Roberto’s father, Sandy Alomar, spent 15 years as a major-league infielder, and Roberto and his brother, also Sandy, spent most summers in major-league locker rooms. It was during these times that the brothers learned the intricacies of the game from the best players in the world – Nolan Ryan taught 4-year-old Roberto how to pitch while Ryan was a teammate of Sandy, Sr.’s on the Angels.1 Perhaps just as important, they also learned how to handle themselves like major-league ballplayers. The offseason brought with it the Puerto Rican Winter League (in which his father and three of his uncles all starred) and the annual Caribbean World Series.2 Roberto frequently made the trek to games with his father, sometimes completing his homework in the dugout.3

Roberto Alomar was born on February 5, 1968, in Ponce, on Puerto Rico’s south coast, to Santos (Sandy) and Maria (Velasquez) Alomar. He had an older brother, Santos Jr. (Sandy), and a sister, Sandia. They grew up in Salinas, 20 miles from Ponce. Roberto’s baseball ability and instincts were evident even as a boy. When he was 6 a scout reportedly saw him playing pepper and inquired of his father (presumably tongue in cheek) if he could sign him.4 By the age of 7, Roberto was selected as an all-star for the Salinas little league, but was declared ineligible when it was discovered that he was too young to play in the league.5 The time for Roberto to sign his first professional contract came soon enough. When he was 16 he signed with Caguas in the Puerto Rican Winter League, where he was managed by Felipe Alou.6 Alou later said that Roberto “was the best I had ever seen. He was a natural and definitely had the instincts that you just don’t teach.”7

On February 16, 1985, shortly after he turned 17, Roberto signed with the San Diego Padres – the same club for which his father was a coach and with which Sandy Jr. had signed two years earlier. While other teams (most notably Toronto) had expressed interest in the middle infielder and made higher offers than the approximately $50,000 Roberto received, Sandy Sr. had given his word to family friend and Padres scout Luis Rosa that Roberto would sign with the Padres.8

Unlike many newly signed minor leaguers, Roberto did not have to adjust to living on his own for the first time. He was assigned to the same team, Class-A Charleston in the South Atlantic League, for which his father was a coach and to which Sandy Jr. was also assigned. His mother also made the trip and the family lived together and provided a stable foundation as Roberto’s professional career began to flourish.9 Roberto hit .293 and stole 36 bases for Charleston, and his manager Jim Skaalen recalled that “He was tearing up the league against older college players.”10

Skaalen moved up along with Roberto the next season to Reno in the Class-A California League.11 His brother and father, however, did not. Sandy Jr. was ticketed for Double-A Wichita (Texas League) and Sandy Sr. was promoted to coach with the Padres. Roberto later recounted the challenges of his time in Reno: “In the minor leagues everything is different. I was making $700 a month. I had to pay for rent, utilities, food, clubhouse dues. All I had in the house I rented was a mattress on the floor, not even a table. I had no car and had to walk everywhere.”12

Skaalen, though, saw him maturing on and off the field: “He seemed more relaxed away from his dad and brother. He got stronger and seemed to be enjoying every day. He was far ahead of the rest of the talent at that level, and I began to see the good, solid major-league player he was going to become.”13 Whatever the challenges off the field, Alomar’s play certainly did not suffer. He led the league after 90 games with a .346 average and 123 hits, earning him a promotion to Double-A Wichita (and a reunion with Sandy Jr.).14 Sharing a one-bedroom apartment with his brother, Roberto continued his torrid pace and finished the season hitting .319 with 12 home runs and 43 stolen bases.15

Roberto’s minor-league success provided real hope going into the spring of 1988 that he could break camp with the Padres. His performance did nothing to dampen that enthusiasm, as he hit .360 and put together a 10-game hitting streak.16 Padres manager Larry Bowa noted that “this kid is a finished product. All he has to do is go out there and play. He has all the tools; just turn him loose.”17 The Padres, though, had been burned each of the prior two seasons when they tried to promote second basemen (Bip Roberts and Joey Cora) from Double A to the big leagues, and Bowa was directed to give Roberto the bad news that his season would begin at Triple-A Las Vegas, not San Diego.18 The 20-year-old Roberto took the news hard, tearfully retreating to the training room, where he was consoled by his father along with several teammates.

For his part, Bowa had no explanation for the sentence he was ordered to deliver: “I told him he did everything I asked,” said Bowa. “I just told him to keep his head up, that it’s a long season. The chances of Robbie coming to the big leagues in 1988 are pretty good.”19 They were pretty good indeed, as Roberto made quick work of the Pacific Coast League and was leading the league with 14 runs batted in when he was called up to San Diego 2½ weeks into the season.20

On April 22, 1988, Roberto stepped into the batter’s box as a major leaguer for the first time. On the mound was none other than Nolan Ryan – the same Nolan Ryan who had helped teach him to pitch as a toddler. Unfazed, he beat out an infield single in his first major league at-bat.21 Roberto finished the season with 145 hits, a .266 batting average, and 24 stolen bases, finishing fifth in the National League Rookie of the Year voting. He was even stronger the next season, his first full year in the big leagues, batting .295 with 42 stolen bases in 158 games.

Continuing his ascent onto the national radar, Roberto was selected for his first All-Star Game in 1990. What made the honor even more special was that Sandy Jr. (who had been traded to Cleveland), was also selected. The two became the first pair of brothers to be selected for an All-Star Game since Jim and Gaylord Perry in 1970.22 Sandy Sr. reflected on the accomplishments of his two sons: “People have to realize I’m very proud of my kids for the way they act as persons. And they have talent and know how to display that talent.”23

While it appeared that Roberto had established himself as a core piece of the Padres’ future, the Padres had other ideas. After the 1990 season the Padres and Blue Jays struck a blockbuster deal that sent Alomar and outfielder Joe Carter to Toronto in exchange for Fred McGriff and Gold Glove shortstop Tony Fernandez.24 Along with Alomar and Carter, Blue Jays general manager Pat Gillick had also added center fielder Devon White days earlier as Toronto worked to position itself in the competitive American League East.25 Padres’ general manager Joe McIlvaine said, “We just felt it was something we wanted to give a shot to. It was kind of a gutsy trade on both ends.”26 Roberto was shocked: “I didn’t expect it; I didn’t understand it,” he later recalled.27

Surprised or not, Roberto joined a collection of talented players in Toronto and paid immediate dividends north of the border, putting together an early six-game hitting streak as the Blue Jays streaked to the top of the American League East.28 In May, however, Roberto once again ran into the task of facing Nolan Ryan – now pitching for the Texas Rangers. With two outs in the top of the ninth, the 44-year-old Ryan was one out away from his seventh no-hitter when Roberto strode to the plate. As the Fort Worth Star Telegram put it 25 years later, “[T]he kid he’d once coached stood between Ryan and history.”29 Ryan had the last laugh; he struck out Alomar on a 2-and-2 fastball to end the game.30

Later in the season, Roberto was once again elected to the All-Star Game, this time as an American League teammate of Sandy Jr. The long ovation he received from the Toronto crowd served as confirmation of how the city had taken to him: “When I was introduced they gave me such a long, loud ovation, I never expected it,” Roberto said.31

As the season wore on, Alomar kept hitting and the Blue Jays kept winning, clinching the American League East. In his first postseason, Alomar’s.474 batting average could not keep Toronto from being eliminated in five games by the Minnesota Twins. Alomar won his first Gold Glove, and it was clear that the Blue Jays were set to contend in the years to come. The offseason brought with it new riches as well: a three-year, $14 million contract that was the highest at the time on three fronts – for a second baseman, for a player 24 or younger, and for a player with four years or less in the major leagues.32 The average annual value of $4,666,667 made Alomar the ninth-highest paid player in the game.33

Bolstered by the acquisition of Dave Winfield in the offseason and David Cone in August, the Blue Jays again clinched the American League East in 1992. At midseason Alomar returned to San Diego for the first time since being traded and participated in the All-Star Game – once again with Sandy Jr. as a teammate.34

Alomar was named the most valuable player in the ALCS, with the most memorable moment being his game-tying two run home run off A’s closer Dennis Eckersley in the ninth inning of Game Four. He relished the opportunity to be part of the first Blue Jays team to reach the World Series: “I wasn’t here when they didn’t win in the past. … I just want to be here in the present when we win the big one, so we won’t have to hear anymore about the past.35 Alomar continued his clutch hitting and superb defense in the World Series, and helped the Blue Jays defeat Atlanta for their first championship. Alomar’s contributions led Dave Winfield to comment that “You’re one of the best players I’ve ever seen.”36 Manager Cito Gaston agreed: “I could talk about Robbie for an hour,” he said.37

After a slow start in 1993, the Blue Jays took off yet again and Alomar had career highs in numerous categories, including 55 stolen bases and 17 home runs. In the ALCS against the Chicago White Sox, he stole four bases as the Blue Jays won, four games to two. In the World Series, against the Philadelphia Phillies, Alomar hit .480 and drove in six runs as the Blue Jays, on Joe Carter’s game-winning home run in Game Six, won the World Series for the second year in a row.38

With two World Series titles in his back pocket, it was hard to imagine things ever going wrong for Alomar in Toronto. But go wrong they did. After a strike-shortened 1994 season, the Blue Jays began to take a step back in 1995 and look toward the future. This included trading veteran David Cone in July – a move that Alomar protested by sitting out the next game.39 Alomar was also removed from a game in early July when a fan, Tricia Miller, walked into the Skydome hotel where he lived and told employees that she planned to kill him.40 Alomar said, “I wasn’t shaken by it. I never knew that person. I never really knew what was happening. Cito told me in the dugout. They took me out of the game, but they had caught her by then, so I don’t know why.”41

By the end of the season, with rumors swirling about his future, Alomar was unhappy with what he felt was unfair treatment by the Toronto front office and local media:

“I never said that I want to be traded. … They made it sound like I said, ‘Trade me now, I want out of here.’ And the fans believed what they read in the papers. When I stood out on the field in Toronto and heard them booing me, I knew they didn’t understand or know what the truth was. I hadn’t said anything like what the writers wrote. But I could do nothing about it, and I learned how the media is.”42

With no offer from the Blue Jays, Alomar was ready to hit free agency: “If [the Blue Jays] had offered me something before the All-Star break, then maybe I would’ve thought about it and gone for it. Now you’re in the last week of the season. … Now maybe it’s time for me to try the market.”43

At 27 years old and already a six-time All-Star, Alomar inked a three-year, $18 million contract with the Baltimore Orioles in December 1995.44 He was thrilled to team up with fellow All-Star Cal Ripken Jr.: “I never expected to play alongside one of the legends of baseball. … It’s going to be like a dream come true for me.”45

Alomar carried his winter-ball success (he led the league in hitting) over to Baltimore, going on a tear to begin the season, hitting .410 in the beginning part of June.46 Former teammate Tony Gwynn heaped praise on the player Alomar had become, saying, “He has the ability to hit a home run, or work the count and hit a double down the opposite line and do whatever he wants to do. He’s probably the best all-around player in the game.”47 Alomar went on to make his seventh consecutive All-Star Game, collect his sixth consecutive Gold Glove and set numerous career highs as the Orioles clinched the American League wild-card playoff spot.48

Perhaps the most memorable moment of the season, however, occurred during a late-September game in Toronto. After being called out on strikes in the top of the first, Alomar argued with home-plate umpire John Hirschbeck on his way back to the dugout. When Hirschbeck threw him out of the game, Alomar returned to the field. During the course of the argument, Alomar took offense to being called a derogatory name, and spit in Hirschbeck’s face.49

Alomar apologized and donated $50,000 toward research into Lou Gehrig’s disease, which Hirschbeck’s son had.50 This did nothing to prevent his being relentlessly booed for the remainder of the season and the playoffs, or from receiving a five-game suspension to be served at the start of the 1997 season.51

Alomar delivered a game-tying two-out single in the deciding Game Four of the Division Series against Cleveland, and then hit the game-winning home run in the 12th inning.52 Brother and Indians catcher Sandy Alomar Jr. said, “He’s my brother and with all the things that happened with this incident, I felt kind of sorry for him.”53 Roberto was ready to turn the page on the incident: “I’ve been going through a tough time. … Human beings make mistakes. I apologized to the umpire, his family, and all of baseball. It’s time to move on.”54 The Orioles did move on to the ALCS, but were eliminated in five games by the New York Yankees on their way to the World Series title.

The fact that Alomar was even allowed to play in the playoffs did not sit well with many, including major-league umpires. When it was announced that his suspension would be delayed until the next season, the umpires voted to not work the playoffs unless the suspension was changed to apply to the first round.55 The boycott was abandoned, however, when an agreement was worked out in a Philadelphia federal court.56

After he served his five-game suspension to start the 1997 season, Alomar helped the Orioles to 98 wins and the American League East crown. He also took the first step toward putting the spitting incident behind him, publicly shaking hands with Hirschbeck near first base in April before the first Orioles game Hirschbeck called since the incident.57 Several nagging injuries pestered Alomar throughout the season, including a nagging groin injury in late July that made him miss close to a month of playing time. Alomar said the injury “made me grow up. I now knew what it was like to be hurt and what you had to do to come back.”58 After defeating the Mariners in the Division Series, the Orioles came up short of the World Series yet again, this time losing to Sandy and the Cleveland Indians in six games.

The Orioles were nowhere near contention in 1998. The season was not without its highlights though, as Roberto collected three hits (one of them a home run) and the All-Star Game MVP award in Denver, making the Alomar brothers back-to-back winners of the award since Sandy had won the year before. As his three-year contract with the Orioles came to a close, Roberto once again found himself on the free-agent market.

It did not take long for Roberto to find a new home. He signed a four-year contract with the Indians, reuniting with Sandy.59 “It means a lot to be beside my brother, not only to me but to my family,” Roberto said.60 Indians general manager John Hart stated the obvious: “We are elated to have the Alomar brothers in the Indians family.”61 In addition to Sandy, the move to Cleveland also allowed Roberto to team with shortstop Omar Vizquel, who along with Roberto had also won six Gold Gloves. “It would be worth the price of a ticket just to watch Omar and Robbie turn a double play,” said Hart.62

Free from the injuries that plagued him in 1998, Alomar made an immediate impact on the Indians. “Robbie is one of the few players in the game that can make everybody around him better,” Indians manager Mike Hargrove said.63 The Indians had compiled an enviable offense that exploded out of the gates, and Alomar ended the year with what proved to be a career high 24 home runs. He finished third in the MVP voting (the highest he would ever finish). His hot hitting continued in the playoffs; he went 5-for-8 while the Indians surged to a 2-0 series lead over the Red Sox in the ALDS.64 The Tribe would not win again, however, and fell in five games.65

Although things did not turn out as hoped in October, a late-season meeting helped Alomar to finally turn the page on the spitting incident, which had continued to follow him through the jeers of fans around the country. On September 5, during a rain delay at Camden Yards, John Hirschbeck and family came knocking on the visitor’s clubhouse door, asking for Roberto. Hirschbeck’s 13-year-old son was a fan, and wanted to meet Roberto. The moment together allowed both families to heal. “I don’t see why he should be booed,” Hirschbeck said afterward. “If he and I can forgive and forget, why not everyone else?”66

The next two seasons also ended in disappointment for the Indians. In 2000 they missed the playoffs altogether despite winning 90 games. They charged back to the playoffs in 2001, but fell in five games in the ALDS to the Seattle Mariners. Alomar won Gold Gloves and was an All-Star in both seasons, and stole a combined 69 bases. He still looked to be in his prime with one year left on his contract. But another change of scenery was in store.

