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.

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.

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..

On the night of September 26, 1997, the Atlanta Braves and New York Mets were playing out the dregs of the regular season before a small crowd at Shea Stadium. But if part of baseball’s appeal is that any trip to the ballpark can yield historic accomplishments, the partisans of New York were in for a treat.

In the seventh inning, Atlanta shortstop Rafael Belliard turned on a fastball from Mets lefty Brian Bohanon and hooked it over the left-field wall for a game-tying home run. The Braves dugout exploded, with many of Atlanta’s biggest stars grinning like Little Leaguers as Belliard circled the bases and returned to the dugout amid an atmosphere of pandemonium. The celebration seemed to be of the type reserved for a pennant clincher or a ninth-inning grand slam. It was a long time coming.

“I’ve been looking for that for 10 years,” Belliard exclaimed after the game. “Finally, I get it tonight. I’m dreaming.”1

Rafael Belliard, 5-foot-6 shortstop extraordinaire, had hit his only previous big-league home run on May 5, 1987. After 10½ years and 1,869 major-league at-bats, Belliard finally managed his second — and final — big-league home run.

Belliard, as much as anyone, typified the good field/no hit shortstops who proliferated in the big leagues during his reign from the early 1980s to the late 1990s. He earned his way into the major leagues with his foot speed and fielding prowess and stayed there despite his lack of skill on offense, particularly power.

Belliard may be best remembered today for his 10½-year homerless drought. But instead of being memorialized as a ballplayer for what his career didn’t include, Belliard could as easily be remembered for his decade and a half in the major leagues, for his slick glove, solid bunting, and for being a part of a Braves team that allowed him to appear in four World Series, and even star in one.

And then every 10 years or so, he’d add a home run.

                                               *****

Rafael Leonidas Belliard Mattias was born on October 24, 1961, in Puerto Nuevo, Dominican Republic. Like many boys his age, Belliard spent a large part of his childhood refining his baseball skills, which in his case were largely defensive. “In Dominica, we play all year long, no matter where,” he reflected in 1991. “There you practiced every day like spring training. You have like one month off, then you’re back in practice.”2

When Belliard was 17, he took a bus trip to Santo Domingo, where he tried out for a Dominican military team. When his slick fielding earned him a spot on the squad, his compensation was roughly $80 per month.3 Belliard’s big break likely was the 1979 Pan American Games, where his Dominican squad finished second, losing only to champion Cuba. Scouts may have watched the games to observe a lackluster 5-3 US squad, which failed to medal, but they couldn’t fail to observe the pint-sized Dominican shortstop who not only caught everything hit to him, but managed to bat .375 in the eight games played.

Pittsburgh scout Pablo Cruz urged the Pirates to sign Belliard. When some questioned Cruz about the infielder’s diminutive size, Cruz told them “not to worry about balls hit over his head, because there wouldn’t be many hit through his legs.”4 Cruz also told other Pirates executives, “He has winning blood.”5

Belliard signed with Pittsburgh in 1980, and that winning blood didn’t manifest itself right away. In the summer of 1980, in 20 games split between the Gulf Coast League and the Pirates’ South Atlantic League farm team in Shelby, he hit .182. He split time between second base, third base, and shortstop, and while his defensive skills were obvious, so were the limitations of his game. Few pegged Belliard as a long-term major leaguer.

The story essentially remained the same in 1981, when Pittsburgh made Belliard the everyday shortstop for the Class-A Alexandria Dukes. Belliard, who was just 19, played in 127 games and showed many of the skills that would define his career. He was part of 73 double plays at shortstop, which nearly led his league, had a dozen sacrifice bunts, and stole 42 bases. He also posted a batting line of .216/.264/.250 and fanned 92 times.

For many players, a promising career could have ended right there. But Belliard’s destiny was shaped by the acts of the parent club, who were about to trade 1981 shortstop Tim Foli to the California Angels. Pittsburgh then planned to hand the everyday job to Dale Berra. The son of Yankee Hall of Famer Yogi Berra, Dale was a Pittsburgh first-round draft choice and had filled a utility role with the team for several seasons. He not only had the pedigree to be an everyday big leaguer, he had some of the necessary skills, but he struggled with consistency. In 1982 Berra would be the Pittsburgh shortstop, but he would need a backup, particularly somebody strong with the glove.

Meanwhile, Rafael Belliard spent most of the 1982 season with Double-A Buffalo. The starting job at shortstop there belonged to highly touted prospect Gregory Pastors. Pastors hit .193, and Belliard significantly outplayed him, batting .274 in 124 at-bats and posting a higher fielding percentage. Accordingly, on September 6, the Pirates called Belliard to the major leagues. He played in nine games, mostly as a pinch-runner and defensive replacement. He experienced his first major-league at-bat on September 25, pinch-hitting a single off Montreal’s Scott Sanderson before stealing second base and scoring a run. Belliard ended the season 1-for-2 at the plate and handled four chances flawlessly in the field.

Belliard spent the next three seasons bouncing between the minor leagues, brief stints in Pittsburgh, and on one occasion, a lengthy trip to the disabled list. Most of 1983 was spent in Double-A Lynn (where he hit .262 in 431 at-bats). Most of 1984 was spent on the disabled list after Belliard fractured his left fibula on a bad landing from a difficult infield throw in Chicago. If there is any karma bounceback, surely it was 1985, when Belliard spent most of the season in Triple-A Hawaii (where he hit .246 in 341 at-bats). Altogether Belliard played in 41 big-league games from 1983 to 1985. He was 9-for-43 at the plate during those seasons.

Meanwhile, Pittsburgh had continued to rely on Dale Berra at shortstop, despite declining offensive returns and three consecutive 30-error seasons. Berra’s performance issues may be somewhat explained by his appearance in the Pittsburgh Drug Trials of 1985. After the 1984 season, the Pirates dealt Berra to the Yankees, where his father was the manager. Among the players they gained in return was Tim Foli. A March 1985 item in The Sporting News indicated that Belliard might split time with Foli,6 but the latter retired after hitting .189 in 37 at-bats in Pittsburgh.

The Pirates went with Sam Khalifa at shortstop in 1985. He promptly hit .238 and made 16 errors, and after Pittsburgh went 57-104, manager Chuck Tanner was sent packing, to be followed by a career minor leaguer named Jim Leyland. It was one of the most fortunate moments of Rafael Belliard’s career.

