 1988 Baltimore Orioles Media Guide: 120.

18 Bautista-Katz interview.

19 Tom Verducci, “Sisk is No Longer a Met,” Newsday (New York, New York), December 8, 1987: 149.

20 Kurkjian, “Buried by Mets, Bautista Prefers Orioles’ Numbers.”

21 Tim Kurkjian, “Orioles Obtain Sisk in Trade with Mets,” Baltimore Sun, December 8, 1987: 1D.

22 Kurkjian, “Buried by Mets, Bautista Prefers Orioles’ Numbers.”

23 Kurkjian, “Buried by Mets, Bautista Prefers Orioles’ Numbers.”

24 Kent Baker, “Mets Unlikely to Get Bautista Back,” Baltimore Sun, March 24, 1988: 10D.

25 John Eisenberg, “Peraza and Bautista Give Orioles Hope for Future,” Baltimore Sun, August 8, 1988: 1C.

26 Tim Kurkian, “Robinson: Bautista ‘Most Pleasant Surprise,’” Baltimore Sun, July 11, 1988: 5C.

27 Richard Justice, “Tettleton, Traber Lift Orioles,” Baltimore Sun, June 14, 1988: E1.

28 1989 Baltimore Orioles Media Guide: 128.

29 Tim Kurkjian, “Bautista Meets His Goal, But Not the Win,” Baltimore Sun, August 29, 1988: 3C.

30 Tim Kurkjian, “After Strong Outing, Bautista is Confident,” Baltimore Sun, March 21,1989: 1B.

31 Jorge Milian, “Bautista Yearns for New Start,” Sun Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, Florida), August 28, 1991: 12.

32 Tim Kurkjian, “Holton, Tibbs Named Starters; Bautista to Bullpen,” Baltimore Sun, May 21, 1989: 9D.

33 Tim Kurkjian, “Bautista on Disabled List,” Baltimore Sun, May 22, 1989: 3C.

34 Tim Kurkjian, “Bautista Angry, Vows This Will Be His Last Demotion,” Baltimore Sun, June 19, 1989: 3C.

35 Tim Kurkjian, “Bautista Arrives to Provide Relief for Panting Bullpen,” Baltimore Sun, June 24, 1989: 1B.

36 Littwin, “Latins Still Face Major Barriers.”

37 Milian, “Bautista Yearns for New Start.”

38 Peter Schmuck, “Williamson Activated; Bautista Sent Down,” Baltimore Sun, April 23, 1990: 3D.

39 Patti Singer, “Braves Rally in 10th to Post 2-1 Victory,” Democrat and Chronicle (Rochester, New York), May 12, 1990: 37.

40 Peter Schmuck, “Bautista Asks for Trade; Tired of Rochester Shuffle,” Baltimore Sun, July 11, 1990: 3F.

41 Mark Maske, “Yount’s Homer in 11th Ruins Orioles Day, 4-3,” Washington Post, April 19, 1991: B3.

42 Milian, “Bautista Yearns for New Start.”

43 Bautista-Katz interview.

44 Milian, “Bautista Yearns for New Start.”

45 Bautista-Katz interview.

46 Brian Hanley, “It’s Back to the Bullpen for Castillo,” Chicago Sun-Times, September 7, 1993: 74.

47 Robinson, “On the Mound with Pride: A Dominican Righthander the Only Jew in Majors?”

48 Bautista-Katz interview.

49 1988 Baltimore Orioles Media Guide: 120.

50 Steven K. Walz, “Making His Pitch,” Jerusalem Post, July 18, 1995: A5.

51 Joe Goddard, “Versatility Bautista’s Value on Cubs’ Staff,” Chicago Tribune, March 2, 1994: 82.

52 “Ex-Oriole Bautista Cuts Giants Down to Size in 7th Loss in a Row,” Evening Sun (Baltimore, Maryland), September 15, 1993: 1D.

53 Dave Van Dyck, “Sosa Files,” The Sporting News, January 31, 1994: 38.

54 As of 2021, the Cubs’ record of 84 relief appearances in a single season is shared by Ted Abernathy (1965), Dick Tidrow (1980), and Bob Howry (2006).