On December 11, 2001, the Indians traded Alomar, pitcher Mike Bacsik, and first baseman Danny Peoples to the New York Mets in exchange for outfielders Matt Lawton and Alex Escobar, relief pitcher Jerrod Riggan, and two players to be named later.67 While the move was designed to clear payroll and acquire younger talent, Indians general manager Mark Shapiro knew that the deal would not sit well with all fans. “I think I’ll need a flak jacket when I get off the plane [from the winter meetings], probably,” he said.68 Alomar said he was “kind of disappointed … I was real happy in Cleveland and thought I did a great job.”69 Mets General Manager Steve Phillips was elated: “We sit up in that room and all we do is dream all day about different scenarios,” he said, adding that “I have to admit that I thought this was a long shot.”70

But what had seemed like a dream scenario for Phillips at the Winter Meetings would soon turn into a nightmare. The Mets came nowhere near meeting expectations, finishing in last place in the National League East, 26½ games out of first place. Alomar also began to show the first sign of decline, hitting .266 and snapping his 12-year streak of appearances in the All-Star Game. The 2003 season began much the same way, with Alomar hitting.262 on July 1 when the Mets shipped him to the White Sox for three prospects.71

All told, Alomar played only 222 games for the Mets, and for his part understood that he did not perform at the high level that the Mets, and he himself, had expected. “Sometimes, you put too much pressure on yourself in New York, and maybe I did that,” he said.72 Along with providing a change of scenery, joining the White Sox allowed him to reunite again with Sandy.73 But Roberto hit only .253 down the stretch and the White Sox finished in second place in the American League Central, missing the playoffs.

A free agent once again, Alomar signed a one-year deal in the offseason with the Arizona Diamondbacks in the hopes of rejuvenating his career. “If I can get in good shape, I think I can play the way I used to play,” he said.74 Despite missing 56 games with a broken right hand suffered when he was hit by a pitch in late April, he did indeed experience a resurgence of sorts in his limited time on the field with Arizona, carrying a .309 batting average into early August.75 With the Diamondbacks hopelessly out of contention, Alomar was once again an attractive commodity for teams looking to add a veteran presence for the stretch run. So it was that the White Sox acquired him for the second consecutive season. Alomar struggled mightily in sporadic action, though, batting only .180 in 65 plate appearances as the White Sox once again missed the playoffs.

After multiple seasons of declining performance, Alomar made one last run at extending his career, this time with Tampa Bay, signing a one-year, $600,000 contract in January.76 When he committed multiple errors in one inning of a spring training game, however, he decided it was time to walk away. “I played a lot of games and I said I would never embarrass myself on the field,” he said, adding, “I had a long career, but I can’t play at the level I want to play, so it’s time to retire. I just can’t go anymore. My back, legs and eyes aren’t the same.”77 Alomar concluded his 17-year career with a .300 batting average, 2,724 hits, 210 home runs, and 474 stolen bases to go along with 12 All-Star Game selections and 10 Gold Glove awards.

There was no question that Cooperstown would be the final stop of Alomar’s career. With some Hall voters still holding the Hirschbeck incident against him, though, he came up eight votes short of admission in his first year of eligibility, in 2010. “I feel disappointed, but next year hopefully I make it in,” he said, adding that “at least I was close.”78 Some sportswriters were not as gracious in their assessment of the snub. The Chicago Tribune’s Phil Rogers wrote, “If anybody didn’t vote for Robbie because of the spitting incident, then shame on them.”79

Whatever the concerns some Hall voters had in Alomar’s first year of eligibility, resistance to his election was all but nonexistent the next year. He was named on 90 percent of the ballots, far over the 75 percent needed for induction into the Hall of Fame.80 Even Alomar was surprised by the drastic increase in support from the previous year. “I didn’t expect to get that many votes,” he said.81

Alomar, who went into the Hall wearing a Blue Jays cap, opened his induction speech in Spanish and spoke fondly of his father’s and brother’s impact on his life and career.82 Sandy Jr. recounted the brothers’ year-long wager as teammates/roommates for Class-A Charleston: “We said whoever had the best game, would get the bed. I slept on the couch the whole year.”83 He added, “We didn’t win a championship together but we won this together. And this is a big one. In my heart, you are a Hall of Famer.”84

Statistics aside, it is the way Alomar’s former teammates describe him that truly tells the story of the player that he was. Toronto teammate Pat Hentgen, asked how he described Alomar to present-day players, said, “I tell them Robbie was a career .300 hitter, a clutch hitter, a guy who could hit for power, a great baserunner and basestealer … and (pause) his best asset of all was his glove.”85 The Orioles’ B.J. Surhoff perhaps best summed up Alomar’s baseball career: “Robbie could beat you with the bunt, with the extra base, with the homer. He could beat you with a stolen base. He could beat you by going from first to third, a baserunning move. He could beat you by making plays in the field. Robbie’s a baseball player. And a damn good one at that.”86

Alomar continued to be involved in baseball after his retirement. In January of 2016, he and his wife, Kim, launched Foundation 12, a Canadian charitable organization serving youth baseball players, though the organization does not appear to be currently active as of 2022. In 2021, Alomar was placed on the ineligible list by Major League Baseball following an investigation into a 2014 sexual assault allegation.87 Alomar stated that he was “disappointed, surprised, and upset” with the decision, and that he would “continue to spend my time helping kids pursue their baseball dreams.”88

Last revised: March 9, 2022

Notes

1 “25 Years Later, Nolan Ryan Remembers His Seventh No-Hitter,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, April 30, 2016, star-telegram.com/sports/mlb/texas-rangers/article74925477.html.

2 Norman L. Macht, Roberto Alomar (Childs, Maryland: Mitchell Lane Publishers, Inc., 1999), 9-11.

3 Macht, 3.

4 Macht, 10.

5 “Like Father Like Son?: Padres Think Roberto Alomar Is a Bit More Than a Chip Off the Old Block,” Los Angeles Times, April 22, 1988, articles.latimes.com/1988-04-22/sports/sp-2096_1_roberto-alomar.

6 Macht, 15.

7 Macht, 15.

8 Macht, 16.

9 Macht, 16.

10 Macht, 17.

11 Macht, 18.

12 Macht, 18.

13 Macht, 19.

14 Macht, 19

15 Macht, 21.

16 “Padre Notebook: Few Except Feeney Appear Satisfied as Roberto Alomar Is Sent Down,” Los Angeles Times, March 26, 1988, articles.latimes.com/1988-03-26/sports/sp-354_1_roberto-alomar.

17 Macht, 23.

18 “Padre Notebook.”

19 “Padre Notebook.”

20 “Like Father Like Son?”

21 Macht, 25-26.

22 “Alomars an All-Star Family: Padres: Roberto Alomar, Along With Teammate Tony Gywnn, Is Named an NL Reserve. Brother Sandy Had Already Been Selected as The Starting AL Catcher for Tuesday’s Game,” Los Angeles Times, July 6, 1990, articles.latimes.com/1990-07-06/sports/sp-113_1_sandy-alomar-jr.

23 “Alomars an All-Star Family.”

24 “Blue Jays Land Carter, Alomar From Padres San Diego Gets Fernandez and McGriff in Deal,” Baltimore Sun, December 5, 1990, articles.baltimoresun.com/1990-12-06/sports/1990340005_1_blue-jays-fred-mcgriff-tony-fernandez.

25 “Blue Jays Land Carter, Alomar From Padres San Diego Gets Fernandez and McGriff in Deal.”

26 “Blue Jays Land Carter, Alomar From Padres San Diego Gets Fernandez and McGriff in Deal.”

27 Macht, 31.

28 “Padres Winning December Deal Looks Like Tie With Blue Jays in April,” Baltimore Sun, April 21, 1991, articles.baltimoresun.com/1991-04-21/sports/1991111135_1_blue-jays-roberto-alomar-deal.

29 “25 Years Later.”

30 “25 Years Later.”

31 Macht, 33.

32 “Cadaret and 8 Others Settle Contract,” New York Times, February 8, 1992, nytimes.com/1992/02/08/sports/baseball-cadaret-and-8-others-settle-contracts.html.

33 “Cadaret and 8 Others Settle Contract,”

34 Macht, 35.

35 “Blue Jays Eck Out a 7-6 Victory in 11: AL Game 4: Alomar’s Two-Run Homer Off Eckersley Ties It in Ninth as A’s Blow 6-1 Lead,” Los Angeles Times, October 12, 1992, articles.latimes.com/1992-10-12/sports/sp-138_1_blue-jays.

36 Macht, 37.

37 “Alomar’s MVP Play Points to New Star,” Baltimore Sun, October 15, 1992, articles.baltimoresun.com/1992-10-15/sports/1992289072_1_alomar-blue-jays-toronto.

38 Macht, 42.

39 Macht, 43-44.

40 “Orioles’ Multitalented Alomar Is Second to None,” Washington Post, March 31, 1996, washingtonpost.com/archive/sports/1996/03/31/orioles-multitalented-alomar-is-second-to-none/b8cd697d-9630-464e-bcd9-84d6ba8db8cf/?utm_term=.9d34bd1c1107.

41 “Orioles’ Multitalented Alomar Is Second to None.”

42 Macht, 44.

43 “Jays’ Alomar in No Rush to Decide ’96 Destination He, Molitor Express Interest in Joining Ripken,” Baltimore Sun, September 27, 1995, articles.baltimoresun.com/1995-09-27/sports/1995270116_1_alomar-blue-jays-second-baseman.

44 “O’s Wave Money Wand Building Winner: Signing Six-Time All-Star Roberto Alomar Adds Exclamation Mark to New General Manager’s Swift Revamping of Orioles,” Baltimore Sun, December 22, 1995, articles.baltimoresun.com/1995-12-22/news/1995356066_1_gillick-orioles-roberto-alomar. New manager Davey Johnson was informed of the signing in the dentist’s chair when he answered a call from General Manager Pat Gillick who said, “Well, you’ve got yourself an All-Star second baseman.” Johnson claimed to not feel any pain for the remainder of the day. “Alomar finds O’s 2nd to none Six-time All-Star signs, three-year, $18 million deal,” Baltimore Sun, December 22, 1995, articles.baltimoresun.com/1995-12-22/sports/1995356093_1_roberto-alomar-cone-orioles.

45 Macht, 47.

46 Macht, 46, 51-52.

47 “Alomar Hitting His Prime at Plate,” Los Angeles Times, May 28, 1996, articles.latimes.com/1996-05-28/sports/sp-9201_1_alomar-hitting.

48 Macht, 51-52.

49 Macht, 52-53.

50 Macht, 54.

51 Macht, 54.

52 “Alomar Shows Some Spit and Polish,” Los Angeles Times, October 6, 1996, articles.latimes.com/1996-10-06/sports/sp-51279_1_sandy-alomar.

53 “Alomar Shows Some Spit and Polish.”

54 “Alomar Shows Some Spit and Polish.”

55 “Umpires Vote to Boycott Over Alomar,” New York Times, October 1, 1996, nytimes.com/1996/10/01/sports/umpires-vote-to-boycott-over-alomar.html.

56 “Umpires Abandon Boycott,” Los Angeles Times, October 2, 1996, articles.latimes.com/1996-10-02/sports/sp-49681_1_umpires-working-game.

57 Macht, 57.

58 Macht, 59.

59 Macht, 62.

60 “Cleveland Lures Roberto Alomar,” CBS News, November 23, 1998, cbsnews.com/news/cleveland-lures-roberto-alomar/.

61 “Cleveland Lures Roberto Alomar.”

62 “Cleveland Lures Roberto Alomar.”

63 “Alomar: Villain Turned Hero in Cleveland,” Los Angeles Times, June 27, 1999, articles.latimes.com/1999/jun/27/sports/sp-50609.

64 “Baines Goes Deep as Indians Move One Game From Sweep,” Baltimore Sun, October 8, 1999, articles.baltimoresun.com/1999-10-08/sports/9910080129_1_roberto-alomar-baines-cleveland.

65 “Red Sox Ace Out Indians,” Los Angeles Times, October 12, 1999, articles.latimes.com/1999/oct/12/sports/sp-22770/2.

66 “Score One for Friendship,” Baltimore Sun, October 27, 1999, articles.baltimoresun.com/1999-10-27/news/9910270108_1_roberto-alomar-john-hirschbeck-holy-water/3.

67 “Indians Trade Alomar to Mets,” Southeast Missourian (Cape Girardeau, Missouri), December 12, 2001, semissourian.com/story/54375.html.

68 “Indians Trade Alomar to Mets,” CBC Sports, December 11, 2001, cbc.ca/sports/baseball/indians-trade-alomar-to-mets-1.257404.

69 “Indians Trade Alomar to Mets,” CBC Sports.

70 “Indians trade Alomar to Mets,” Southeast Missourian, December 12, 2001, www.semissourian.com/story/54375.html.

71 “Mets Trade Roberto Alomar to White Sox,” New York Times, July 1, 2003, nytimes.com/2003/07/01/sports/baseball/mets-trade-roberto-alomar-to-white-sox.html.

72 “Mets Trade Roberto Alomar to White Sox.”

73 Sandy Alomar signed with Chicago prior to the 2003 season.

74 “Alomar Jr. Joins Diamondbacks, CBC Sports, January 7, 2004, cbc.ca/sports/baseball/alomar-jr-joins-diamondbacks-1.516620.

75 “Diamondbacks Trade Alomar to White Sox,” Orlando Sentinel, August 6, 2004, articles.orlandosentinel.com/2004-08-06/sports/0408060185_1_dominican-republic-clemens-white-sox.

76 “Notebook: Roberto Alomar: “It’s Time to Retire,” Seattle Times, March 20, 2005, seattletimes.com/sports/notebook-roberto-alomar-its-time-to-retire/.

77 “Notebook: Roberto Alomar: “It’s Time to Retire.”

78 “Hall Passes: Alomar 8 Short,” Baltimore Sun, January 7, 2010, articles.baltimoresun.com/2010-01-07/sports/1001060140_1_hall-s-veterans-committee-john-hirschbeck-roberto-alomar.

79 “Hall Passes: Alomar 8 Short.”