In the spring of 1986, Belliard was trying to play his way into a crowded shortstop rotation in Pittsburgh. The Pirates returned starter Khalifa and veteran Johnnie LeMaster. But Belliard made his mark. The Pirates released LeMaster before Opening Day, with Leyland telling a reporter, “Belliard played his way on the club. He has more versatility than LeMaster.”7

Belliard spent his first full season in the big leagues under Leyland, who valued both youth and defense. As Belliard continued to improve, Khalifa struggled, and was ultimately sent down to the minors. The Pirates signed veteran U L Washington, but gave the majority of time at shortstop to Belliard. Rafael even provided some offensive punch early in the season, going 15-for-33 during one streak, and hitting .248 in the first half of the season, with 23 RBIs and 10 stolen bases.

He played in 117 games in 1986, mostly at shortstop, although he occasionally filled in at second base. His defense continued to be a highlight, as he finished fourth in the NL in range factor per nine innings as a shortstop, and fifth in the league in total zone runs among shortstops. Offensively, Belliard’s 11 sacrifices were seventh most in the National League. That said, his .233/.298/.262 offensive line ensured that Belliard would continue to split time with more offensively capable middle infielders.

The 1987 season was something of a step back for Belliard. In spring training, Pirates GM Syd Thrift told a reporter, “You really need two (shortstops).”8 Concern over Belliard’s physical durability and his shy, quiet nature were cited as evidence in favor of the Pirates’ search for another shortstop.9 For the first half of the season, the concerns seemed unfounded. Belliard launched his first career home run on May 5, a three-run blast off the Padres’ Eric Show. While Belliard had some struggles, Leyland spoke out in his favor, telling reporters that while Belliard was “not a .300 hitter,” he also was “not a .200 hitter, either.”10 Leyland drew parallels between Belliard’s defensive skills and those of Baltimore shortstop Mark Belanger, ultimately telling the media, “If the lineup just does what they can do, we feel we can play Belliard at shortstop and not worry about it.”11 It didn’t work out that way in 1987.

Belliard was hitting .187 on July 8, when he was demoted to Double-A Harrisburg. He hit .338 there, and was recalled by the Pirates on August 16. Belliard promptly went 6-for-10 before ending his season by breaking his leg on August 26 while completing a double play against the Reds. The brief hot streak did allow Belliard to finish the season at .207, but he played in only 81 games, batting 203 times to post his .207/.286/.271 offensive line.

Over the next three years in Pittsburgh, the same basic pattern followed. The Pirates — particularly Leyland — appreciated Belliard’s smooth glove and versatility. (Belliard even played a few games at third base for the Pirates in 1989 and 1990.) However, he simply didn’t hit enough to be more than a part-time player. In 1988 Belliard played in 122 games, but was part of a three-headed Pittsburgh shortstop group (along with Felix Fermin and Al Pedrique) that combined to have more errors (20) than RBIs (17). Belliard played less in 1989 (67 games, 154 at-bats) and 1990 (47 games, 54 at-bats). Pittsburgh was increasingly playing shortstop Jay Bell at the position, and in 1990 Belliard’s future was again in jeopardy after he was left off the Pirates’ postseason roster when the team reached the 1990 NLCS.

In December 1990, a free agent, Belliard signed a two-year, $800,000 contract with the last-place Atlanta Braves. Braves GM John Schuerholz acted on some rave reviews from those close to Belliard. Former Pirate Sid Bream, who would play with Belliard in Atlanta, told Schuerholz, “He’s as good a shortstop as Ozzie Smith.”12

Veteran manager Bobby Cox used Belliard in tandem with good-hit, no-field shortstop Jeff Blauser, and the young Atlanta pitching staff, which included John Smoltz, Tom Glavine, and Steve Avery, provided many leads that justified keeping the light-hitting Belliard in games for defensive purposes. But Cox saw Belliard as his everyday shortstop, and told Rafael so. “I told him I hadn’t really done that,” recalled Belliard.13

Belliard played in 149 games in 1991, and batted 353 times, both career highs. He didn’t lack for production, batting a career-best .249 and having some genuinely impressive hot streaks at the plate. On May 7 and 8, in a home series against the Cardinals, Belliard had five hits, including three doubles and a triple, to go with eight RBIs in the two games. Meanwhile, Belliard continued to impress Cox with his glove work. Late in the season, the skipper said, “Defense is a main part of the reason we are where we are and those two guys on the left side of our infield [Belliard and third baseman Terry Pendleton] are as good as there is.”14

When Atlanta played its way to a division title on the last weekend of the season, Belliard found himself taking on some familiar faces in his first playoff appearance. The Braves faced the Pirates in a seven-game NLCS, and Belliard started all seven games. He went 4-for-19 in the series, but also helped Braves pitchers rack up three shutouts over Pittsburgh, the final a 4-0 win in Game Seven.

From there, Belliard had a World Series to remember in the Braves’ seven-game loss to the Twins. He again started every game, and went 6-for-16 at the plate, knocking in four runs. He also went errorless in 29 defensive chances, including four double plays, two of which helped preserve Game Seven as a scoreless tie until the 10th inning, when Minnesota broke the Braves’ hearts. Despite the tough loss, Belliard had experienced his best season as a big leaguer and finished it with a superb World Series. “I knew I was playing for something important,” Belliard said a quarter-century later, also admitting, “Hey, it did (surprise) me.”15

In 1992 Belliard and the Braves played their way back to the Series again. This time, Rafael played in 144 games, earning 285 at-bats. But he hit only .211, and thus found himself filling in for defensive purposes by the time of the playoffs, batting once in the NLCS and contributing only a sacrifice bunt in the World Series against the Blue Jays. Still, observers cited Belliard for making “a sizeable contribution to the Braves’ 1991 National League pennant” and being “just as important in 1992.”16

From there, Belliard would serve Atlanta only as a reserve. Blauser had come into his own as an offensive threat, and while Rafael still appeared for defensive purposes at shortstop or occasionally at second base, he never again eclipsed 180 at-bats in a season.

The remaining highlight of Belliard’s career was the 1995 season, when he did take those 180 at-bats, playing in 75 games for Atlanta, and finally winning the World Series that had eluded the squad. Belliard batted .222 in 1995, but Jeff Blauser was injured down the stretch run and Belliard again found himself an everyday shortstop in the World Series.

Belliard went 0-for-16 at the plate in the Series, but found ways to contribute, even during a hitting slump. His successful seventh-inning squeeze bunt in Game One was the winning margin of the Braves’ 3-2 win over the Indians. He remained on the field to the end of the clinching Game Six, joining the dogpile on the pitching mound when Mark Wohlers retired the final batter of the Braves’ title run.