55 Bautista-Katz interview.

56 Robinson, “On the Mound with Pride: A Dominican Righthander the Only Jew in Majors?”

57 Bautista-Katz interview.

58 Bautista-Katz interview.

59 Bill Jauss, “Ex-Son Donn Pall signed; Replaces Injured Bautista,” Chicago Tribune, August 7, 1994: 3.

60 Bautista-Katz interview.

61 Walz, “Making His Pitch.”

62 Henry Schulman, “Stewart Pitches Advice to Bautista,” San Francisco Examiner, February 18, 1996: D6.

63 Larry Stone, “Bautista Gives Up Slam, Then Wins,” San Francisco Examiner, September 6, 1995: C5.

64 Schulman, “Stewart Pitches Advice to Bautista.”

65 Bautista-Katz interview.

66 Nick Peters, “Aneurysm Finishes Bautista’s Season,” Sacramento Bee, September 12, 1996: D5.

67 Henry Schulman, “Bautista’s Future,” The Sporting News, September 30, 1996: 21.

68 Juan Vene, “Bautista Penso Que No Lanzaria Jamas,” El Diario La Prensa (New York, New York), July 20, 1997: 31.

69 Reid Creager, “No Encore Necessary,” The Sporting News, April 21, 1997: 29.

70 Kimberley Todd, “New Cannon Adds Veteran Influence,” Calgary Herald, June 19,1998: C12.

71 Stephanie Miles, “Double-Play Partners,” The Sporting News, March 15, 1999: 73.

72 Efrain Rodriguez, “Aterriza José Bautista,” El Norte (Monterrey, Mexico), March 6, 2000: 7.

73 Bautista-Katz interview.

74 Bautista-Katz interview.

75 Bautista-Katz interview.

Two firsts were combined into one event in 1987 as the first Most Valuable Player Award won by a member of a Canadian team also happened to be the first MVP won by a player of Dominican descent. The player in question, George Bell, played in 12 seasons from 1981 through 1993 for three major-league teams. That 1987 season was the peak offensive year for the right-handed left fielder and designated hitter, as he hit 47 home runs and edged out Detroit Tigers shortstop Alan Trammell for the honor.

Jorge Antonio Bell Mathey was born on October 21, 1959, in the Dominican Republic town of San Pedro de Macorís. This southeastern Dominican town has produced so many baseball players that it is sometimes called “the cradle of shortstops.” This list of greats from San Pedro de Macorís include Bell’s contemporaries Henry Rodríguez and Sammy Sosa, who would both figure in Bell’s own transaction history.

Bell was originally signed as a 19-year-old by the Philadelphia Phillies in 1978. Two years later, the Toronto Blue Jays, at the urging of legendary scout Epy Guerrero, selected Bell from the Phillies in the 1980 Rule 5 draft. Bell would spend most of the remainder of his career with the Blue Jays, earning induction into the Blue Jays’ Level of Excellence, an honor shared with only 10 others as of 2018.

The Blue Jays opened the 1981 campaign in Detroit against the Tigers on April 9 and Bell was there. With the Blue Jays trailing 5-2 in the top of the eighth inning, Bell was brought in to run for Toronto’s cleanup hitter, John Mayberry. Three straight outs meant that Bell got no action as a runner, but he stayed in the game as a left fielder for the Tigers’ half of the eighth inning. Only one ball was hit his way – a triple over his head and off the wall by Al Cowens.1 After another fruitless pinch-running appearance, Bell was left on the bench for nearly two weeks. His first plate appearance came on April 21 at home against the Milwaukee Brewers. Bell entered the game in the seventh inning to play left field in a 6-0 losing cause. He batted in the bottom of the ninth inning with his team trailing 6-2 and facing Moose Haas and grounded out to shortstop. The next day Bell made his first start, in right field and batting third in a batting order that was struggling. The struggles would continue, as the Brewers took the game 8-1 and the Jays fell to 3-9. Bell began the game with two groundouts back to the pitcher but got his first major-league hit in the fifth inning with a double to right field off Mike Caldwell. He did not score.

Bell’s rookie campaign was cut short when he ran into an outfield wall chasing a foul ball on June 9. He did not return until August 10 and finished his rookie campaign batting .233/.256/.350 in limited duty. Those numbers are not eye-catching but there were flashes of power and speed in his game even at 19 years old, and he garnered some American League Rookie of the Year votes.