80 “Alomar, Blyleven Elected to Hall of Fame,” Baltimore Sun, January 5, 2011, articles.baltimoresun.com/2011-01-05/sports/bs-sp-hallofame-01-20110105_1_sandy-alomar-sr-pitcher-bert-blyleven-induction.

81 “Alomar, Blyleven Elected to Hall of Fame.”

82 “Alomar, Blyleven and Gillick Enter Baseball Hall of Fame,” USA Today, July 24, 2011, usatoday30.usatoday.com/sports/baseball/hallfame/2011-07-24-hall-of-fame-alomar-blyleven_n.htm.

83 “Alomar, Blyleven and Gillick Enter Baseball Hall of Fame.”

84 “Alomar, Blyleven and Gillick Enter Baseball Hall of Fame.”

85 “Robbie Was Best of the Best,” Toronto Sun, July 16, 2011, torontosun.com/2011/07/16/robbie-was-best-of-the-best.

86 “Alomar Falls Just Short in First Bid for Hall of Fame,” Baltimore Sun, January 7, 2010, articles.baltimoresun.com/2010-01-07/sports/bal-sp.alomar07jan07_1_roberto-alomar-greatest-second-basemen-ballot/2.

87 Keegan Matheson, “MLB Puts Roberto Alomar on Ineligible List,” MLB.com, April 30, 2021. https://www.mlb.com/news/mlb-puts-roberto-alomar-on-ineligible-list

88 “MLB puts Roberto Alomar on Ineligible List.”

Santos Alomar Conde was born in Salinas, Puerto Rico on October 19, 1943. His parents were Demetrio Alomar Palmieri, a sugar-mill machine operator, and Rosa Conde Santiago. There were eight children overall in the family.1 Small in stature at 5’9” and 140 to 155 pounds, Sandy was the only one of the family’s four ballplaying brothers to make it to the major leagues. Antonio (Tony) and Rafael got as high as Triple-A; Demetrio played Class C and D ball. All played in the Puerto Rican Winter League (PRWL).

The Alomar baseball heritage was also visible on the maternal side. Rosa’s cousin, Ceferino “Cefo” Conde, pitched 14 seasons in the PRWL, from 1938-39 through 1952-53. Infielder Ramón “Wito” Conde, Cefo’s son, played pro ball from the early 1950s through the early 1970s – including 14 games with the Chicago White Sox in 1962.

Santos starred for both Luis Muñoz Rivera High School in his hometown and for the local American Legion team. He signed as an amateur free agent with the Milwaukee Braves before the 1960 season, receiving a bonus of about $12,000. The scout was Luis Olmo, the second Puerto Rican to play in the majors. Olmo had seen Alomar ever since he was a youth in Little League and Pony ball.2 Sandy was just 16 when he signed at the same time with brother Demetrio, who was then 21. He was supposed to report to Eau Claire, Wisconsin in the Class C Northern League after the school year ended.3 As it developed, though, he did not play in the U.S. in 1960. He was on the restricted list (perhaps because of his age).4

Still only 17 in 1961, Alomar began his ride on the minor league whirlwind still familiar to young players. To his delight, when he landed in the Midwest League, he found himself teamed with Demetrio in the Davenport, Iowa infield. He later admitted that this fortuitous situation helped make his transition to American baseball more comfortable.5 He made stops in (among other places) Austin, Boise – where he hit a lofty .329 in 1962 – and Denver. Alomar began his PRWL career in the winter of 1961-62 with the Arecibo Lobos. He spent six seasons with the Wolves, followed by six with the Ponce Leones.

Alomar was called up from Milwaukee’s Triple-A Denver club in September 1964. He made his major league debut on September 15, a little over a month shy of his 21st birthday. He started at shortstop in the first game of a doubleheader at County Stadium and batted eighth, singling in a run in his first at-bat off St. Louis left-hander Ray Sadecki. A popup and groundout followed, before a pinch-hitter replaced him leading off the eighth. Besides batting 1-for-3, Alomar also made an error in the 11-6 loss. He started at short again in the second game, but had the misfortune of facing ace Bob Gibson, who struck Alomar out twice.

In 53 at-bats over 19 games in his first big-league stint, Alomar hit .245 with a double and 6 RBIs. He played the bulk of the following year for the Atlanta Crackers, which had become the Braves’ AAA team that season. He did appear in 67 more games for the big club, however, batting .241 with 8 RBIs while playing second base as well as shortstop. He also stole 12 bases.

The Braves’ major league franchise made its heralded move to Atlanta to start the 1966 season, but Alomar’s opportunities to make an impression were growing fewer. Spending most of that season in Richmond (the Braves’ new AAA home), Sandy – now playing mainly second base – got only 44 at-bats with the major league club, collecting merely a double and three singles for an .091 average. In 117 total games for the Braves over parts of three seasons, Alomar hit just .210 with four extra base hits, 16 runs batted in, and only 13 steals. He had made nine errors in the infield. Alomar’s days with the team that brought him to the United States were quickly coming to an end.

Before the 1967 season, the Braves sent Sandy to Houston as the player to be named later in a deal that had brought future Hall of Famer Eddie Mathews to the Astros. A month later, however, Houston moved him along to New York for utilityman Derrell Griffith. The Mets, entering only their sixth season as a major league franchise, were looking for a versatile infielder – shortstop Bud Harrelson was not yet ready and veteran second baseman Chuck Hiller was considered a weak glove man. “It was a case of trading a good bat for a good glove and speed,” explained Mets GM Bing Devine.6

Looking for a way to expand his value at the plate, Alomar came to camp determined to become a switch-hitter, something he had tried in his rookie season with the Braves with limited success. Unfortunately, the results didn’t change. He spent most of the year with the Mets’ International League team in Jacksonville, playing all four infield positions and the outfield but hitting only .209. When the Mets did recall him, Sandy got just 22 at-bats without a hit (this 0-for-22 streak stood for a time as a Met record for hitless futility.) And before the season was over, he was gone.

On August 15th, Alomar was once again a player named later. He was shipped to the White Sox to complete an earlier deal that had also sent third-base great Ken Boyer to Chicago. It was at this point that Alomar became disillusioned. “It was a nightmare,” he told a reporter in an interview three years later when asked about the season in which he was on the roster of four different major league teams. “Like a piece of garbage…They treat me like I was something they could throw away when they want to…They brainwash me. They tell me I cannot hit, that I good glove man…they say I am too little to not wear down. They make me believe these things myself…almost.” However, he had a backer in the White Sox organization: coach Grover Resinger, who knew him from his days with the Braves and from the minor leagues.7

When he had been sent back to the minors in June 1967, Alomar admitted he had thought of quitting and going back to Puerto Rico. “And then I look at my four mouths to feed and one on the way…and I think that for one last chance Sandy will go to the minors.”8 Santos Jr. had been born during the 1966 season while his dad was playing in Atlanta; Roberto was the “one on the way.” The first Alomar child was a daughter named Sandia. Sandy and María Angelita Velázquez had gotten married on December 23, 1963.9

In the Second City, however, Alomar’s prospects began to brighten. He appeared in only 12 games during the remainder of the 1967 season, but in 1968, Sox manager Eddie Stanky finally made Sandy a regular. Under the tutelage of scout and hitting instructor Deacon Jones, Alomar upped his average to .253, at one point in the season reaching .274. Infield mate Luis Aparicio was impressed: “That fellow has improved 150%,” remarked the future Hall of Famer.10

That winter, Ponce won the first of back to-back PRWL championships. Rocky Bridges, then a coach for the California Angels, managed the 1968-69 squad. Unfortunately, Alomar had a slow start to the ’69 big-league season. He was traded again, to the Angels on May 14th, in a package for infielder Bobby Knoop. Though Knoop was coming off three consecutive Gold Glove awards, the Angels thought Alomar could do everything except make the pivot as well as or better than Knoop.11

Angels’ manager Bill Rigney thought he saw in Alomar a chance to kick-start his lineup from the top. “We’ve never had a leadoff hitter,” said Rigney. “If we’re going to do it with singles, we might as well do it with speed, too.” Rocky Bridges was also excited: “Sandy can run,” he remarked. “He’ll create excitement. The fans will be looking for him to go every time he’s on first.”12

It was in Anaheim that Sandy Alomar finally settled down. Installed as the everyday second baseman, Alomar had almost 600 plate appearances in 1969, hitting a passable .250 with 30 RBIs, though he stole only 18 bases. With Ponce that winter, the Leones repeated as PRWL champs. The skipper was Alomar’s double-play partner with the Angels, Jim Fregosi, in his first job as manager.

If Angel fans were truly looking for Alomar to run every time he got on first, they felt much more confident in 1970. Playing the full 162-game schedule for the first time, Alomar hit .251 in 672 at-bats, driving in 36 runs and swiping 35 bases. He also walked 49 times with only 65 strikeouts, helping make him the leadoff hitter the Angels had been hoping for.

Alomar’s season was impressive enough for him to be named as an AL reserve in the All-Star Game after Rod Carew was injured. He took great pride in having his hard work recognized.13 At Cincinnati’s Riverfront Stadium, he went hitless in his one at-bat, flying out against Claude Osteen in the top of the 12th in what’s remembered as the “Pete Rose-Ray Fosse” game.

Alomar’s professional peak was the 1970-71 winter season. He hit a league-leading .343 in 251 at-bats for Ponce and was named the PRWL’s Most Valuable Player. The Leones finished in fourth among the league’s six teams that season, however, and were knocked out in the semi-finals.

The next season with the Angels proved to be Alomar’s most successful in the majors. Now 27 years old, he collected close to 700 at-bats for the second year in a row and hit a new high, batting .260. He also set personal career bests with 179 hits, 42 RBIs, and 39 stolen bases. In addition, he set a major-league record by coming to the plate 739 times without being hit by a pitch (Alomar was struck by a pitched ball only three times in 15 seasons).

Overall, Alomar enjoyed the most productive stretch of his career in Southern California – in a period covering four full seasons and parts of two others, Sandy appeared in close to 800 games, hitting .248 with 162 RBIs; he stole 139 bases in 186 attempts. At 30 years old, the veteran infielder felt he had finally made his mark. Alomar played in a remarkable 648 consecutive games in one stretch from 1969 through September 1973, until he suffered a broken leg when Jerry Hairston Sr. slammed into him while breaking up a double play. This streak – which earned Alomar the nickname “The Iron Pony” – is still 19th-longest in big-league history.

Alomar sat out the 1973-74 winter season in Puerto Rico while he recovered from his broken leg. Meanwhile, in December 1973, the Angels acquired second baseman Denny Doyle from the Philadelphia Phillies. Doyle won the starting job in California that spring, and in July 1974, after playing in just 54 games as a reserve, Alomar was on the move again. His contract was sold to the New York Yankees, who had parted ways with their second baseman since 1967, Horace Clarke, that May.

The change of scenery helped – Alomar batted .269 in 76 games while playing second base in the Bronx. When he came back for the 1974-75 season in Puerto Rico, he was a member of the Santurce Cangrejeros. He played in five seasons for the Crabbers.

The whole Yankee team got off to a slow start in the 1975 season. Sandy was hitting a meager .205 and even floundering in the field. He began to question himself. “When I’m in my room by myself, that’s when I think about the way I am going,” he mused. “I think, ‘Why do you do this when you could have done that? Why do you miss that pitch…why do you miss that ball?’…There are times when I ask myself whether I can hit or not.

“Sometimes I go to a restaurant and I order and I don’t feel like eating…I know, myself, that I’m a better hitter than what I’m doing now. A baseball player – you have to accept the ups and the downs.”14

Still, the Yankees, meandering to an 83-win, third-place finish in the AL East, kept Alomar in the lineup almost every day. He ended the season hitting .239 in 151 games with 28 steals. His .975 fielding percentage led all major leaguers at the keystone base.

In the Yankees’ pennant-winning year of 1976, Alomar, now a utilityman with the emergence of young second baseman Willie Randolph, did everything on the field except pitch and catch. He appeared in 67 games and mirrored his previous season, hitting .239.

More importantly, for the first time in his major league career, Alomar found himself in the post-season, as the Yankees won the AL East and then their first pennant since 1964. In the AL Championship Series against Kansas City, Sandy went 0-for-1 in his single plate appearance, flying out as a pinch-hitter to end New York’s 7-4 defeat in Game Four. He was also called on to pinch-run, but was caught stealing second base to end the sixth, in what ultimately turned out to be a Yankee win when Chris Chambliss homered in the bottom of the ninth to win the series. Alomar did not appear in the World Series in that or any other year.

His value as a utility player made him attractive to other teams, however, and the Texas Rangers traded for him in February 1977, in a deal that sent infielder Brian Doyle to the Bronx. Over parts of the next two seasons, Alomar continued in his role as utilityman, hitting .265, mostly as a DH. In 1978, his U.S. career came to a close; he got only 29 at-bats and collected only six hits. He was released by the Rangers at the end of the year.

The final numbers in the majors for Santos Alomar Sr. are not imposing. Over a 15-year major league career and over 4,700 at-bats, he hit just .245 with 13 homers, 282 RBIs, and 227 stolen bases (he was caught 80 times). His on-base percentage was a lowly .290, but his fielding percentage was a solid .976.

Alomar did not play in Puerto Rico in the winter of 1978-79 after the Rangers released him. However, he appeared for Santurce in 25 games in 1979-80. He closed out his playing career the following winter with six appearances as player-manager for Ponce. Overall, Alomar hit .270 in over 1,000 games in the PRWL during 18 seasons (the exact number of total games is not certain because the figure is missing for 1963-64). He hit 25 homers and stole 168 bases, leading the league in steals an unequaled six times.

But Sandy Alomar’s contribution to the game he loved would not end with his retirement. Back in Puerto Rico, he bought a gas station in Salinas, while his two sons learned the game their father had made his livelihood. While Sandy Jr. and Roberto honed their baseball skills, Sandy Sr. continued working in baseball, coaching the Puerto Rican national team from 1979-1984. In the 1980s, he coached and managed with Santurce and again with Ponce.

Roberto, who grew to 6 feet, and Sandy Jr., at 6-feet-5, were both much bigger than their father. When asked about the physical differences in 1997, Sandy Jr. remarked that his mother was relatively tall at 5-feet-7, while his uncles were all tall as well. “My father is the only midget,” he concluded.15

Luis Rosa, a San Diego Padres scout working throughout Latin America, came to see both Alomar offspring. He also approached their father about a position in the organization. The Padres’ director of minor league scouting was looking for an infield instructor and Alomar had played for San Diego manager Dick Williams when they were both with the Angels. Thus, the Padres hired him, but made it clear that it was not to encourage his talented sons to sign with their team.16 Eventually, however, they both did.