From there, age and the continued improvement of other Braves shortstops spelled the gradual decline of Belliard’s big-league career. He did manage his elusive second career home run in late 1997, but the following spring, after starting the season 5-for-20 and playing in seven of the Braves’ first eight games, Belliard tore his left quadriceps muscle.17 While he did rehabilitate himself from the injury, and the Braves had him on postseason standby if he was needed, Belliard never played in another major-league game after April 9, 1998.

In bits and pieces of 17 seasons in major-league baseball, Belliard finished his career as a .221 hitter. His 508 career hits included only two home runs, and he knocked in 142 total runs. Belliard’s career OPS+ of 46 is a testimony to his struggles at bat, but he was a career .974 fielder at shortstop, and he ranks among the top 75 shortstops in total zone runs (since the stat can be tracked, which dates back to 1953).

Belliard transitioned from playing to coaching, spending several years with Atlanta as a roving minor-league instructor and then coaching for the Tigers.18 During the offseason before 2013, Belliard was diagnosed with prostate cancer, but he underwent surgery with positive results.19 In 2014 Belliard went to work for the Kansas City Royals, first as a special assistant to the general manager, and then, starting in 2015, as a roving infield coordinator. When not on the road, he lives in Boca Raton, Florida, with his wife of over three decades, Leonora. They have a son and two grandchildren.

While comic foibles of Belliard’s decade-long chase after his second home run might be the biggest memory that casual fans have of his career, his four decades in Organized Baseball point to the incredible success of the undersized glove man. Perhaps instead of Belliard’s inability to hit the long ball, future fans should know of his defensive skills, his positive attitude throughout his career’s many twists and turns, and his surprising postseason heroics.

Last revised: February 12, 2021

Notes

1 Buster Olney, “It’s No Small Feat as Braves’ Belliard Hits a Rare Homer,” New York Times, September 27, 1997.

2 C. Ron Allen, “Touching Bases: Series Star for Braves Offers to Help Abused and Abandoned Children’s Home in Boca,” South Florida Sun Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale), November 13, 1991.

3 Steve Wulf, “Standing Tall at Short,” Sports Illustrated, February 9, 1987. Interestingly, Sports Illustrated said it was a Navy team, while the Atlanta Journal-Constitution referred to it as an Army squad in a September 16, 2016, profile of Belliard, which is cited below.

4 Charles Feeney, “Belliard Has the Right Bloodlines,” The Sporting News, June 30, 1986: 21.

5 Ibid.

6 Charles Feeney, “Foli May Share Short with Belliard,” The Sporting News, March 25, 1985: 31.

7 Charles Feeney, “Pirates’ Accent on Youth Added Khalifa, Belliard,” The Sporting News, April 21, 1986: 26.

8 The Sporting News, February 16, 1987: 34.

9 Ibid.

10 Bob Hertzel, “He’s Still a Glove Man,” The Sporting News, May 25, 1987: 15.

11 Ibid.

12 Joel Bierig and Bruce Levine, “Brave New World,” The Sporting News, May 27, 1991: 10.

13 I.J. Rosenberg, “Belliard Provided Defense, Clutch Play During Braves’ Run,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution, September 16, 2016.

14 Ross Newhan, “In Defense, Pendleton, Belliard are Fallible,” Los Angeles Times, September 22, 1991.

15 Rosenberg, “Belliard Provided Defense.”

16 Dave Nightengale, “Make a Deal, Face the Wheel,” The Sporting News, November 23, 1992: 41.

17 The Sporting News, April 20, 1998: 38.

18 Rosenberg, “Belliard Provided Defense.”

19 Jason Beck, “Following surgery, Belliard grateful for quick response,” MLB.com, February 23, 2013, mlb.com/news/following-surgery-belliard-grateful-for-quick-response/c-41910186.

Pedro Borbon Rodriguez was born on December 2, 1946, in the town of Mao in what is now known as Valverde Province (it was part of Santiago Province until 1958), Dominican Republic. Sources on Borbon’s life provide little information that details his schooling, though some indicated that he never attended high school. Given the economic and social circumstances of Dominican society during this era, it is possible that Pedro received only a scant formal education. What he always possessed, however, was a fiery and competitive disposition, and this was manifested in part by his love for cockfighting from a young age. Borbon has also indicated that he did not play baseball in his youth until he was about 16. Given the ubiquity of the sport in the Dominican Republic, this tale seems a bit far-fetched (though very much in keeping with his character).

Borbon claimed that he initially played catcher until he was struck in the head by a bat as he reached for a pitch. This settled matters in his mind, and Pedro quickly made the switch to the mound, where he felt he would be safer (and could take greater advantage of his strong and resilient arm). In mid-October 1964, at the age of 17, he signed with the St. Louis Cardinals, and was shipped off to his first farm system assignment, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa (Midwest League), for the 1966 campaign.

Borbon spent three years in the Cardinals system and pitched quite well: 6-1, 1.96 for Cedar Rapids; 5-4, 2.29 for St. Petersburg (Florida State League), and 8-5, 2.34 for Modesto (California League). Used almost solely as a relief pitcher (just three starts in the three seasons), he had still not advanced beyond Single-A ball after his third season, 1968. When he was not placed on the Cardinals’ 40-man roster after that season, he became eligible for the Rule 5 draft and was selected by the California Angels. In order to protect him, the Angels had to keep Borbon in the major leagues for the entire 1969 season.

Borbon made his major-league debut on April 9, 1969, against the Seattle Pilots, pitching three shutout innings in relief of starter Andy Messersmith and earning an impressive victory. But his promising start was an aberration, as he pitched in just 22 games for the Angels, and finished 2-3 with a 6.15 ERA. While the Angels believed a “sore arm” was to blame, he was included in a big trade they made in November with the Reds; Borbon moved to Cincinnati with pitchers Jim McGlothlin and Vern Geishert in exchange for outfielder Alex Johnson and infielder Chico Ruiz. The Reds needed starting pitching, and coveted the 26-year-old McGlothlin. Borbon was a minor part of the deal.1

Borbon did not make a positive first impression with his new ballclub, as he was involved in what Commissioner Bowie Kuhn considered an “inexcusable and intolerable” act during a game in the Dominican Winter League in December. Borbon was fined severely by Major League Baseball as a result of two confrontations with umpires. Initially, he was fined $50 and suspended for three Winter League games, but Kuhn felt this was not sufficient. In February 1970 the commissioner raised the fine to $500 and suspended Borbon (and Rico Carty as well) for the following winter season. This was the first of several incidents in which Borbon’s fiery temper tarnished his reputation with his MLB colleagues and officials.2