Bell spent 1982 in Syracuse with the Blue Jays’ Triple-A affiliate, but another injury-riddled year saw him get into only 37 games with 131 plate appearances. It was no surprise, therefore, when the Blue Jays had him start 1983 (still just his age 23 season) in Triple A. When he was called up, to start on July 12 in Kansas City, Bell made the most of his opportunity and hit a two-run home run and a double as the designated hitter. Other than a final abortive comeback attempt in 1993, Bell was done with the minor leagues for good.

The Blue Jays were hitting their stride in 1984, Bell’s first full season in the major leagues. Behind the pitching of Dave Stieb and the veteran Doyle Alexander and the developing outfield trio of Bell, Lloyd Moseby, and Jesse Barfield, this year was the beginning of a period of winning baseball in Toronto. Bell was a big part of that success. The 1984 team under manager Bobby Cox finished a distant 15 games behind the Detroit Tigers in the AL East, but the signs of good things to come were developing. All three of those outfielders were 24 years old and coming into their own. Bell ended the season with a batting line of .292/.326/.498 and perhaps most importantly stayed on the field the whole season, playing in 159 games primarily as a corner outfielder. He finished the year with 26 home runs, a number that was very consistent throughout the remainder of his career, other than the one MVP year with 47. His consistent appearances in the lineup were also a feature of Bell’s career right up until the very end as he avoided any long layoffs until the end of his career in 1993.

It was Bell’s successful 1984 season, and the lack of recognition he felt about it, that began a reputation for being hostile (or at least uncooperative) to the media that hounded Bell for the rest of his career. He was often referred to as laconic, especially in comparison to his longtime and loquacious teammate Barfield.2 In 1984 the Toronto sportswriters voted Dave Collins as the team MVP over Bell. During spring training in 1985, Bell declared that he was no longer speaking to newspaper reporters and accused them of racism in their selection.3

In 1985 the Blue Jays finally got over the hump and won the AL East with a record of 99-62, edging out the New York Yankees by two games. Bell was at the heart of the batting order, anywhere from third to fifth with the cleanup spot being his through the second half of the season. The Jays lost the ALCS to the Kansas City Royals in seven games. Bell did not have a home run during the series but did contribute three doubles to the cause.

The next year the Jays slid back a bit but Bell contributed in his incredibly consistent way, with a slash line of .309/.349/.532. He also began to get recognition as one of the game’s best, finishing 1986 in fourth place in the MVP voting. But much more was to come in 1987. That season the Jays had the same outfield of Bell, Moseby, and Barfield while adding the young designated hitter Fred McGriff. Jimmy Key and Jim Clancy had come to join Stieb on the pitching staff. Things looked good. It was a tight race and only a season-ending sweep at the hands of the Tigers saw the Jays miss the playoffs again, finishing just two games behind the Tigers. But George Bell had his career year.

Bell led the league in only one offensive category, with his 134 runs batted in pacing the American League. He paired that with his career-best and club-record 47 home runs, bested only by Mark McGwire’s 49. All these home runs came from Bell’s 6-foot-1, 190-pound frame. The Most Valuable Player voting was tight (only 21 points) between Bell and Detroit’s Trammell. Trammell won the division title on the field, but Bell won the respect of the writers for the way in which he helped his team throughout the year. Interviewed by telephone when the award was announced, Bell said, “I’m very happy. … Because when you win the MVP everything shows that you’ve worked hard. That you’re a winner. It’s one of the greatest things that’s (happened) to me in the last three years.”4

Controversy stalked Bell in the 1988 season. Blue Jays manager Jimy Williams wanted to make him a designated hitter. This plan offended Bell’s pride in his role as a major-league star. He felt it was an undue attack on his defensive abilities; it would have made him the youngest regular designated hitter in the American League. Things blew up in a spring-training game on March 17 when Bell refused to take the bat when he was due up. He was suspended for one day and fined $1,000 but the resentment lingered.5 Bell “won” the argument as he played in only seven games as a designated hitter in 1988, and 149 in his preferred left field.

Jimy Williams was fired after a 12-24 start to the 1989 campaign and new manager Cito Gaston more regularly made the move of Bell to DH, saying, “People refuse to believe that George is a team player, but he is. George just wants to be respected and dealt with straight-up.”6 Bell’s time at DH increased to only 19 games but the precedent had been set as the Blue Jays improved under Gaston to win the AL East before losing in the ALCS again, this time in five games to the Oakland Athletics.