Their father claims he never pressured either of them to pursue a baseball career. Though Roberto always wanted to be a big-leaguer, Santos Jr. stopped playing ball for a couple of his teenage years to ride dirt bikes. “My dad gave me a speech,” Sandy Jr. said years later. “He said that riding bikes was a hobby and not a job … you spend money in that. You don’t get money.”17

The senior Alomar tried not to give his sons too much baseball advice either, but Sandy Jr. believed that being the son of a major-leaguer had its advantages and disadvantages. “You have a name that helps you,” he said. “But some people do expect you to be the same as your father. That’s not right. We’re different people.”18

As his progeny made their way through pro ball, their father’s coaching odyssey continued: He served as a coach for the Padres’ affiliate in Charleston, South Carolina in its inaugural season – both of his sons were on the team. Sandy Sr. then became a major-league coach for the Padres from 1986 through1990, so he was on hand when his sons reached The Show in 1988.

Sandy Sr. then joined the Chicago Cubs organization, working as a roving minor league instructor during the 1990s. He also managed their Williamsport team in the NY-Penn League for part of the 1994 season, as well as their Gulf Coast Rookie League team in 1995 and 1996.

Alomar joined the Cubs’ major league staff in 2000 and remained there for three seasons, as bullpen coach and (in 2002) as first-base coach. He then moved to the Colorado Rockies’ third-base coaching box for two seasons. Alomar remained connected to the Puerto Rican baseball scene too. He served as general manager of the San Juan Senadores in 1999-2000. He also managed the national team in regional tournaments in 2003.

Alomar returned to the Mets in 2005, serving as first-base coach for two seasons, third-base coach for two more, and then finally becoming bench coach. He actually managed a game on May 9, 2009, after Jerry Manuel was suspended for an altercation with umpire Bill Welke. When the Mets beat Pittsburgh 10-1 and the Phillies lost to the Braves, the Mets moved into first place in the NL East under Alomar’s one-game stewardship.

That season, however, was his last in a big-league uniform, though he managed again in the Gulf Coast Rookie League for the Mets in 2010.

The website Champions of Faith notes that Alomar is a lifelong Catholic and that he calls his wife María “the spiritual leader of the family”.19 They had six grandchildren.

Alomar died at the age of 81 on October 13, 2025, just days before his 82nd birthday.

In stature, Sandy Alomar Sr. was not a giant. But on the diamond, though he had his share of struggles in the game, his pride and perseverance made him a useful asset. His defensive versatility helped, as did an obvious passion to play as well as he was capable in every game. As Grover Resinger put it in 1970, Alomar had value “defensively, offensively and inspirationally.”20

In 2014, Alomar himself expressed it this way as he passed on lessons from his decades of wisdom at the Vauxhall Academy of Baseball in Canada. “Size really doesn’t matter if you have faith in yourself and you know you can do it. If you sacrifice, and you put the effort in, you will become what you feel it is you should become.” 21

He repeated a different dictum later that year at another baseball camp in Canada. “When you have pride, you have a will. When you have a will, you have respect. When you have respect, you create discipline. Discipline gives you knowledge. Knowledge gives you awareness. And awareness gives you anticipation.”22

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Rory Costello for his input.

Photo credit: National Baseball Hall of Fame Library.

Sources

Internet resources

Ancestry.com

Myheritage.com

Books

José A. Crescion Benítez, El Béisbol Profesional Boricua, San Juan, Puerto Rico: Aurora Comunicación Integral, Inc., 1997.

Newspaper articles

In addition to those cited in the notes, I also used several articles from the below.

Chicago Tribune

New York Times

Chicago Daily Defender

Notes

One of the reasons for the Tribe’s success was the unlikely power coming from the bat of Sandy Alomar Jr. The veteran backstop started the season in fine fashion, as he slugged a home run in five consecutive games from April 4-8. His 11 home runs at the break matched his season total of the season before and were just three short of his career-high 14 homers in 1994. “I’m in a zone,” said Alomar. “Everything looks like a beach ball.”1

But it was more than the long ball that Alomar was contributing to the team’s fortunes. He owned the second-longest hitting streak in franchise history, 30 games (from May 25 through July 6). The streak, in which Alomar batted .429, was second only to Nap Lajoie’s 31-game streak in 1906. “It’s been a remarkable run for him,” said the Twins’ Paul Molitor. “To be able to have the mind-set to call a game (as catcher) and still be able to do that. …”2  

For the All-Stars on July 8, pitching was the name of the game. The teams battled to a 1-1 tie through the top of the seventh inning. Each team scored its tally on a home run. Edgar Martinez, who was the first designated hitter elected to the All-Star Game, socked a 2-and-2 offering from Greg Maddux into the left-field plaza in the bottom of the second frame. In the top of the seventh, Braves catcher Javy Lopez led off with a solo shot off the Royals’ Jose Rosado.

Jim Thome led off the bottom of the seventh inning by grounding out. Bernie Williams walked and with two outs took second base on a wild pitch by the Giants’ Shawn Estes. Alomar, who had replaced Ivan Rodriguez in the bottom of the sixth inning, stepped to the plate. “When Sandy went to the plate, Paul O’Neill turned to me and said, ‘If all things were fair, Sandy would hit a homer and win the ballgame,’” said Indians manager Mike Hargrove, one of manager Joe Torre’s coaches for the game.3 Sandy sent a 2-and-2 pitch from Estes on a line into the left-field bleachers. “I felt like I was flying,” said Alomar. “I’ve never run the bases so fast on a home run.”4

The 3-1 AL advantage stood up, as the junior circuit snapped a three-game losing streak. The NL was held to three hits. Alomar became the first Indian to homer in the All-Star Game since Rocky Colavito in 1959. Alomar was voted the game’s MVP, the first Indian to be so honored and the first player ever to win the award in his home ballpark. “This is a dream I don’t want to wake up from,” said Alomar. “You probably only get one chance to play an All-Star Game in your home stadium.”5

“It was another of those storybook things,” said Torre. “I had one last fall [the 1996 World Series], and now this. I was happy for Sandy to win it in his own park.”6 

Santos (Velazquez) Alomar was born on June 18, 1966, in Salinas, Puerto Rico. He was the middle child (older sister Sandia, younger brother Roberto) born to Santos and Maria Alomar. Sandy Sr. suited up for six different teams over a 15-year career in the major leagues. He had a career batting average of .245. He was mainly a second baseman, although he also saw time at shortstop. After his playing days, Alomar coached 15 years on the big-league level. In addition to his time in the major leagues, Sandy Sr. also managed the Puerto Rican National Team.

The elder Alomar did not push his sons into baseball. “The only influence is from them seeing me play,” he said.7 The life of a ballplayer means a lot of travel and time away from the family. Sandy Sr. credited his wife, Maria, with raising their three children, saying, “She deserves more credit than me. I was a ballplayer and couldn’t be around that much. She stayed home and raised those kids. That’s why they’re the kind of people they are.”8

Roberto Alomar took to baseball right away. He had the natural ability to play the game and at age 7 he made Sandy’s little league team for 9-to-12-year-olds. But for Sandy, he had other interests to keep him busy. “Sandy left the game at age 12 and got into dirt-bike riding and karate,” said his father. “He was doing dangerous things, more or less. He said the only way he could find excitement in baseball was to become a catcher.”9

Young Sandy took to catching and was signed as an amateur free agent on October 21, 1983, by the San Diego Padres. After graduating from Luis Munoz Rivera High School in Salinas, Alomar began his journey to the major leagues. It was a long climb indeed. At first, the going was rough for the young catcher, who hit a combined .221 through his first three years in the minor leagues. But like most talented players, Alomar put in the work and by 1987 he blossomed into a coveted prospect in the Padres chain. It became a family affair of sorts, as Roberto joined his older brother on multiple minor-league squads. Sandy Sr. joined San Diego manager Steve Boros’ coaching staff in 1986.

In 1988 Alomar was named co-Minor League Player of the Year by The Sporting News (with Gary Sheffield of Denver). Alomar, who was the catcher for the Las Vegas Stars of the Pacific Coast League, batted .297 and had career highs in home runs (16) and RBIs (71). “I didn’t expect to hit like that,” said Alomar. “As the season started, I struggled a little bit, but then I started swinging harder and pulling the ball more and hitting more home runs.”10

It was reported that 22 of the other 25 major-league clubs were interested in acquiring Alomar. The Padres already had their catcher of the future in Benito Santiago. The time looked right to possibly trade their star prospect and get plenty in return. While Santiago was the National League Rookie of the Year in 1987, Roberto was promoted to the Padres in 1988 and became their starting second baseman. Sandy was frustrated, feeling there was nothing more he could do on the minor-league level. Rumors persisted that he would be traded, or that Santiago might be moved. One rumor had Alomar headed to Atlanta for All-Star Dale Murphy. “Every organization in the league would love to have a Sandy Alomar,” said Atlanta general manager Bobby Cox.11

But no deal was ever made and Alomar returned to Las Vegas in 1989. He started the season poorly, batting .242 up to June 5, and then he became a man possessed, batting .351 the rest of the way. For the season, Alomar batted .306, with 13 home runs and 101 RBIs. He showed value behind the plate as well, fielding his position at a .984 clip, and throwing out 34 percent of would-be basestealers (25 of 74). He was once again honored by The Sporting News and Baseball America as the Minor League Player of the Year. “It means a lot to me,” said Alomar of the award. “The way I felt, I was so frustrated. I figured there was no way I’d win it again.”12

When the Cleveland Indians front office offered slugging outfielder Joe Carter a multiyear deal at the end of the 1989 season, Carter said, “No thanks.” He could be a free agent at the end of the 1990 season, and was looking forward to leaving Cleveland, and getting a fresh start – not to mention snagging a boatload of cash. Alomar, who was getting frustrated with his situation in San Diego, was just hoping for a chance to play in the big leagues. After all, he had accomplished all he could in the minors, and it really did not matter to him whose uniform he was wearing. On December 6, 1989, at the annual winter meetings, Cleveland GM Hank Peters and San Diego GM Jack McKeon hammered out a deal that sent Carter to the Padres and Alomar, infielder Carlos Baerga, and outfielder Chris James to Cleveland.

Alomar was penciled in as the starting catcher as soon as the ink was dry on the trade. He did not disappoint. Cleveland manager John McNamara praised his young backstop in all facets of his game. “To me, he’s very, very impressive at blocking balls,” said McNamara. “He does it even when there’s no need, when nobody is on base. Sandy’s been taught well. He’s absorbed the teaching, put it to good use.

“Sandy is hitting for a better average than I expected at this stage of his career. He’s adjusted very well to major-league pitching. I never had any doubt about his catching, but you just never know about his hitting.”13              

McNamara was not the only person to notice the outstanding play of his prized rookie. All of baseball took notice when Alomar was voted the starting catcher for the American League in the All-Star Game. He was the first rookie catcher ever to start in an All-Star Game. The game would be extra-special, as Roberto, then with San Diego, was also named an All-Star and Sandy Sr. would also join his sons as a coach for the NL at Wrigley Field for the midsummer classic.    

Sandy’s season was capped off with his being the unanimous choice for the AL Rookie of the Year. “This award means more to me than the All-Star Game,” said Alomar. “You have a lot of chances to be in the All-Star Game, but you’ve only got one chance to win this award. I was supposed to be Rookie of the Year, and that made it tough. I was traded for Joe Carter, and that made it tough. But the manager and the rest of the guys on the team really helped me.”14 Alomar was the fourth Indian to win the award. He was also awarded a Gold Glove for excellence in fielding his position. He was the first Indian to be so recognized since Rick Manning in 1976.

Alomar was instantly a fan favorite among Indians fans. However, the injuries began to pile up beginning in 1991, his second season. Though Alomar was selected to start the All-Star Game in both 1991 and 1992, he was dealing with myriad setbacks that included back surgery, injuries to his right rotator cuff, his right hip flexor, his right knee (two, caused by sliding), and the webbing between the fingers on his right hand (also twice). The 132 games Alomar played in his rookie year were the most of his career.

The Indians moved across downtown to their new ballpark, Jacobs Field, for the 1994 season. Alomar, despite missing time on the disabled list with the torn webbing on his right hand, was putting together a wonderful season, batting .288 with 14 home runs and 43 RBIs, when the players’ strike on August 11 led to the remainder of the season being canceled.

Perhaps because Alomar suffered so many injuries, Cleveland signed Tony Peña before the 1994 season. For the next three seasons, the veteran provided solid leadership and was a reliable substitute for Alomar. It was a great free-agent signing for the Indians, as Alomar was recuperating from knee surgery and did not return to the active roster until June 29, 1995. Still, he batted .300 in 54 starts at catcher that season. The Indians, who sported one of the most potent lineups in baseball, moved Alomar to the bottom of their lineup.  “I think Sandy can still hit 10 to 15 homers this year,” said manager Mike Hargrove. “He has that kind of power. The thing that is really impressive is the way he’s accepted hitting ninth. The number 9 hitter is usually the weakest hitter in the lineup, but that’s not the case with this team.”15

The Indians returned to the postseason for the first time in 41 years, winning their division by 30 games. They marched through the American League playoffs before losing to Atlanta in the World Series.

The Indians won the AL Central from 1995 to 1999. In 1997 they advanced to the World Series again, only to lose to Florida in seven games. Alomar’s power surge in 1997 continued in the postseason, as he hit two home runs in the ALDS, one in the ALCS, and two in the World Series.

In 1999 Alomar was reunited with brother Roberto, who signed a free-agent contract with Cleveland. Together with Omar Vizquel, they formed one of the better middle-infield defenses in the big leagues. But Sandy missed most of the season after surgery on his left knee (he started 35 games), and in 2000 he split time with Einar Diaz at catcher. That season he batted .289 and drove in 42 runs.

But the end of an era was near as Alomar and the Indians were unable to negotiate a contract after the 2000 season. Alomar, ever the classy player, took the “life goes on” route and signed with the Chicago White Sox. He split time with Mark Johnson at catcher.

But the White Sox were just as interested in Alomar’s ability to teach their young receivers and work with their green pitching staff. He was traded to Colorado in 2002, but returned to the South Side for the 2003 and 2004 seasons. “I got kind of teary-eyed when he got traded,” said pitcher Mark Buerhle. “I’m still learning (from him). I’m out there thinking, ‘I’m going to throw this pitch,’ and he puts something else down. I’m not going to shake him off because he’s been around the league a long time.”16 

The White Sox made it clear that they wanted Alomar to work with Miguel Olivo, a catching prospect for whom the front office had high hopes. In 2003 Sandy was reunited again with Roberto, who by this time in his career was serving as a utility player for Chicago.

Alomar spent the remaining years as a backup catcher with Texas (2005), the Los Angeles Dodgers and the White Sox (2006), and the New York Mets (2007). He retired with a .273 batting average in a 20-year career. He hit 112 home runs and 249 doubles, and drove in 588 runs. He threw out just over 30 percent of baserunners, and fielded at a .991 clip at catcher for his career.