During the 1970 summer season, the young Dominican fireballer spent most of his time with Indianapolis of the Triple-A American Association, where he finished 5-2 with a 3.30 ERA. He made it to Cincinnati for several weeks in midsummer, but had a 0-2 record and a 6.75 ERA. The Reds breezed to the division title and the National League pennant, but Borbon played no part in the postseason festivities. He was later granted permission to return to play in the Dominican Winter League, toiling on the mound for Licey.3

The 1972 campaign saw Borbon’s breakthrough for the Reds, and he produced excellent and flexible relief work the entire season. In one two-week stretch starting in late June, during which the Reds won 13 of 14 games, Pedro made five relief appearances, for a total of 14⅓ innings, yielding only one run and six hits while earning four saves and one win. “He can throw, and throw and throw,” Anderson crowed. “Even when I don’t plan to use him, he wants to throw in the bullpen.” Coach Ted Kluszewski considered Borbon to possess a “million-dollar arm.” For the season, the young Dominican finished 8-3 with a 3.17 ERA in 62 games and 122 innings, while the Reds went all the way to the seventh game of the World Series before falling to the Oakland Athletics. Borbon pitched nine times in the postseason; his only poor performance was in Game Seven of the Series, as he gave up the deciding runs to the A’s and took the loss.4

While 1973 was in many ways the best year of Borbon’s career on the mound (11-4, 2.16 ERA in 80 games and 121 innings), it was also the year in which he became involved in a fracas that helped cement his reputation as a hot-tempered player, all too willing to be involved in fisticuffs. On October 8, with the Reds playing the Mets during Game Three of the NLCS, Pete Rose and New York shortstop Bud Harrelson became embroiled in a fight after Rose’s hard slide into second base. As a result of the ensuing wrestling match, both benches cleared. At the end of the fracas Borbon retrieved what he believed to be was his cap from the Shea Stadium turf. When he realized it was actually a Mets hat, he took a bite out of the offending article. Similar incidents occurred later on in Borbon’s career (a fistfight with teammate Cesar Geronimo in the Reds clubhouse, an altercation with Pirates pitcher Daryl Patterson in which Borbon bit his protagonist, and some run-ins at Cincinnati nightspots).5 Through it all, Borbon continued to pitch consistently excellent and durable baseball. In the 1973 NLCS, Borbon won Game One and saved Game Four, but the Reds fell to the Mets in five games.

The next four years were remarkably similar for Borbon. In fact, for the six-year period beginning in 1972, Borbon put up a 52-27 record, with a 3.06 ERA and 70 saves, averaging 71 appearances and 126 innings per season. Of course, the Reds were one of history’s greatest teams in this period, winning four division titles and two World Series. In the victorious 1975 and 1976 postseasons, Borbon pitched in seven games. In his career he hurled in 20 postseason games, finishing with a win, three saves, and a 2.42 ERA.

Eventually the Reds dynasty faded away. The 31-year-old Borbon had an 8-2 record in 1978 but his 4.98 ERA was a better indicator of his struggles. After he started 2-2, 3.43 in 1979, on June 28 the Reds dealt their veteran reliever to the Giants in exchange for utilityman Hector Cruz. His first two appearances for San Francisco came against his old club—he earned a victory against the Reds on June 29 and picked up a save on July 1. Overall, however, the Reds were likely correct in their assessment that Borbon was no longer the pitcher he had been. He finished 4-3 for the Giants, but his ERA was 4.89. After he was released just before the 1980 season, Borbon signed with the Cardinals at the end of April but was let go after only 19 innings pitched with an ERA of 3.79, giving up a home run in each of his last three appearances. His final game in the major leagues was on May 25, 1980. The following spring, he was toiling for Monterrey in the Mexican League.6

Borbon was married to Griselda Ventura and they had three children, Pedro Jr., Harold, and Miguel. Pedro Jr. (born November 15, 1967, in Mao), followed in his father’s footsteps and pitched in the major leagues between 1992 and 2003; the high point of his career came in 1995 when his Atlanta Braves won the World Series. When the young Pedro was a teen, his parents divorced and his relationship with his father became strained. “After the divorce, my dad was … mentally messed up. He felt like a failure. So he kind of disappeared from my life,” he told a reporter in 1995. Pedro Jr. eventually moved to New York City to live with relatives, and he became a standout pitcher at DeWitt Clinton High School and later at Ranger Junior College in Ranger, Texas. Father and son did not see each other on a regular basis for many years, and the younger Borbon noted in a 1999 interview that the relationship was still a work in progress: “We talk every four or five months. There’s a lot of fuel there. We don’t want to put a match to it because it’ll explode. So we talk like we just talked yesterday.”7

Although Borbon’s career was often marred by incidents of violence and poor judgment, his time in the Cincinnati bullpen was marked by much success as he became the “go-to” reliever for one of the best teams in baseball history. After retiring from the major leagues Borbon continued to pitch in various minor and semipro leagues in Latin America and the US. In 2011 he resided in Pharr, Texas, just across the border from Reynosa, Mexico, along with his second wife. The Reds in 2010 inducted him into their Hall of Fame in recognition of his contributions to the Big Red Machine.

Pedro Borbon died, at age 65, on June 4, 2012, at his home in Pharr. He had been battling cancer. Among the many tributes from former teammates, Tony Perez recalled, “I always enjoyed his company on and off the field. He was a great guy.”8

This biography is included in the book “The Great Eight: The 1975 Cincinnati Reds” (University of Nebraska Press, 2014), edited by Mark Armour. For more information, or to purchase the book from University of Nebraska Press, click here.

Notes

Lofty predictions regarding Carty’s future did not materialize due to an unfortunate combination of illness, injuries, ineptitude on defense, and a reputation as a troublemaker. Concerns about Carty’s prowess in the field plagued him throughout his seven seasons with the Braves. His 1973 move to the American League –which included an abbreviated appearance with the Oakland Athletics — coincided with the birth of the designated hitter, which most baseball people thought fit Rico like a glove, but Carty initially resisted.3 Poor performance in his first year as a DH seemed to have ended his career, but a good season in the Mexican League earned Carty the chance to resurrect his career.