The following season, 1990, was Bell’s last before free agency. He had a solid and consistent year, with a line of .265/.303/.422, earning his second All-Star selection while contributing to the Blue Jays’ 86-76 record as his designated-hitter role kept creeping up, with 36 appearances. Bell had seemingly adjusted and reconciled himself to his perceived lack of respect as one of baseball’s best with his own confidence in his performance. He told USA Today’s Chuck Johnson in June, “I don’t think people compare me in the category of superstar. I think they compare me as a so-so player. Nobody gives me credit. But I go out there and play my game. I don’t care.”7

After the 1990 season Bell had his first chance at the free-agency market. He signed with the Chicago Cubs for a guaranteed three-year $9.8 million, going to the National League, where the designated-hitter question would not be an issue. Bell joined Andre Dawson in the Cubs’ outfield, so the Cubs now had both 1987 MVP winners. Bell was a Cub for just 1991, earning a National League All-Star selection with his .285/.323/.468 line and 25 home runs.

During 1992 spring training, Bell was traded across town to the Chicago White Sox and back to the American League. Coming the other way in the trade to the Cubs were pitcher Ken Patterson and a young Sammy Sosa. The White Sox saw Bell and his power as the key to getting them over the hump in the AL West. Bell was also much more amenable at this point in his career to a role that emphasized time at designated hitter with a bit of time in left field. He responded with a very solid 1992. The power was still there but the batting average began to slip, and the strikeout total began to rise, just slightly. Still, his 25 home runs and .255/.294/.418 line in 1992 were a solid contribution.

The following year was more a disappointment for himself; he hit only 13 home runs, his fewest since 1983, and had a batting a line of .217/.243/.363. He missed 40 games in July and August after having surgery to repair torn cartilage in his right knee. When he returned in September, it was clear that something was still wrong. The White Sox did win the division in 1993 but Bell did not appear in the ALCS, which Chicago lost to the Blue Jays. Bell responded by making very harsh comments about manager Gene Lamont.8 The White Sox responded by declining to pick up Bell’s $3.3 million option for 1994 and released him on October 13.

Bell chose to retire at this point, returning to his native Dominican Republic. He has spent most of his time in retirement on his 37-foot boat and golfing, enjoying the sun and waters of his native land. He has also done some short-term coaching with the Dominican World Baseball Classic teams.9 In 1996 he and former teammate Dave Stieb were the charter inductees to Toronto’s Level of Excellence.

Throughout the years, Bell spent time with the Blue Jays as a minor-league instructor and consultant. In 2013 he was inducted into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame. As of 2018, Bell’s name was still high on leaderboards of Blue Jays hitters. He was fourth in runs batted in (740), fifth in hits (1,294), and sixth in home runs (202). His 47 home runs in 1987 rank second in single-season total for a Toronto slugger (Jose Bautista, 54 in 2010). He was one of only two Blue Jays to win the AL MVP award, being joined by Josh Donaldson in 2015.

Last revised: October 29, 2022

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author also used Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.com.

Notes

1 Dave Matthews, “Sparky Uneasy with Tiger Victory,” Lansing (Michigan) State Journal, April 10, 1981: C-2.

2 For example, in a piece by Maury Allen, “Barfield, Bell Help Jays gel,” New York Post, June 9, 1987.

3 Marty York, “Who’s This Guy, George Bell?” The Sporting News, July 13, 1987: 16.

4 Jim Donaghy, “Bell Lures AL MVP Title Across Border,” Albany Times Union, November 18, 1987: D-1.

5 Neil McCarl, “Blue Jays’ DH Role: It’s No Bell Prize,” Toronto Sun, March 26, 1988: 22.

6 “Behind the Seams,” USA Today, August 11, 1989: 6C.

7 Chuck Johnson, “Bell Confident He’ll Eventually Earn Respect,” USA Today, June 26, 1990.

8 Mike Shalin, “Benched Bell Trashes Lamont,” New York Post, October 9, 1993.

9 Teresa Nickerson, “Interview of the Month,” torontobluejays.com, February 6, 1997, retrieved November 1, 2018..