Alomar stayed with the Mets as a catching instructor in 2008 and 2009. Manny Acta was hired to replace Eric Wedge as Cleveland’s manager in 2010. Acta offered Alomar a job as his first-base coach. “I jumped at it,” said Alomar. “For me, it was coming home. No place in baseball means as much to me as Cleveland.”17

Acta was fired near the end of the 2012 season. Alomar was named interim manager, and looked to be the favorite until Terry Francona’s name was thrown into the mix of candidates. “I knew they’d hire him if he wanted the job,” said Alomar. “I don’t blame them. I understand. He’s won two World Series. He’s a heck of a guy.”18   

As of 2025, Alomar is still Cleveland’s first-base coach. Francona, who played for the Indians in 1988, was a teammate of Alomar’s in winter ball with Ponce in the Puerto Rico League. When the Indians acquired Alomar in 1989, Francona gushed at the young man’s ability. “He’s the best catcher I’ve ever played with,” said Francona. “He’s better than Gary Carter when Carter was good. Sandy might not drive in 100 runs like Carter did in his prime, but overall he’s a better ballplayer. He’s the best defensive catcher I’ve ever seen. His arm is almost incredible.”19  

When Francona insisted that Sandy Alomar be a part of his staff, he knew exactly what he was getting. Even way back when.     

Last revised: June 1, 2018

This biography appeared in “Puerto Rico and Baseball: 60 Biographies” (SABR, 2017), edited by Bill Nowlin and Edwin Fernández. It also appeared in “1995 Cleveland Indians: The Sleeping Giant Awakes” (SABR, 2019), edited by Joseph Wancho.

Photo credit

National Baseball Hall of Fame Library.

Notes                                        

1 Bill Livingston, “Sweet Sandy! AL Triumphs on Alomar Blast,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, July 9, 1997: 1A. 

2 Mel Antonen, “Sandy Alomar’s Streak Hits 30,” USA Today, July 7, 1997: 1C.

3 Paul Hoynes, “Sandy Steals the Show; Alomar’s Home Run Lifts AL,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, July 9, 1997: 1D.

4 Ibid.

5 Ibid.

6 “Sweet Sandy.”

7 Chuck Johnson, “Alomar Sons Deepen Roots in Baseball,” USA Today, July 13, 1990: 2C.

8 Ibid.

9 Ibid.

10 “Big League Awards in the Minors,” The Sporting News, December 5, 1988: 46.

11 Barry Bloom, “Alomar Hopes That His ‘First’ Won’t Last,” The Sporting News, December 4, 1989: 52.

12  Ibid.

13 Sheldon Ocker, “Alomar More Than Lives Up to Hype,” The Sporting News, July 2, 1990: 12. 

14 Paul Hoynes, “It’s Unanimous! Indians Catcher Alomar Is Rookie of the Year,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, November 8, 1990: 1F.

15 Paul Hoynes, “Deep Thunder Alomar Homers Twice at Bottom of Order,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, July 21, 1995: 1D.

16 Nancy Armour (Associated Press), “Sandy Ready to Teach,” Elyria (Ohio) Chronicle-Telegram, March 3, 2003: C4.

17 Terry Pluto, “Playing, Coaching for Tribe ‘Paradise,’ Cleveland Plain Dealer, April 3, 2013: C3.

18 Ibid.

19 “Alomar Draws Praise From Former Mate,” The Sporting News, March 19, 1990: 30. 

That was Ruben Amaro Jr. in 2011, on being a third-generation Latino baseball man. Yet he has often spoken the same way about his maternal side. Altogether, his background is unique in major-league history: Cuban-Mexican/Jewish-American.

From this start, a unique career path has also unfolded. The switch-hitting outfielder played in the majors from 1991 through 1998, but he had to struggle to stay there. His only full seasons in “The Show” were his last two. After his playing career ended, Amaro stepped directly into the front office. He spent 10 years as assistant general manager of the Philadelphia Phillies, and he then served as their GM from November 2008 through early September 2015. After that he made an unusual transition back to the field, joining the Boston Red Sox as a coach in October 2015. Three years later, with the New York Mets, he doubled back to an executive role.

Ruben Amaro Jr. has another distinction. He has been to the World Series as a batboy (with the Phillies in 1980), as a player (with the Cleveland Indians in 1995), and as an executive (with the Phillies in 2008 and 2009).

As an Amaro family motto says, “Baseball is our way of life.”2 It started with Santos Amaro (1908-2001), who had a long and distinguished career in Cuba and Mexico. Except for racial barriers, the Amaros could have been the first family to send three generations of players to the big leagues.3 Ruben Amaro Sr. (1936-2017), a smooth-fielding shortstop, played in the majors from 1958 through 1969. He went on to serve the Phillies and other organizations for decades in many capacities.

Santos Amaro’s father came to Cuba from Portugal and his mother was the child of Abencerraje Moors from Africa. Like many Cubans, Santos was a coffee-colored man. While playing in Mexico in 1929, he met a fair-skinned Mexican woman of Spanish descent named Josefina Mora, who was a baseball player too. They married in 1930, and Ruben Sr. was born in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico in 1936.

While he was playing with the Phillies, Ruben Sr. met Judith Herman at the gourmet cheese shop that Judy’s mother ran in Philadelphia’s Reading Terminal Market.4 In 2008 Judy also said, “My sister Marlene taught English to Pancho Herrera and Tony Taylor [two other members of the Phillies then]. Ruben would drive them to our house for the lessons.”5

Ruben Sr. and Judy married in December 1961. They had one other child. David Amaro, born in 1962, was drafted in the 24th round by the Chicago Cubs in 1984. He played that summer in short-season Class-A ball and eight games in the Mexican League in 1985, but an injured wrist curtailed his career. Ruben Jr. was born in Philadelphia on February 12, 1965.

Ruben Amaro Sr.’s pro career lasted until 1971, when Ruben Jr. was 6. “I can’t remember seeing my father play,” he said in 1992, “and that’s too bad.”6 However, age 6 did provide his earliest memories of the regal and quiet Santos Amaro. The family took Christmas vacations in Veracruz, Mexico, where Santos and Josefina lived. “Buelo” (short for Abuelo, Spanish for grandfather) was then in his 60s, but he still had the habit of taking 10-mile walks. “As a six-year-old, that was astonishing to me,” said Ruben Jr. in 2013. “I asked my father, ‘What does he do on those walks?’ And my dad said, ‘He thinks.’”7 That influence was deep.

“When I was little, I wanted to be a doctor or veterinarian,” Amaro said in 2010. “Soccer was actually my first love.”8 He was good enough to get an offer to attend high school in Germany for a year and a half, to be assessed as a pro soccer prospect there. However, that nation still held unhappy associations for his Jewish mother, so he did not go.9

On the other side of Amaro’s religious heritage, Ruben Sr. was a devout Catholic. Ruben Jr. said, “We had a very diversified family. We did Passover, Yom Kippur, Chanukah. We were exposed to both faiths pretty equally.” Though he never had a bar mitzvah, he recalled, “I had a lot of friends who were bar mitzvahed and went to a lot of them.”10

Education was extremely important to both Ruben Sr. (something that came from Santos) and Judy Amaro. They sent Ruben Jr. to Frankford Friends, a small private elementary school where his mother later taught Spanish, and then William Penn Charter School in Philadelphia, a private academy founded in 1689. A couple of years ahead of him at Penn Charter was pitcher Mark Gubicza, who went on to a 14-year career in the majors.

In 1980 the Phillies became World Series champions. Ruben Sr. was the team’s first-base coach, and Ruben Jr. was one of the batboys. It was an important formative experience. He later said, “Baseball is such an intricate game, a thinking game. I was 15, and I was watching Pete Rose, Steve Carlton, Larry Bowa, Manny Trillo, Bob Boone. Did I say Mike Schmidt? Most of them are Hall of Famers, or close to it. I learned from all of them.”11

Amaro remained a Phillies batboy through 1983, though he missed the World Series that fall because he had started at Stanford University. After winning All-City honors in both baseball (first-team second baseman) and soccer (second team), and doing well academically, he had offers from other high-quality schools, including Duke, Vanderbilt, and Princeton. He chose Stanford because the school’s respected baseball coach, Mark Marquess, knew the Amaro family history and thought Ruben could help his team, although the young man was still undersized then. Amaro accepted the offer, even though there was neither a scholarship nor guaranteed playing time.12

Amaro became a four-year letter winner with Stanford. Marquess moved him from the infield to the outfield as a sophomore. During his senior year, as the leadoff man, he hit .344 with 38 stolen bases.13 The team also had star pitcher Jack McDowell, another major leaguer to be in Ed Sprague Jr., and future NFL defensive back Toi Cook. Stanford won the College World Series for the first time in its history in June 1987.

Just a few days before, the California Angels had made Amaro their 11th-round pick in the amateur draft. A couple of weeks later, after graduating from college with a degree in human biology, he signed and began his minor-league career. The bonus the Angels offered was small — just $1,500 — and he turned to his father for advice. Ruben Sr. said, “It’s not going to get any better. Sign it, get in your car and start driving.”14

It took Amaro four years to climb the ladder to the majors. He didn’t have power — he never had more than nine home runs in a season at any level — but he did hit for high average in the minors. In 1989, which he spent in Class-A and Double-A ball, he hit .368 overall. He followed that up with a mark of .317 in 1990, earning promotion to Triple-A.

During the winter of 1989-90, Amaro played winter ball for the first time. He went to Venezuela, joining Águilas del Zulia, a team that his father served in various roles for more than 20 years. He went back for six more winter seasons, as late as 1997-98, all but one of them with Zulia. For much of that time, Ruben Sr. was the manager. Overall, in 219 games in the Venezuelan league, Ruben Jr. hit .281 with 5 homers and 83 RBIs.

Amaro also met his first wife, Virginia Machado, in Venezuela. They married on December 6, 1996, and had two daughters, Andrea and Sophia (the union ended in divorce). In another interesting twist, Virginia’s aunt is Lilia Machado, who became Ruben Amaro Sr.’s second wife. The Machado family owns and operates the Zulia club. Ruben Sr. and Lilia’s two sons, Luis Alfredo and Rubén Andrés, also became ballplayers. Luis played short-season Class-A ball for the Phillies in 2011. Before marrying Lilia and after separating from Judy, Ruben Sr. had a daughter named Alayna from a relationship with Mary Beth Allio. Ruben Jr. is close with all three of his half-siblings.

Amaro remained at Edmonton in 1991 and hit .326. He got his first brief call-up to the majors in June 1991, after Junior Felix went on the 15-day disabled list. He made his debut on June 8 at Anaheim Stadium, pinch-running for designated hitter Dave Parker. Amaro represented the tying run with nobody out, but after advancing on a sacrifice, he had to stop at third base after freezing instinctively on a liner back through the box. Tigers closer Mike Henneman then got out of the jam with a double-play ball. A few days later, Amaro was sent back to Edmonton.

The Angels recalled him that September, and he appeared in nine more games, starting three in left field and two at second base. The 1991 season was the only time he ever played the latter position in the majors. Aside from two very brief appearances at first base in 1996 and 1997, he was exclusively an outfielder. (He also got 11 at-bats as a DH during his two years with the Indians.)

On December 8, 1991, California traded pitcher Kyle Abbott and Amaro to the Phillies in return for Von Hayes. The Sporting News called the deal “The Steal of the Winter.” Hayes was washed up — “Wow, I didn’t think we could even get one player for Von,” said Lenny Dykstra15 — and was finished after 1992. However, Abbott, who was viewed as a top pitching prospect, was awful with Philadelphia in 1992. He got back to the majors just briefly in 1995 and 1996. Modest as it was, Amaro’s career lasted the longest of the three players involved.

Amaro was stunned by the news of the trade. He said, “I thought, ‘Wow, some of those fans are difficult.’ But then I realized these are knowledgeable fans. They love players who bust their butts, like Len Dykstra and John Kruk. I’m very competitive. I fit in that mold.”16

As it turned out, though, Dykstra, Kruk, et al. gave the college boy a hard time. “Some of that I brought on myself,” Amaro later admitted. “Just by being an arrogant little toad. Oh yeah. I think I was limited enough talentwise that I had to fake myself into thinking I was better than I was. I kind of rubbed some of the guys the wrong way, but I got straightened out. They made sure of that.”17

Amaro spent most of the 1992 season with the Phillies. In the season’s second game, at Veterans Stadium, he sparked an 11-3 rout of the Chicago Cubs. He was filling in for Dykstra, whose wrist had been broken by a Greg Maddux pitch on Opening Day. The new leadoff man was 3-for-4 with two doubles and his first of 16 home runs in the majors. It drew a standing ovation from the crowd. “In my wildest dreams, I didn’t think of this,” Amaro said. “Not in a million years. One thing just fell in place after the other. I’m in shock.”18

In fact, Amaro went deep three times in just five days from April 8-12. His modest response was, “Mistake pitches. I’ve never tried to hit a home run in my life. I was as surprised as anybody.”19 As the Philadelphia Inquirer later put it, though, that one spectacular week was followed by long periods of frustration.20 He suffered some severe slumps, and in late July — hitting just .199 — he was optioned to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. “After some early success, I just took myself out of my game,” he said. “I started to try to outthink the pitchers instead of just going up there and swinging the bat. They gave me five or six opportunities to earn a starting job, and I didn’t. I don’t have anybody to blame but myself.”21

The demotion lasted just a few weeks, though. Overall in Philadelphia that year, Amaro got into 126 games, starting 87 of them, and made 427 plate appearances. All were major-league career highs for him. He was the team’s primary right fielder that year, though he also got plenty of action in left and center. By season’s end his average had picked up a bit, to .219.The substantial playing time was also a big reason why he reached big-league bests in homers (seven) and RBIs (34).

In reality, however, manager Jim Fregosi “liked Amaro as a fifth outfielder, [but] instead was forced to play him as a regular for much of that last-place season.”22 That winter the Phillies loaded up with three free-agent outfielders: Pete Incaviglia, Milt Thompson, and Jim Eisenreich.

Amaro played just 25 games for the Phillies in 1993. He was with the big club for roughly a month, from mid-June through mid-July; he returned in September. Philadelphia won the National League pennant that season, but Amaro was left off the postseason roster in favor of Tony Longmire. He wasn’t even allowed to dress for the playoffs and World Series.23 On November 2 he was traded to Cleveland for reliever Heathcliff Slocumb.

He’d hoped for more from the change of scenery, but Amaro didn’t play much as an Indian either. In 1994 he was called up from Triple-A Charlotte in late May but got just 25 plate appearances in 26 games before the players’ strike ended the season in August. In 1995 he shuttled between the new top affiliate, Buffalo, and Cleveland. In fact, he was sent outright to Buffalo in May; his contract was purchased once more when Eddie Murray went on the DL in July. In his scattered stints with the Indians that year, Amaro got into 28 games and hit .200-1-7 in 68 plate appearances.