Rico Carty’s baseball journey began in San Pedro de Macoris, Dominican Republic, where he was born on September 1, 1939, one of 16 children. His mother, Olivia, was a midwife; his father, Leopoldo, worked in the sugar mill and played club cricket.4 Rico played pick-up baseball until he was 15, when he followed the example of four uncles and turned to boxing. He won his first 17 bouts (12 by KOs), but turned to baseball full-time after one embarrassing ring defeat.5

In 1959 Carty joined (as a catcher) the Dominican team that played in the Pan-Am Games in Chicago, and he attracted considerable attention. Eight major-league teams and four Dominican League clubs offered him contracts, and the naïve youngster signed them all. George Trautman, head of minor-league baseball at the time, resolved the resulting dispute in favor of Milwaukee.

Carty’s professional baseball career began in 1960 with Davenport/Quad Cities in the Class-D Midwest League. He struggled both with the English language and with minor-league pitching, but moved up to Class-C Eau Claire in 1961. In 1962, at Class-B Yakima, Carty showed the hitting skills that would ensure his future success. He also showed the penchant for injury that would limit that success. His .366 average was leading the Northwest League when he tripped over first base, pulling a leg muscle and ending his season. He lost the batting race but made the year-end league All-Star team and was the Topps Class-B All-Star catcher.

Carty started the 1963 season at Triple-A Toronto, where he was hailed as “the best catching prospect … in 10 years.”6 Even so, he was sent down to Double-A Austin to be converted into an outfielder because the Braves had a bevy of young backstops. The only blemish on Rico’s season, and perhaps another portent of the future, came when he decked a spectator for heckling him.

Despite his late arrival, Carty ended the season among Texas League leaders with a .327 average, 27 home runs, and 100 RBIs. He made his major-league debut on September 15, 1963, striking out as a pinch-hitter. The future looked bright for Carty, who was now being touted as “the best young hitting prospect in the [Braves] organization.”7 He had an outstanding 1963-64 season in the Dominican League and then married Gladys Ramirez de Jacobo. They would have six children, who produced 16 grandchildren.8 One son, Rico Jr., played 16 games as a Seattle Mariner farmhand.

After Carty’s fine winter season, Braves farm director John Mullen compared him to Orlando Cepeda,9 and his Grapefruit League performance justified the praise. He hit .408 and led the team with 13 RBIs. Carty made the Braves’ 1964 Opening Day roster, but did not play regularly at first as manager Bobby Bragan tried to balance playing time among his outfielders (Hank Aaron, Felipe Alou, Lee Maye, and Carty). When Alou was hurt in late June and Rico took over in left field, the Braves won 16 of their next 23 games. In late August, he ended a rare batting slump in dramatic fashion, delivering two 5-for-5 days within a week. He led the Braves in batting (.330) and slugging (.554), and made Topps’ Rookie All-Star Team.

In January Carty became the first Brave to sign his 1965 contract (for a salary of $17,500).10 He had a strong season in winter ball and reported for spring training, where Bragan was determined to transform him into a first baseman. Rico never mastered the new role and injured his back while trying to do so. Carty’s back ailment kept him out of the lineup often throughout that season; he never played more than a week at a time. He complained that Bragan often jerked him from the lineup late in games, undermining his confidence,11 but Carty’s fielding lapses often justified the manager’s actions. Late in the season, a doctor discovered that Carty’s right leg was slightly shorter than his left and prescribed a corrective shoe, quieting those who had accused the slugger of exaggerating his back pain.

While the 1965 season was disappointing, Carty hit when he played, compiling a .310 average in 83 games (all in left field). He also demonstrated his willingness to speak out when he thought he’d been wronged. Both traits continued throughout his career — as did frequent trade rumors, which began to circulate during that offseason.

Carty spent the winter of 1965-66 in a new environment, playing winter ball for the Aragua Tigers in the Venezuelan League. He wore his new orthopedic shoe and led the league with a .392 batting average and 13 home runs, a new season record. When he returned to the US, he was again headed for a different setting — the Braves’ new home in Atlanta — and renewed enthusiasm about his potential to become “the next great hitter in the National League”12 Even so, he was the Braves’ fourth outfielder, behind Aaron, Alou, and Mack Jones.

On June 4, 1966, Carty was inserted into the lineup as the starting catcher, and the Braves promptly won seven consecutive games as Rico went 12-for-24. But after nine games, he was back in left field. Trade rumors continued, but Carty was in the lineup to stay. He played in 151 games, even filling in at first base and third base, and hit .326 (third in the NL). During the offseason, Carty was the Brave most sought after player in trade, but the team now saw him as “the next NL batting champ.”13

Before returning to the Dominican League for winter ball, Rico signed his 1967 contract (in the $25,000 range). He had another good season with the Estrellas Orientales, but his temper flared again, garnering him a $50 fine for insulting an umpire, and his injury jinx reappeared as he was hurt in a car crash.

The 1967 season began with optimism in Atlanta. The team had finished fifth in 1966, but had compiled a winning record (33-18) after Billy Hitchcock replaced Carty’s nemesis Bragan. Those hopes faded quickly, however, as both the Braves and Rico had dismal seasons. The Braves fell to seventh place, and Carty had his first sub-.300 season in the majors, although he was relatively injury-free. The low moment of the season came on June 18, when Carty engaged in a “brief but heated scuffle” with Hank Aaron.14 At the time, details were scarce, but Aaron later said that he was angry because Carty had loafed on a ball into the outfield and had called him a “black slick.”15 At season’s end, the Braves were actively seeking trades, and Carty was “among the most likely to go.”16

Carty won the 1967-68 Dominican League batting title (.350) and led Estrellas to the regular-season title and the playoff championship. He reported for spring training down ten pounds to his “fighting weight” of 190 and downplayed teammate Clete Boyer’s offseason criticism (echoing Aaron’s) that Carty “doesn’t give 100 percent.”17

Three weeks into 1968 spring training, Carty’s injury jinx struck with a vengeance. He was diagnosed with tuberculosis. While the disease was “not as serious as first suspected,” Rico was lost to the Braves for the season.18

When he reported for spring training in 1969, a rejuvenated Carty tied for the team lead in batting (.333) during the spring, but a dislocated shoulder put him on the disabled list on Opening Day. He finally got into a game on May 2 as a pinch-hitter and responded with a game-tying sacrifice fly. In his first start, on May 18, he re-injured that troublesome shoulder and missed another two weeks.

Carty was in and out of the lineup for much of the season, but returned to spark the Braves in their stretch drive to the first NL West division title. He had hits in 19 of the final 21 games (17 Atlanta wins), averaging .383 and driving in 22 runs. He drove home the game-winning run in the division-clinching game and finished the season with a team-leading .342 average in 104 games.

The Braves lost that first League Championship Series in three straight games to the New York Mets, but Carty played well in what would be his only postseason appearance, hitting .300 and compiling a .462 on-base percentage and a .500 slugging average, but with no RBIs. He finished a surprising second to Tommie Agee as the NL Comeback Player although, as Hank Aaron observed, Agee “only came back from a bad year [while] Rico came back off a hospital bed.”19

Carty hit .333 in the Dominican League that winter. He was also fined $50 and suspended for three days for shoving an umpire. Major League Baseball later added a $500 fine for “inexcusable and intolerable” conduct.20

Carty opened the 1970 season even better than he had ended 1969. He would have been a shoo-in for All-Star selection by the fans, but his name wasn’t on the ballot. The list of 48 candidates in each league had been compiled during spring training, and Carty wasn’t included. The fan voting period began on May 16, the day that saw the end to Rico’s 31-game hitting streak, a team record that lasted until 2011. More than 2 million fans voted, and Rico received 552,382 votes (67,000 more than Pete Rose) to join Hank Aaron and Willie Mays in the NL’s starting outfield as the first “write-in” All-Star.

Carty injured his wrist just before the All-Star Game, but started the game, batting twice (a walk and a groundout) before being replaced. In the latter half of the season, he suffered other injuries (a pulled leg muscle and a chipped bone in his finger caused when he was hit by a pitch), but he led the NL in batting average (.366) and on-base percentage (.454).   In the midst of his best season ever, however, Rico was involved in another fight with a teammate — pitcher Ron Reed. Carty insisted afterward that “it was just a misunderstanding,”21 but he was on the trading block despite having the highest career batting average among active players.22 Sports columnist Dick Young suggested that Carty was an excellent choice for any team “looking for a big bat and willing to accept a big headache.”23

On December 11, 1970, a different form of physical conflict took Carty off the market; he collided with Dominican League teammate Matty Alou and suffered a fractured knee and ligament damage. He was flown to Atlanta for surgery on what a team doctor called “as bad a knee injury as an athlete can have.”24 With his career in jeopardy, he returned home to recover — after signing a contract that included a raise over his 1970 salary of $45,000.

Carty reported for 1971 spring training with his leg in a brace, and he hobbled out of the dugout on Opening Day to a standing ovation. He took batting practice on July 18 and hit the first pitch he saw off the top of the fence in left field. He was scheduled to return to the lineup on August 5, when the first 15,000 fans would receive buttons that read “SMILE — the Beeg Boy’s Back.”25

But a blood clot in his damaged leg ended any hope of a comeback, and Carty missed his second full season in four years. His bad luck didn’t end there, however. On August 24 he and his young brother-in-law were involved in a fight with two off-duty Atlanta policemen when Rico took umbrage at a racial slur. Atlanta Mayor Sam Massell labeled the incident “blatant brutality” and suspended the officers.26

Although Carty played only sporadically during spring training and seemed destined to start the 1972 season as a pinch-hitter, he received a $50,000 contract after a trial period imposed by the Braves because of concerns about his physical condition. He hit well when he played, but developed elbow tendinitis and went on the disabled list with a pulled hamstring. He played in only 86 games that season and hit just .277. Though his career batting average (.315) was still the highest among active players,27 in October the Braves traded him to the Texas Rangers.

Neither the Atlanta press nor Braves fans were happy about the trade, but Rico said he was not surprised because he and new manager Eddie Mathews were not on good terms.28 Rangers GM Joe Burke admitted that some would call the trade a gamble, but expressed confidence that Carty had matured and was eager to play.29 New Rangers manager Whitey Herzog emphasized that he was looking for “ballplayers, not Boy Scouts” — a description that certainly fit Rico Carty. 30 Then Carty suffered another Dominican League injury; a pitch from Pedro Borbon fractured his jaw.

There was good news, however. The American League had adopted the designated-hitter rule, and Herzog called Carty “the perfect man for such a role.”31 Rico did not agree. The man whose defensive skills had been described as “amusing at best”32 and who had accumulated more outfield errors (40) than assists (31) wanted to play on defense.

During 1973 spring training, Rico took a parting shot at the Braves, again singling out Eddie Mathews for criticism.33 Word leaked out that Carty had won a $20,000 judgment against the Braves, whom he accused of shortchanging him by not sharing the funds the team received (under an agreement between MLB and the Dominican League) after his 1971 knee injury.34

On the field things were not going well for Carty. By early June his .203 average had cost him the Rangers’ DH job. He was back in left field and feuding with his manager.35 When he was sidelined after breaking a small bone in his foot sliding into second base on July 19, Rico’s initial foray into the American League was over. He was hitting only .232 with three homers and 33 RBIs in 86 games for the Rangers when the Chicago Cubs acquired him on waivers on August 13.

Carty made his Cubs debut the following day, grounding out as a pinch-hitter in a loss to the Braves. The next day, he was batting cleanup and did so for most of his time with Chicago. His best day as a Cub came on August 28 in his first game as a visitor at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium; he hit a two-run homer in his first at-bat and later singled to drive in two more runs in a 9-6 Cubs win. That was his only home run for the Cubs and half of his RBIs, and on September 11, after 22 games with the Wrigleyites, Carty was sold to the Oakland Athletics. He again demonstrated his willingness to attack local legends, blaming his demise in Chicago on Ron Santo, whom he called a “selfish ballplayer.”36 The more likely reason was his .214 batting average and .257 slugging percentage — both career lows.

The Athletics were leading their division by six games when they acquired Carty “for reasons unclear to outside observers,” and they finished the season in the same position.37 Rico appeared in seven of the Athletics’ final 18 games, hitting .250 (2-for-8) and getting his only RBI with a solo home run. The A’s went on to win the World Series, but Rico was not eligible for postseason play. When he was released on December 12, Rico complained that he had gotten only a termination telegram from the A’s, who “didn’t give me a Series share, a ring, a handshake — nothing at all.”38

Everyone except Carty thought his career was over. He played winter ball in Mexico and then signed with Cordoba in the Mexican League, where his performance justified his self-confidence. He hit .354 (second in the league) with 11 home runs and 72 RBIs in 112 games,39 and the Cleveland Indians, who were in a tight divisional pennant race, signed Rico to a $72,000 annual contract through the 1975 season. After 11 hitless at-bats, his first Tribe hit was a two-out, ninth-inning, game-tying RBI single. He then fought through a pulled hamstring to hit .363 in 33 games as a designated hitter and first baseman.