Nonetheless, after Cleveland won the AL Central Division, Amaro stayed with the team in the postseason. He and Dave Winfield were the two position players “on the bubble” as the roster was determined. Both were eligible because they had been on the disabled list at the end of August. Winfield was nearly 44 by then and exclusively a DH. He’d been bothered by a sore shoulder for much of the year and was not swinging the bat well. Amaro, who could run and play defense, was the more useful man to have on the bench.

Amaro did not appear against Boston as Cleveland swept the AL Division Series. In the AL Championship Series, against Seattle, he appeared in three games as a pinch-runner. As the Indians clinched the pennant in Game Six, he contributed. It was a tight 1-0 game starting the top of the eighth, but catcher Tony Peña hit a leadoff double. Amaro ran for Peña and got a good jump on Kenny Lofton’s well-placed bunt. A few pitches later, he scored on a passed ball; right behind him, boldly exploiting the same misplay, was Lofton. Cleveland added another run to ice a 4-0 win.

As the Tribe advanced to the World Series, it was significant for the Amaro family. Ruben Sr. had been a member of the 1964 Phillies, infamous for their collapse down the stretch, and even being a coach for the 1980 champions did not make up for that lost opportunity to play in the fall classic. Ruben Jr. hadn’t been born yet — in fact, his mother was expecting him at the time — but he certainly knew what had happened. The memory of his own missed opportunity in 1993 was also not distant.

In the Series itself, Amaro made two brief appearances. In Game Two at Atlanta, he batted for Julian Tavarez to lead off the top of the ninth, but Mark Wohlers struck him out and went on to close out the Braves’ 4-3 win. In the concluding Game Six, Amaro entered in the seventh inning, replacing right fielder Manny Ramirez in a double switch — a strategy on which manager Mike Hargrove was second-guessed.24 Amaro grounded out against Tom Glavine to end the top of the eighth, and again no balls were hit his way when Atlanta batted. Wohlers then nailed down the 1-0 win — and the title — for the Braves.

Not long after the Series ended, on November 9, Cleveland waived Amaro. He signed a minor-league deal with the Toronto Blue Jays in January 1996. To start the 1996 season, Amaro was with Syracuse, the Jays’ top farm club. In early May, however, he was released.

As he said later that year, Amaro then made his own break. He called Phillies general manager Lee Thomas and asked if Thomas had anything for him. Thomas said he’d have to get back to Amaro, but fortune smiled when outfielder Lee Tinsley went on the DL with a strained rib cage. Thomas and assistant GM Ed Wade called Amaro and said they had a job — not just at Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, but in the majors. Amaro said, “Oh, that’s great. I’ll have my agent call you.” Thomas responded that if the agent had to call, then not to come. Amaro said, “I’ll be there in three hours.”25

Although he was sent down to Scranton/Wilkes-Barre after several days, he returned in early July and never played another day in the minors. He spent the remainder of his career, which lasted through 1998, as a reserve with the Phillies. He got into 270 games, starting 49 of them, and made 447 plate appearances. He was used a lot as a pinch-hitter and performed pretty well in that role, going 35-for-134 (.261) with two homers and 22 RBIs.

At the age of 33, though, Amaro decided to retire as a player. He then moved into the Phillies’ front office. Wade, who had succeeded Lee Thomas as the team’s general manager in 1997, had actually first approached Amaro about his plans in spring training 1998. Wade offered a job as assistant GM right then, but Amaro wanted to see how he did during the season to come. During the summer, after discussing things with Ruben Sr. and his brother David, Amaro decided to take Wade’s offer.26

The deal was actually announced on September 18.27 Nine days later, in his final big-league game, Amaro drove in the go-ahead run with a single as Philadelphia beat the Florida Marlins to end the season. “It was pretty emotional for me,” Amaro said. “The last three or four innings, I was fighting back the tears.”28

“I’m actually glad that I was as bad as I was that year,” Amaro later said. “It helped solidify that I absolutely made the right choice. I mean, I was done.” As Wade recalled, a lot of people in the industry were surprised by his choice, and some frankly questioned it, because others had been serving their apprenticeship. Wade said that he just felt it was the right thing for the organization.29

Amaro worked as assistant GM for seven seasons under Wade and for three more under Pat Gillick. It bothered him at first to realize that he was no longer one of the players; his relationship with them had changed. He also still had a lot to learn on the job.30 But he absorbed much from a Phillies institution, former GM Paul “The Pope” Owens, who was still with the franchise as a senior adviser. Amaro interviewed for the GM job after Wade was fired, but in retrospect, he realized he wasn’t ready.31

While Amaro continued to learn, he was part of the Phillies’ rise to success. Among other things, he helped obtain an important cog, Shane Victorino, and helped get Victorino into the lineup too. On November 3, 2008 — a week after the team completed its victory in the World Series — Amaro succeeded the retiring Gillick, signing a three-year contract. At the news conference, Amaro told Gillick that he was a tough act to follow.32

For at least the term of that contract, though, Amaro was riding high. The Phillies repeated as NL pennant-winners in 2009. They won the NL East in both 2010 and 2011 as well. Amaro enjoyed positive press and won praise for making bold deals in search of another title, such as the trades for star pitchers Cliff Lee and Roy Halladay. In March 2011, he got a four-year contract extension.

After that, however, the team’s fortunes declined. They played .500 ball in 2012 but won just 73 games in both 2013 and 2014. The notoriously harsh Philly fans gave him a scathing nickname — “Ruin Tomorrow” — and the voices grew louder that he had to go. He drew fire for everything: letting the team get old, handing out bad contracts, making shortsighted deals, eschewing analytics, the long drought in the draft, and not acting soon enough to rebuild. Yet by 2018, the Phillies (despite fading from early August) had rebounded in the standings, thanks largely to players acquired during Amaro’s tenure. More time is needed for his legacy to be fully assessed.

In November 2014 Amaro got married for the second time. Jami Schnell, a children’s reading specialist, had been his significant other for some time. But on the job, things got worse for the Phillies in 2015. The team won just 63 games, its worst showing since 1972. Amaro didn’t last the full year — new president Andy MacPhail fired him on September 10.

After he was ousted as GM, Amaro expressed an interest in a different role: field manager. The story surfaced in the Boston Globe in early October that he was working with agent Bob LaMonte to remake himself, and that LaMonte was close to Tony La Russa, Walt Jocketty, and Gillick, all of whom had endorsed Amaro’s new pursuit.33

Red Sox manager John Farrell, who had been Amaro’s teammate in the Cleveland organization, saw this. Farrell asked Amaro whether he’d be interested in joining the Boston staff. Ruben thought it over and consulted with family, as well as Gillick, Wade, and Terry Francona (the Phillies’ manager from 1997 through 2000). In October 2015 Amaro took the job in Boston as first base/baserunning/outfield coach.

“I guess it is unusual,” he said. “But for me, I’ve always had kind of an itch to be back on the field … [but] had it not been the Red Sox, frankly I probably would not be doing this.” He added, “I’m gonna do my best to teach what I’ve learned over the years. … I’m laser-focused on being the best coach I can be.”34

After two seasons in Boston, Amaro joined Mickey Callaway’s staff as the first base coach for the New York Mets in November 2017. His duties also included coaching baserunning and outfield defense.

Following the 2018 season, the Mets hired agent Brodie Van Wagenen (who’d also played baseball for Stanford) as their new GM. Amaro, who’d negotiated with Van Wagenen while in Philly, was named a front-office adviser. His duties included scouting. Near the end of August 2019, however, the Mets announced that Amaro would not be returning.

Amaro worked in 2020 and 2021 as an analyst on Phillies games for NBC Sports Philadelphia. His name came up in relation to a couple of open GM positions: the Angels (November 2020) and the Colorado Rockies (May 2021). In March 2022, he joined the MLB Network. Aged just 57 heading into the 2022 season, Ruben Amaro Jr. was still a baseball story in progress.

Last revised: March 17, 2022

This biography was published in 1995 Cleveland Indians: The Sleeping Giant Awakes (SABR, 2019), edited by Joseph Wancho.

Acknowledgments

Continued thanks to Alayna Amaro.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the notes, the author relied on a number of Internet resources and purapelota.com (Venezuelan statistics).

Notes

1 Adry Torres, “Ruben Amaro Jr. Looks to Bring Another Phillies Title to His Hometown,” Fox News Latino, October 5, 2011.

2 Telephone interview, Ruben Amaro Sr. with Rory Costello, October 18, 2012.

3 As of 2023, there have been four grandfather-father-son families in the majors: the Boones, the Bells, the Hairstons, and the Colemans. Also notable are Dick Schofield Sr. and Jr., plus Jayson Werth, nephew of Schofield Jr.

4 Mike Jensen, “Family Pick: Phillies Choose Amaro as GM,” Philadelphia Inquirer, November 4, 2008.

5 Stan Hochman, “Phillies GM Amaro Always Will Have His Mother in His Corner,” Fox Sports, December 2, 2008.

6 George Vecsey, “The Batboy Learned by Watching,” New York Times, April 15, 1992.

7 Adam Berry, “Amaro’s Grandfather Inducted Into Latino HOF,” MLB.com, February 12, 2013.

8 Rob Charry, “Phillies’ Amaro Has Rest of League Saying ‘Roy Vey,’” Jewish Telegraphic Agency, October 5, 2010.

9 Nick DiUlio, “Ruben Amaro Jr.: Arms Dealer,” Philadelphia Magazine, April 7, 2011.

10 Charry, “Phillies’ Amaro Has Rest of League Saying ‘Roy Vey.’”

11 Vecsey, “The Batboy Learned by Watching.”

12 Jorge Arangure Jr., “Ruben Amaro Jr. a Confident Leader,” ESPN.com, October 3, 2011.

13 “Former Stanford Great Ruben Amaro, Jr. Named Phillies GM,” Stanford Athletics press release, November 4, 2008.

14 Stan Isle, “Judging Talent May Be Herzog’s Greatest Gift,” The Sporting News, August 3, 1987: 10.

15 Bob Nightengale, “Steal of the Winter,” The Sporting News, December 23, 1991: 22.

16 Vecsey, “The Batboy Learned by Watching.”

17 Gwen Knapp, “Rookie GM Amaro’s Long History With Phillies,” San Francisco Chronicle, October 25, 2009.

18 “Amaro Leads Phillies’ Romp Over Cubs,” Reading Eagle, April 9, 1992: D1.

19 Vecsey, “The Batboy Learned by Watching”

20 Frank Fitzpatrick, “Phils Deal Amaro to Cleveland in a Bullpen-Rebuilding Move”, Philadelphia Inquirer, November 3, 1993.

21 Frank Fitzpatrick, “Amaro Shipped to Minors,” Philadelphia Inquirer, July 25, 1992.

22 Fitzpatrick, “Phils Deal Amaro to Cleveland in a Bullpen-Rebuilding Move.”

23 Ibid.

24 Bob Smizik, “Series Awards for Good, Bad,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, November 1, 1995.

25 Associated Press, “Amaro, Magee Save Phils,” August 21, 1996; Arangure, “Ruben Amaro Jr. a Confident Leader.”

26 Arangure, “Ruben Amaro Jr. a Confident Leader.”

27 As may be seen from wire service reports of transactions.

28 “Emotional Ending for Amaro,” Reading Eagle, September 28, 1998: D4.

29 Arangure, “Ruben Amaro Jr. a Confident Leader.”

30 Tony Zonca, “New Job a Good Fit for Amaro,” Reading Eagle, June 2, 1999: C1.

31 DiUlio, Ruben Amaro Jr.: Arms Dealer.”

32 Associated Press, “Amaro Signs Three-Year Deal to Become New Phillies GM,” November 4, 2008.

33 Nick Cafardo, “Apropos of Nothing,” Boston Globe, October 4, 2015.

34 Corey Seidman, “Ruben Amaro Explains ‘Unusual’ Transition From GM to 1B coach,” CSNPhilly.com, October 27, 2015.

As a player, Amaro was known more for fielding than hitting. In 940 big-league games, he batted .234 with a slugging percentage of just .292, including eight home runs. Four of those homers came during the 1964 season, in which he also won a Gold Glove for his play at shortstop – even though he was sharing the position in Philadelphia with Bobby Wine.

Rubén Amaro Mora was one of the rare big-leaguers whose parents both played pro baseball – in fact, that distinction may be unique. Santos Amaro (1908-2001) played 14 winter seasons in Cuba from 1936-37 to 1949-50.1 He was in Mexico during the summers from the late 1920s through 1955.2 He was also a manager in both his native land and his adopted home and eventually became a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame in each nation.3 Santos Amaro was known as El Canguro – “The Kangaroo” – for his size and leaping ability. In Mexico, Rubén Amaro was sometimes called “Cangurito.” He too became a member of the Mexican Baseball Hall of Fame in 1986. Rubén and Santos became the first father-son duo to be so honored.

Santos had come to Mexico with a traveling Cuban ballclub as early as 1928. In 1929, he met a young woman named Josefina Mora (1910-2007), a member of the Vera Cruz Women’s Professional Baseball Club.4 They got married and had two sons. Mario was born in 1931 in Cuba. Rubén was born in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico on January 6, 1936.5

Santos Amaro was of Portuguese and Moorish descent – the resemblance between him and Rubén was marked. Though his facial features did not fit the “African” stereotype, his coffee-colored skin meant that Santos encountered racism while playing with a barnstorming team in the United States in 1932. By one account, he did not wish to return.6 “But in 1935, he went on an eighty-game, fourteen-state tour of the United States with. . .La Junta de Nuevo Laredo.”7 Santos was not allowed to play much while in Texas. The prejudice he faced in the U.S. apparently killed his desire to play in the Negro Leagues. Yet Afro-Cubans faced bias even at home – Mexico was a more welcoming environment. Several black Cuban players married Mexican women; one was Pedro Orta, whose son Jorge became a major-leaguer from 1972 to 1987.8

As Rubén told author Stuart Gustafson many years later, his parents were a study in contrasts. Santos was tall (1.92 meters, or roughly 6-feet-3½). Josefina was petite (5’1”) and fair (her grandparents on both sides were Spanish). Rubén and Mario wound up in between at 5-feet-10½. “Doña Pepa” was the one with whom the boys practiced their baseball skills, because Santos stressed education above all.9

The Amaro family traveled between Mexico and Cuba until settling permanently in Mexico in 1951. Rubén’s godfather was another great Cuban player, Hall of Famer Martín Dihigo. El Inmortal was a teammate of Santos Amaro’s in Mexico (and a fellow member of the Masons). While the boys were in Havana, their baseball playmates included two future big-league pitchers: the Pascual brothers, Carlos and Camilo. Mario Amaro was also a skillful player but focused instead on medicine. He remained in Cuba for some time after 1951 to continue his schooling.