Carty was back with Cleveland in 1975, and the 35-year-old hit .308 and tied for the team lead in game-winning RBIs (9). He was even better in 1976, hitting above .400 until injuries once again shelved him. He played in a career-high 152 games, compiled a .310 batting average, and led the team with 83 RBIs. He had even become a fan of the DH rule, and Cleveland’s baseball writers voted him Man of the Year.40

Despite this performance, the Indians did not protect Carty in the 1976 expansion draft. The Toronto Blue Jays made him their fifth pick but quickly traded him back to the Indians. In 1977 he was the highest-paid Indian, making an estimated $90,000, but he started slowly.41 He was hitting .200, and the team was in the division cellar (4-9) when he accepted the Wahoo Club’s 1976 Man of The Year award with “one of the strangest acceptance speeches in history,” criticizing manager Frank Robinson, who shared the head table, for “lack of leadership.”42 Carty had taken his reputation for confrontation to a new level, and when Robby fined Rico for “insubordination” after a June 6 dugout clash, local writers speculated that Carty would soon be traded.43

Instead, less than two weeks later, Robinson was fired. Carty finished the season hitting “only” .280 while leading the team in RBIs (80). He signed on with Cleveland for 1978, but when the Tribe acquired Willie Horton, Carty became expendable and was traded to the Blue Jays during spring training.44

Carty had 19 RBIs in April for Toronto. His troublesome hamstring again put him out of action briefly, but in a seven-game August homestand, Rico hit three homers and drove in six runs, bringing his season totals to 20 and 68, new franchise records. That was his farewell performance for the Jays, who soon traded Carty to Oakland for Willie Horton, whose arrival in Cleveland had led to Rico’s departure.

Carty quickly made the trade look extremely one-sided in favor of the A’s. After going hitless in his first game, he went on a 15-game hitting streak — two short of the club record. He hit eight homers in his first 19 games with Oakland and continued to top Horton’s Toronto performance in every important offensive category. Carty’s 31 homers for the season were his career high and set a new record at the time for designated hitters.

Carty made it clear that he intended to test the free-agent market in 1979 and indicated that his next team would be his last. Even so, the Blue Jays reacquired Rico, believing they could sign him because they could play him every day.45 When Carty was granted free agency, four teams sought him, but the Blue Jays signed him to a five-year partly-guaranteed contract for $1.1 million plus an immediate loan of $120,000 — not bad for a 39-year-old player with a history of frequent injuries.46 Carty’s 31-page contract was described as “probably the bulkiest in the history of baseball.”47

After skipping winter ball, Carty pulled a calf muscle in spring training and hit under .200. The regular season saw no major improvements. In early June he was hitting only .250 and was the target of boos from Toronto fans. On July 1 he was benched after hitting only one homer in almost two months. Carty blamed his slump on a “freakish injury” — a swollen hand caused when he accidentally stabbed himself with a toothpick.48 That 1979 season had few highlights for Rico, but on August 6 he hit his 200th career home run, becoming the oldest player (at 39 years, 339 days) to achieve that milestone. Overall, however, it was his worst season except for 1973, when he had shuttled among three teams. When Jays manager Roy Hartsfield was fired after that season, he observed that it had been “hard to live with Rico Carty’s virtual lifetime deal.”49

Hartsfield’s successor did not have that challenge. Carty hit poorly in winter ball, where he was again hampered by a leg injury, and was still favoring his calf when spring training started. He was unconditionally released on March 29, 1980. His “lifetime” deal as a player had lasted one year, although he still worked for the Blue Jays as a Latin American scout.

Carty’s major-league playing days were over, and his lifetime batting average had dropped to .299. Early visions of superstardom had not been realized, but, despite losing two entire seasons to illness and injury, he had played 13 seasons in the majors. He was big (6-feet-2) and slow, but he was a natural-born hitter.   The flamboyant, self-described “Beeg Boy” made more comebacks than a boomerang, and few who saw him play will ever forget his aggressive right-handed swing and his trademark one-handed catches. He was a study in contrasts — known for his infectious grin and also for his fierce glare at the plate; popular because of his cheerful banter with fans yet branded a troublemaker. Carty argued that the latter reputation was unfounded, claiming he simply “stood up for his rights.”50 The record shows that he defended those rights frequently and that he was an equal-opportunity combatant, engaging in physical and/or verbal conflicts with teammates, managers, umpires, fans, local police, and at least one front office.

Rico Carty remained a hero in his homeland, where he lived as of 2014. During his playing days, he returned to the Dominican Republic almost every year to play winter ball, saying, “I owe my country a lot.”51 He retired as the Dominican League’s all-time home run leader (59). That record was eclipsed, but Carty’s legend survived. He didn’t get to Cooperstown, but he is enshrined in two Halls of Fame, the ones honoring heroes of Caribbean Baseball (1996’s inaugural class) and Latino Baseball (2011). He is an honorary general in the Dominican Army,52 and he once thought he had been elected mayor of his hometown until a recount proved otherwise.53

Baseball gave Carty financial security,54 and he stayed active in the game at home and elsewhere. In 1988 Rico led the Dominican team to a third-place finish in the first Men’s Senior Baseball League World Series and won the home run contest in the 40-plus age bracket. League founder Steve Sigler said, “He’s still an amazing hitter [at age 49], and he was the only one using a wooden bat.”55 He may have summarized Rico Carty’s career: The “Beeg Boy” could hit … and he did things his way.

Postscript

Carty died at the age of 85 on November 23, 2024.

Author’s note

I regret that this biography was completed without input from the subject. Extensive efforts to locate Rico Carty were fruitless. One representative of the Atlanta Braves said that Rico “has dropped off the map.” Obviously, there is plenty of information on his career; I hope I have done him justice. If not, I’m sure he will let me know.

Sources

Aaron, Hank, with Lonnie Wheeler. I Had A Hammer (New York: Harper-Collins, 1991).

Kurlansky, Mark. The Eastern Stars: How Baseball Changed the Dominican Town of San Pedro de Macoris (New York: Riverhead Books, 2010).

Ruck, Rob. The Tropic of Baseball: Baseball in the Dominican Republic (Lincoln, Nebraska: Bison Books, 1999).

—— Raceball: How the Major Leagues Colonized the Black and Latin Game (Boston: Beacon Press: 2011).

Atlanta Braves Illustrated Yearbooks (1966-1972)

Chop Talk, the official monthly magazine of the Atlanta Braves

Milwaukee Braves Yearbook, 1964

Milwaukee Journal, Sarasota Herald-Tribune, Sports Illustrated, baseball-almanac.com, baseballprospectus.com, baseball-reference.com, hardballtimes.com, MLBlogsNetwork (mlb.com), and retrosheet.org.

Notes

1 Bob Wolf, “Rookie Rico Set Off Tom-Tom Beating by Braves’ Faithful,” The Sporting News, July 25, 1964.

2 Wayne Minshew, “Friendly Rico Rates Tops on Tepee List,” The Sporting News, July 12, 1969.

3 Randy Galloway, “Carty Shuns DH Job — I’m No Invalid,” The Sporting News, March 24, 1973.

4 Rob Ruck, Raceball, 202-204.

5 Mark Kurlansky, The Eastern Stars: How Baseball Changed the Dominican Town of San Pedro de Macoris,

6 “Leafs Rave Over Kid Carty,” The Sporting News, April 20, 1963, 33.

7 Bob Wolf, “Braves Examine Hot-Shot Kids In 1964 Blue Print,” The Sporting News, September 28, 1963.

8 Chris Boone, “Carty Still Loves the Braves,” ChopTalk, April 26, 2006.

9 Bob Wolf, “Carty Rated Excellent Chance to Crash Braves Picket Party,” The Sporting News, January 18, 1964.

10 Bob Wolf, “Braves Load Their Bench With Wallop in Oliver Bat,” The Sporting News, January 16, 1965.

11 Bob Wolf, “Carty Lets Out Yelp In Bragan’s Doghouse,” The Sporting News, August 28, 1965.

12 Furman Bisher, “Ache-Free Carty May Put New Punch In Tepee Bats,” The Sporting News, March 19, 1966.

13 “ ‘Everybody at Convention Eyed Carty,’ Says McHale,” The Sporting News, December 17, 1966, 30.

14 “Aaron-Carty Feud Explodes on Plane After No-Hitter,” The Sporting News, July 1, 1967, 12.

15 Hank Aaron, with Lonnie Wheeler, I Had a Hammer, 190.

16 Wayne Minshew, “Braves Cut Price Tags, Seek Deals,” The Sporting News, October 7, 1967.

17 Jay Searcy, “Clete Takes Verbal Jab at Rico; ‘He Loafs,’ Claims Third Sacker,” The Sporting News, February 24, 1968.

18 Wayne Minshew, “TB Kayoes Carty for Year,” The Sporting News, April 13, 1968.

19 Wayne Minshew, “Same Old Rico — He’s Hitting a Ton,” The Sporting News, February 14, 1970.

20 The Sporting News, February 21, 1970: 49.

21 “Reed, Carty Have Fight Before Game,” Milwaukee Journal, August 21, 1970.

22 Frank Eck, “Two-Year Tempo of .356 Lifts Carty to Lofty .321 for Career,” The Sporting News, November 14, 1970.

23 Dick Young, “Young Ideas,” The Sporting News, September 12, 1970.

24 Wayne Minshew, “ ‘With God’s Help, I’ll Be Back’ — Carty,” The Sporting News, January 30, 1971.

25 “Smile — That Beeg Boy’s Coming Back to Braves,” The Sporting News, August 7, 1971: 30.

26 “Carty Beaten; Atlanta Policemen Suspended,” Sarasota Herald-Tribune, August 26, 1971.

27 Bob Fowler, “Killer, Oliva Express Doubt Over DH Rule,” The Sporting News, February 3, 1973.

28 Wayne Minshew, “Braves Swapping of Carty Puts Mathews on Hot Seat,” The Sporting News, November 18, 1972.

29 Merle Heryford, “Rangers Get Carty to Beef Up Attack,” The Sporting News, November 11, 1972.

30 Randy Galloway, “Herzog Seeking ‘Ballplayers, not Boy Scouts,” The Sporting News, December 23, 1972.

31 Oscar Kahan, “DH’s May Give Needed Hypo to AL,” The Sporting News, January 27, 1973.

32 Peter Carry, “Player of the Week,” Sports Illustrated, September 14, 1964

33 Wayne Minshew, “Carty Fires Volley at Mathews,” The Sporting News, April 7, 1973.

34 Jerome Holtzman, “Reuschel Hungry for 20-Win Season,” The Sporting News, May 19, 1973.

35 Merle Heryford, “Rico-Whitey Spat Ends in Truce,” The Sporting News, June 23, 1973.

36 Ron Bergman, “A’s Acorns,” The Sporting News, October 6.

37 Ron Bergman, “A’s Have a Credo: Do Jobs the Hard Way,” The Sporting News, October 27, 1973.

38 Sarasota Herald-Tribune, August 25, 1974.

39 Cleveland Indians roster, The Sporting News, March 15, 1975.

40 On his sentiments regarding the DH rule, see Russell Schneider, “Carty’s Ex-Bosses Wince — But Injuns Grin at Hot DH,” The Sporting News, June 12, 1976.

41 Milton Richman, “Average Regular’s Pay Rockets to $95,149,” The Sporting News, April 23, 1976.

42 Russell Schneider, “Tepee Totters From Oral Blasts at Robinson,” The Sporting News, May 14, 1977.

43 Russell Schneider, “Carty Exit Almost Certain After Hassle With Robby,” The Sporting News, June 25, 1977.

44 Neil McCarl, “Jays Get Carty and Bosetti to Beef Up Anemic Attack,” The Sporting News, April 1, 1978.

45 Neal McCarl, “Jays Miss Goal, Post 102 Losses,” The Sporting News, October 21, 1978.

46 Murray Chass, “Ten Aging Free Agents Hit $15 Million Jackpot,” The Sporting News, March 3, 1979.

47 Murray Chass, “Carty’s Pact 31 Pages Long,” The Sporting News, March 3, 1979.

48 Neil McCarl, “Howell Returns With Hot Bat and Tongue,” The Sporting News, July 21, 1979.

49 Stan Isle, “Kroc Also Big in Milk — Milk of Human Kindness,” The Sporting News, November 17, 1979.

50 Russell Schneider, “Rico’s Bat a Bargain Buy for Indians,” The Sporting News, September 14, 1974.

51 Rob Ruck, The Tropic of Baseball: Baseball in the Dominican Republic, 161.

52 Bruce Markusen, “Card Corner: Rico Carty,” Hardball Times, October 8, 2010.

53 Bruce Markusen, “Cooperstown Confidential,” MLBlogsNetwork, July 6, 2005 (mlb.com).

54 Rob Ruck, The Tropic of Baseball, 161.

55 Bob McCoy, “Keeping Score: Never Over the Hill,” The Sporting News, November 21, 1988.