Rubén – whose favorite player growing up was Roberto Ávila, the Mexican star of the Cleveland Indians – became a star for Mexico in national and international amateur competition. He took part in the Amateur World Series in Caracas, Venezuela in 1953. In March 1954, he helped his homeland win a silver medal at the Central American and Caribbean Games in Mexico City.10

Before the 1954 season, the St. Louis Cardinals signed Amaro as an amateur free agent. The scout was Tufie Hashem, who in 1949 had become general manager of the minor-league club in Mexicali, Baja California. “In 1954, when the Cardinals’ organization extended a working agreement to Mexicali, Hashem came up with his first find, Ruben Amaro.”11 Amaro also noted the involvement of Mexicali’s player-manager, Art Lilly.

“The Cardinals signed me not for my glove,” said Amaro, “but for my bat. I was about the same size as Bobby Ávila, and we both had pretty good power. I was originally an outfielder. I did not start playing shortstop until 1953, after our regular shortstop for the Mexican team broke his leg.”

Amaro began his pro career with Mexicali, which was then in the Arizona-Texas League (Class C). He played in only 93 games, though – “the manager for Bisbee took me out with a rolling slide and broke my fibula.” That summer, Amaro also got a brief taste of action with Veracruz in the Mexican League – where his father was player-manager. Rubén went 2 for 5 in four games but never returned to that league in future.12

Amaro rejoined Mexicali for the 1955 season, and his first cousin Mario Amaro Romay was one of his teammates. Rubén hit 18 homers – he never even approached double digits in any other season – while batting .309. His 1959 Topps baseball card observed, “In the first couple of years in pro ball, he had the tendency to overrun grounders due to his eagerness.” Over time, though, Amaro became known for his smooth, gliding movement in the field.

Amaro played winter ball in Mexico off and on during his career. After his first pro summer, he joined Hermosillo in La Liga de la Costa del Pacífico, but was traded to Mazatlán – “Hermosillo had too many shortstops,” he said. He returned to Mazatlán for three more seasons but rejected offers to play for the Veracruz Sharks in the 1958-59 season.13 Higher education was the reason: he studied business and accounting at La Academía Comercial Veracruz for three years.14 “The director of the school was a very strict and wonderful woman named Juanita Folgueras,” Amaro recalled. “The school is also known by her name. It was a four-year school, but I did not finish. I promised my father that I would, and I still may!”

Amaro spent the summers of 1956 and 1957 with Houston (Double A). Over half a century later, he recalled that he was ready to quit because of the racial and ethnic taunts of some Texas League fans – “the vituperation,” in his own words. Jim Crow laws were also humiliating (in fact, Shreveport didn’t even let black players take the field in 1957, under a Louisiana state law then in effect that banned interracial sports). But he stuck with it after Santos Amaro calmly reminded his son that he had originally let him leave school on the condition that he do whatever it took to reach the majors.15

For better and for worse, two former big-leaguers had a major impact on Amaro’s development in 1956. The first was Billy Jurges, who was a special infield instructor at the Cardinals’ advance camp that February.16 “He told me two things that stayed with me forever,” Amaro recalled. “One was that in the first three days of camp, I had to know all my pitchers by first and last names.” The bigger picture was to know the hurlers’ tendencies and be positioned accordingly. Gene Mauch, who later managed Amaro with the Phillies, viewed Rubén as one of the best shortstops he ever saw in this regard. “The other was that I had to know I was going to get the batter out at first.” In other words, he had to catalogue all the batters and how well they ran too.

During that advance camp, The Sporting News said of Amaro, “[He] has shown exceptional fielding skill at shortstop. He glides around the infield with speed and deftness. If he can hit he’ll be on some major league club before long.”17 That’s where the other influence came to bear – Houston manager Harry Walker. Throughout his long career as a skipper, “Harry the Hat” was known for his inveterate remolding of batters’ swings in his own spray-hitting style. It helped some players, but Amaro was not one of them. “Those two years in Houston changed me as a player,” he said. “I became a tremendous shortstop, but after working with Harry, I couldn’t hit a ball 250 feet.”

Still, Rubén moved up to Triple-A Rochester in 1958. Although he was hitting just .200 in the first few months of the season, the big club called him up to St. Louis in late June. “Eddie Kasko was not only down below .200 at bat but had slipped in the field.”18 Amaro became just the 12th player born in Mexico to reach the majors.

When the rookie set foot on the field at Busch Stadium for the first time on June 28, it became extra special – thanks to his teammate, the great Stan Musial. As author Milton Jamail wrote in 2001, “Ask Rubén Amaro Sr. for the highlight of his long career and he does not hesitate a second.”19 He had been issued uniform pants that were two sizes too big, and Musial asked the clubhouse man to find a proper pair. As George Vecsey added in his 2011 biography of Musial, “Stan the Man” also graciously made the rookie feel at home with memories of playing against Santos Amaro while barnstorming in Cuba years before.20

Over the rest of the ’58 season, Amaro appeared in 40 games for the Cardinals, hitting .224 in 76 at-bats. That December, St. Louis traded him to Philadelphia for Chuck Essegian. “We had just finished our tour of Japan,” said Amaro. “I think they traded me as soon as I got off the plane.” Roy Hamey, general manager of the Phillies, wanted to light a fire under his shortstop, Chico Fernández.21 Amaro spent the entire 1959 season at Triple-A Buffalo; meanwhile the Phillies used Joe Koppe ahead of Fernández at short.

In June 1960, however, Koppe got hurt and Philadelphia couldn’t swing a trade for another shortstop. So they called up Amaro and made him the regular.22 Upon joining the Phillies, Rubén became just the third native of Mexico to play for the club.23 He formed a double-play combo with Tony Taylor, the Cuban second baseman obtained in trade that May. Soon thereafter, Philadelphia beat writer Allen Lewis wrote in The Sporting News, “The addition of shortstop Ruben Amaro tightened the infield considerably. The Mexican was drawing raves from the Connie Mack Stadium fans for the finest shortstop play they had seen by a Phillies player in many years.”24

Amaro remained the primary shortstop for the Phillies in 1961, setting a big-league career high in games played (135). It was also his most productive season in terms of offense, featuring his best on-base percentage (.351) and OPS (.700). That April, Gene Mauch said, “There’s no shortstop in the league playing better ball defensively than Amaro. Ernie Banks might have better hands, but he isn’t a better shortstop.”25

On December 9, 1961, Amaro married Judith Herman. They had met at the gourmet cheese shop that Judy’s mother ran in Philadelphia’s Reading Terminal Market.26 In 2008, Judy also said, “My sister Marlene taught English to Pancho Herrera and Tony Taylor. Ruben would drive them to our house for the lessons.”27

Rubén and Judy had two sons, both of whom became baseball players. David was drafted in the 24th round by the Chicago Cubs in 1984. He played that summer in short-season Class A ball and eight games in the Mexican League in 1985. David’s sons Robert and Andrew were both drafted by the Phillies out of high school but chose college instead; Andrew played Class A ball for the Phillies in 2015.28 Rubén Jr. played in the major leagues from 1991 through 1998 and then moved into the front office of the Phillies. He became the club’s general manager in 2008 and remained in that position through September 2015. In an unusual move, he then joined the coaching staff of the Boston Red Sox.

In January 1962, the Associated Press wrote, “Amaro, a brilliant fielder, is the keystone of the Phillies infield.” Gene Mauch said, “Amaro must have been the most improved player in the majors last year. He moved in a couple of steps at short and became a star. He also became a tough hitter.”29

That May, Amaro (who had previously been in the Mexican Army) was recalled to service in the U.S. Army. The Phillies called up Bobby Wine, who had played four games for them in 1960, and made him the interim starter. Wine continued to play a lot after Amaro returned in late July. He performed well enough for the Phillies to consider trading Amaro during the offseason.30 Instead, Mauch juggled them for three years more.

Amaro returned to winter ball in Mexico for the 1962-63 season. He started with Jalapa of the Veracruz League, which was managed by his father. He also got his first taste of managing. “There was an all-star game between the young players and the veterans, and I got to lead the young guys.” But when the governor of Veracruz state withdrew financial support for the Jalapa franchise, it folded, and the league’s other three teams followed suit.31 Amaro thereupon joined the Yaquis of Ciudad Obregón in La Liga Invernal de Sonora.

Back with the Phillies in 1963, Amaro got off to a cold start with the bat, and his fielding was still not quite up to his brilliant standard of 1961. Therefore, Mauch gave Wine another shot.32 Wine hit well for a few weeks, and though he tailed off severely at the plate after that, he continued to get more shortstop duty than Amaro overall. During the four seasons that Wine and Amaro were teammates, from 1962 through 1965, they split the shortstop duties as follows:

Rubén Amaro and Bobby Wine: Selected Averages, 1962-65

Source: Baseball-Reference.com

It was an interesting pattern – not a true platoon in that both men were righthanded batters who didn’t contribute much with the stick. Both were excellent defenders who positioned themselves well, though Wine was known more for his stronger arm and Amaro for his greater range and quick release. Both also filled in at third base; Amaro also played a significant amount at first base, including seven starts during the 1964 season.

Going into spring training in 1964, Mauch called Wine the first-stringer and Amaro the backup.33 The following month, though, he was more ambivalent. He said, “They can both play in the field and, although they are different types, they are both among the best there is with the glove. We can’t lose anything there whichever one is the regular.” The skipper thought, however, that Wine had more upside with the bat.34

As it developed, Wine played 52% of the innings at short, Amaro 42%, and the scraps went to Cookie Rojas. In 1989, as part of his retrospective series on the ’64 Phillies, Stan Hochman of the Philadelphia Daily News offered a witty view of how the shortstop tandem was used that year. “When it was over, manager Gene Mauch had wrung eight homers and 68 RBI out of his shortstop(s), shuffling Amaro and Wine in and out of the lineup based on biorhythms only he detected, based on the opposing pitcher, the day of the week, the phases of the moon.”35

There was more to it than hunches, though. In late May, Mauch cited the need to give both Wine and Tony Taylor some rest. He said, “There’s more mental pressure on the second baseman and shortstop than on any other regular except the catcher. Taylor and Wine have played almost every inning since spring training.” Allen Lewis added, “Ruben Amaro, who can play any infield position expertly, has done everything Mauch asked of him and done it well.”36

Wine started 70 of the first 97 games at short, but then fell below the Mendoza Line, and Mauch turned more to Amaro as the summer wore on. Late in the season, Lewis wrote that Amaro was back in his top form of 1961 in the field and was hitting respectably too. Rubén himself credited being in a good rhythm with regular play. Oddly enough, he said that a spring wrist injury helped his swing.37

Amaro also made a unique contribution to how the history of the 1964 Philadelphia Phillies was recorded with the series of letters he wrote to his father and mother at their home in Veracruz. Those letters possessed a special spirit, but are lost to history because Doña Pepa threw them out while cleaning house in 1971. Amaro ordered $1,800 worth of World Series tickets for his family before the Phillies collapsed down the stretch. He never did get to a World Series as a player, though he was present as first-base coach when the Phillies finally triumphed in 1980. “We won and it was fabulous, extraordinary – but nothing ever is going to make up for our loss in 1964.” He drew a parallel with another team he served as coach, the 1984 Chicago Cubs, who won the first two games of the NL Championship Series that year but couldn’t close it out. “We had a banner year, but it was devastating at the end when we lost three games to San Diego and couldn’t go to the Series.” The good Catholic summed it up this way: “When the saints turn their back, there is simply no way you are going to win.”

After the sad ending to the season, Amaro received some consolation in the form of the National League Gold Glove award for shortstops. In those days, the players cast the ballots, and out of 251 total, Amaro got 59, edging Leo Cárdenas of Cincinnati, teammate Wine (the 1963 winner), and veteran Roy McMillan of the New York Mets. The Sporting News said, “The award was long overdue for Amaro.”38

There was renewed talk after the ’64 season that the Phillies might look to deal either Wine or Amaro to another team.39 That did not come to pass for another year, though. On November 29, 1965, Philadelphia traded Amaro to the New York Yankees for utility infielder Phil Linz. The Yankees thought Linz would not develop into a regular shortstop; the Phillies viewed him as a bench reinforcement who might become something more. Yankees manager Ralph Houk said, “We know Amaro isn’t much of a bet to win the batting title, but we know he is truly a first-class infielder.”40

“I did not play much winter ball after getting married,” Amaro said. “I worked for ADD Air Freight International and later for Freihofer’s bakery.” But because Amaro had not played much for Philadelphia in 1965, he wanted to return to Ciudad Obregón. Economics prevented it, however; “Mexican rules dictate[d] that a major league player must be paid at the same rate as in the United States. ‘My team couldn’t possibly pay me by league rules,’ Amaro explained. ‘The team’s entire budget for the season was 72,000 pesos, or approximately $6,000.’”41

Amaro was the main candidate to step into the shoes of a Yankee hero, Tony Kubek, who had retired in January 1966. Although he became the first Mexican to play in the majors for the Yankees, he got into just 14 games with New York that year. He injured his knee in the fifth game of the season, colliding with left fielder Tom Tresh on a blooper off the bat of Brooks Robinson. He underwent surgery and did not return until September. The Bronx Bombers finished in last place in the American League that year, one of the worst seasons in the proud franchise’s history.

Bobby Murcer (originally a shortstop for the Yankees) went into the Army for a two-year hitch in 1967. Amaro returned to play 130 games, overcoming the long layoff and some lingering mental concerns to earn some consideration as Comeback Player of the Year.42 Houk gave him a career high 470 plate appearances. In 1968, however, New York moved Tom Tresh to shortstop and Amaro became a seldom-used reserve. He came to the plate just 50 times in 47 games, getting just five hits.

Perhaps the most interesting news concerning him that year came off the field. The 1968 Summer Olympics were held in Mexico City, and Amaro took a principled stand, supporting a potential boycott of the Games if South Africa (then under apartheid) were allowed to participate. He came under fire in his homeland’s press but did not change his position.43 The International Olympic Committee eventually decided to continue its ban of South Africa, and the boycotts did not take place.

In November 1968, the California Angels purchased Amaro’s contract from the Yankees for $25,000. They wanted a capable veteran backup for Jim Fregosi, who had tired after the All-Star break.44 That winter, in need of action, Amaro got back to Ciudad Obregón.

During the 1969 season, Jim Bouton (a teammate with the Yankees from 1966-68) praised Amaro as he wrote his baseball diary, Ball Four. “He’s the kind of guy, well, there’s a dignity to him and everyone likes and respects him.” Again, however, Rubén’s playing time was scanty – just 36 plate appearances in 41 games. Yet he helped the ballclub in other ways – notably as mentor to a countryman, young Aurelio Rodríguez. In fact, Amaro and Rodríguez’s father had been on the same Mexican amateur team in 1953.45

A few weeks after the 1969 season ended, the Angels released Amaro. They offered him a job managing in their minor-league system, but he still wanted to be on the field. Thus he played winter ball again, this time with the Culiacán Tomateros.46 The following spring, he signed with the San Diego Padres. “If I made good, I wanted $25,000, but they didn’t agree. So I called Gene Mauch,” who was then managing the Montreal Expos. “Gene said if I made his team, I would earn whatever I made with the Angels.”

Amaro was an insurance policy at shortstop; the incumbent – none other than Bobby Wine – had an elbow problem that concerned the Expos.47 “He also had a neck problem,” Amaro added. Rubén wasn’t able to stick, though. “That winter, I fell on my shoulder in a rundown with Aurelio Rodríguez. I got to spring training and I couldn’t throw. The minute I left camp, I was okay.”

There was no job opening as a player-coach for the Expos at Triple-A.48 An opportunity arose in his homeland, but things turned out differently. “I had a two-year contract to manage the Mexico City Reds,” Amaro recalled. “I had a brand-new Ford station wagon, and it had temporary tags. I didn’t want to get to the border with those, so I went to Harrisburg to get plates. I started driving down and a highway patrolman stopped me. I wondered what I had done, and he told me that I had an urgent call from Mr. Paul Owens.” The Phillies’ farm director wanted Amaro to return to the organization. “So I drove to Eugene, Oregon instead of my country.”

Amaro played in 106 games in 1970 for Philadelphia’s top farm club. That July, he became a player-coach.49 He spent one last winter as a player in Mexico, again with Culiacán. During his final summer as a pro, 1971, he got into 17 games for Eugene and 11 with the Double-A affiliate, the Reading Phillies.

In 1970, Gene Mauch had called Amaro an excellent managing prospect, saying, “He’s got it up here” while tapping his forehead.50 “The owner in Eugene wanted me to be manager,” Amaro said. “They had guys like Greg Luzinski [1971] and Mike Schmidt [1972]. I might have become a major-league manager. But it was too early for me,” he added, referring to his ethnicity.

Rubén became a full-time manager for the first time in the winter of 1971-72 with Culiacán. He was celebrating the team’s victory in the first half of the season at the ranch of owner Juan Manuel Ley when he mounted a horse and the animal threw Amaro over its head.51 “I shattered and dislocated my ankle, and that was the end of my playing career.”

Since then, Amaro compiled the following résumé:

“When I first worked for the Phillies in 1972,” Amaro recalled, “there were only four people in the [farm director’s] office: Paul Owens, Dallas Green, I, and Bill Gargano, plus a couple of secretaries.” Amaro took great pride in having contributed to the renewed success of the franchise. In his view, the very high percentage of players who went to winter ball together was a major factor, helping with fundamentals and team cohesion.

“I never wanted to leave the Phillies – never,” Amaro continued. “The times I left, they were the biggest boo-boos of my life. Not so much the first time, though, because I joined Dallas Green with the Cubs and he built something, which I don’t think he gets enough credit for.”

Amaro never did get a chance to manage in the majors, although he was mentioned as a candidate to succeed Green with the Phillies after the 1981 season. He also got an interview with Philadelphia as late as 2000, following the firing of Terry Francona. “I was not only Latin, but my family was also a bit dark,” Amaro said in 2011. “My time came too early.”52 He also hoped to become assistant to his son when Rubén Jr. became GM, but internal politics prevented that – the Phillies instituted a rule against family connections.

Amaro and his first wife, Judy, got divorced in the 1980s. Rubén had a daughter named Alayna from a relationship with Mary Beth Allio. In 1988, he got married again, to Lilia Machado, a member of the family that owns Águilas del Zulia, Amaro’s Venezuelan club. Their two sons, Luis Alfredo and Rubén Andrés, also became ballplayers. Luis played short-season Class A ball for the Phillies in 2011.

After a battle with cancer, Rubén Amaro Mora died in Miami on March 31, 2017. His passing came just nine days after the death of his longtime colleague Dallas Green. When the news of Amaro’s death broke, there was a remarkable outpouring of affection for the man, emphasizing his personal warmth and grace. It echoed an observation from six years before about his standing in the game. During spring training 2011, Amaro visited the camp of the New York Mets, representing the Baseball Assistance Team (he had been a director for several years). Sportswriter Marty Noble observed, “Wherever he was, lines formed. Scouts, writers, club officials actually queued up to say hello and show reverence, appreciation and respect for the soft-spoken 75-year-old. He never was a star. . . But he is one of the game’s great gentlemen.”53

This biography is an expanded version of the one included in the book “The Year of the Blue Snow: The 1964 Philadelphia Phillies” (SABR, 2013), edited by Mel Marmer and Bill Nowlin. It includes some of the material from two sidebar articles, “What to Do with Two Gold Glove Shortstops?” and “The Amaro Chronicles”.

Sources

Grateful acknowledgment to Rubén Amaro Sr. for his memories. All Amaro quotes are from telephone interviews on October 18 and November 20, 2012, unless otherwise indicated. Thanks also to Steve Grande, Media Relations, Houston Astros, and to Dick Schofield Sr. for confirming information about the Cardinals’ advance camps.

Fellow researchers

Continued thanks to Alfonso Araujo in Mexico for various details of Rubén Amaro’s career in winter ball.

Books

Pedro Treto Cisneros, editor, Enciclopedia del Béisbol Mexicano, Mexico City: Revistas Deportivas, S.A. de C.V.: 11th edition, 2011.

The Sporting News Baseball Register, 1965 edition.

Internet resources

www.baseball-reference.com

www.retrosheet.org

www.checkoutmycards.com

Manuel de Jesús Sortillón Valenzuela, online history of La Liga de la Costa del Pacífico, www.historiadehermosillo.com/BASEBALL/Menuff.htm

Notes

Nonetheless, Santos had the talent. His son and grandson – Rubén Amaro Sr. and Ruben Jr. – were in the majors for 11 and eight years, respectively. Two members of the clan’s fourth generation were chosen in the amateur draft before going to the college ranks. “Baseball is our way of life in the Amaro family,” said Rubén Sr.3

Santos Amaro played 14 winter seasons in his homeland from 1936-37 to 1949-50. He was in Mexico during the summers from the late 1920s through 1955, including at least 17 seasons in the Mexican League. He was also a manager in both Cuba and his adopted home, and he eventually became a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame in each nation.

Originally a catcher, Amaro also played third base, first base, and across the outfield – but his true home as a player was in right field, thanks to his powerful throwing arm.4 Fermín “Mike” Guerra, a catcher for many years in Cuba and the majors, told Cuban baseball historian Roberto González Echevarría that Amaro’s arm was the strongest he had ever seen in an outfielder.5 Amaro consistently hit around .300, though he hit mainly line drives and had surprisingly little home-run power for his size. “He never lifted the ball,” said Rubén Sr., “but he was a strong gap hitter who used all fields, got lots of extra bases, and was very conscientious with men in scoring position.”6

Amaro was a man of regal appearance and bearing. The Mexican Baseball Hall of Fame described him as “a complete gentleman outside the diamond, but on the field of play he practiced aggressive baseball, because he did not like to lose; he always wanted to be a winner and always gave his maximum effort to achieve this.”7 He was a member of eight champion teams in Cuba plus at least five more in Mexico – three confirmed as player, one more as player-manager, and another as manager alone. Author Milton Jamail put Amaro in a special category along with three other men he had the good fortune to interview: Curt Flood, Vic Power, and Willie Wells. “All fought the discrimination they faced through the quality of their play on the field and their incredible strength and dignity off it.”8 These attributes served Amaro well as a manager. He also passed them on to his family.

Santos Amaro Oliva was born on March 14, 1908, in Aguacate. This place – its name means avocado in Spanish – is a village in the former province of La Habana.9 It is in the western part of the country, between the Cuban capital and the city of Matanzas. When Santos was a youth, it had between 2,000 and 3,000 inhabitants. As was true of much of Cuba, the area was agricultural. “My grandmother’s family cultivated rice, mainly,” said Rubén Sr.10

Santos Amaro shared his given name with his father, a merchant seaman who came from Portugal. Baseball’s influence was already visible in the family. Author Nick Wilson wrote, “He was following in the footsteps of his father, who played at the turn of the century. When I interviewed Santos at the age of 92, he could not remember whether his father had confined himself to pitching or had played many positions as was customary in those early days.” Wilson added, “But there were many things about his own career which he could recall with clarity.”11 Though Amaro died not long after Wilson spoke to him, Rubén Sr.’s own excellent memory strongly complements what can be gathered from other sources.

Amaro’s mother, Regla Oliva, was (according to Rubén Sr.) “always a homemaker, a great cook, very able – doing everything to raise cattle and children when very young. She died in her sleep in Cuba when she was 114 years old, very healthy. I had just talked to her on the phone four days before she passed away. Abuelita Regla always mentioned that she was born in Cuba, but her parents both were Abencerraje Moors from Africa – nomads. They were slaves brought to Cuba and were given their freedom there, got married, and had three children.”12

Santos was the fourth of five children. He had three older brothers, named Mario, Rogelio, and Elpidio; he was followed by a sister named Visitación (“Niña”). “The family moved from Madruga, a bigger town near Aguacate, to Luyanó/Reparto Rocafort [neighborhoods in the city of Havana] when my father was 13 years old,” said Rubén Sr. “The oldest brothers, Mario and Rogelio, started work to support the family. My grandfather had passed away.”13

Santos became an apprentice carpenter, learning the craft of cabinetmaking and detail work.14 “He played baseball in the placeres, or sandlots, when young,” remembered Rubén Sr. “He was always a catcher – too skinny and too tall, but a great arm. His best friend growing up was Kid Chocolate, one of the greatest boxers of Cuba – very small, totally opposite.”15

With a group of other young Cubans, Santos went to Mexico in 1928 with his first professional team, a traveling outfit called Bacardí. Three teammates also went on to play many years in Mexico: pitcher Alcibíades Palma, catcher Rafael “Sungo” Pedrozo, and shortstop Marcelino Bauza. The manager was a stocky little man named Luis Sansirena; he too spent decades in Mexico as a manager and coach. Amaro earned $10 a week, plus room and board.16

In 1929 Amaro met a young woman named Josefina Mora (1910-2007), a member of the Vera Cruz Women’s Professional Baseball Club.17 They were married in 1930 in Veracruz – “by a justice of the peace,” Rubén Sr. remembered. “They had a Catholic Church wedding in the Cathedral of Veracruz in 1951. It was my 15th birthday gift.”18 Santos and “Doña Pepa” had two sons. Mario was born in 1931 in Veracruz; Rubén was born in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico in 1936.19 Around 1956, with both of their sons grown men, the couple adopted a seven-month-old baby girl named Ana Teresa, fondly known as “Ana Banana.”

As Rubén Sr. told author Stuart Gustafson many years later, his parents were a study in contrasts. Santos was tall (1.92 meters, or roughly 6-feet-3½) with dark coffee-colored skin. As an adult, he filled out to 95 kilos (210 pounds).20 Josefina was petite (5-feet-1) and fair (her grandparents on both sides were Spanish). Rubén and Mario wound up in between at 5-feet-10½. Doña Pepa was the one with whom the boys practiced their baseball skills, because Santos stressed education above all.21 “He only had an elementary education,” said Rubén Sr. in 2010, “but he told me baseball players have a lot of empty time. He used to read all the time and played with words. When we were doing our homework, he’d come by and say, ‘Fix that. That’s not done properly.’ There would be no playing baseball until we were ready to face the world otherwise. He would preach to us every day. ‘Get prepared. And when you embark on a task, don’t look back.’ ”22

This gentle but firm fatherly guidance continued when Rubén Sr. was in his early years in the minor leagues. Amaro spent the summers of 1956 and 1957 with Houston. Over half a century later, he recalled that he was ready to quit because of the racial and ethnic taunts of some Texas League fans – “the vituperation,” in his own words. Jim Crow laws were also humiliating. But he stuck with it after Santos Amaro calmly reminded his son that he had originally let him leave school on the condition that he do whatever it took to reach the majors.23

Mario Amaro was a skillful baseball player too, but he chose instead to focus on medicine (he also played professional soccer in Cuba while in medical school).24 In 1965, Rubén Sr. said, “No professional sport is as highly regarded in Mexico as it is in the US. A doctor, a lawyer, an engineer has more respect than any baseball player. I have a brother here who is a doctor, and everywhere we go people say, ‘This is Ruben Amaro’s brother.’ But back home, when people see me, they say, ‘Ah, there goes Dr. Amaro’s brother.’ ”25

Another intriguing insight into Santos Amaro the autodidact came from another great Cuban player, Hall of Famer Martín Dihigo. El Inmortal was born two years before Amaro and they played against each other in Cuba in the 1920s. Dihigo later became a teammate in other nations, godfather to Rubén Sr. – and a fellow member of the Freemasons.26 A 1938 letter from Dihigo is visible on the website of the auction firm Leland’s. In it, he described his efforts to absorb the knowledge contained in a three-volume Masonic encyclopedia.27 Amaro must have done the same – “he was a Past Master later on in his life,” said Rubén Sr.28

After barnstorming almost two years with Bacardí, Amaro joined the Mexican League team Tigres de Comintra in 1930, according to Rubén Sr. This team won the league championship. Unfortunately, further documentation has not yet surfaced; La Enciclopedia del Béisbol Mexicano’s records start in 1937.

Though his features did not fit the “African” stereotype, Amaro’s complexion meant that he encountered racism while playing with a barnstorming team in the United States in 1932. By one account, he did not wish to return.29 “But in 1935, he went on an eighty-game, fourteen-state tour of the United States with … La Junta de Nuevo Laredo.”30 He received some press in the U.S.; for example, the Wisconsin State Journal noted Amaro as the “star catcher of the Junta baseball team” and “long dusky rightfielder.” It also referred to him as “the Babe Ruth of the Mexican outfit” even though he was a line-drive hitter.31

Santos was not allowed to play much while the tour was in Texas. The prejudice he faced in the U.S. apparently killed his desire to play in the Negro Leagues. Yet Afro-Cubans faced bias even at home – in baseball and in society at large. Cuba’s high-level Amateur League, which exceeded pro ball in popularity for much of the first half of the 20th century, remained segregated until 1959. Two integrated amateur leagues eventually sprang up in Cuba, but not until the 1940s. Mexico was a more welcoming environment. In addition to greater opportunities on the field, several black Cuban players married Mexican women. One was Pedro Orta, whose son Jorge became a major leaguer from 1972 to 1987.32

Despite his limited action in the Lone Star State, Amaro still made an impression on Texan fans who saw him in Nuevo Laredo. In 1965 a man from the border city of McAllen named Bill Walsh wrote a letter to Sports Illustrated to that effect. It read in part, “In his prime Santos Amaro could have played on any ball club anywhere in the world. There was one reason he did not: he was black. Other Cubans had played in the majors, but they were always light in color. Santos could perform at any spot on the baseball field, except as a pitcher. In 1936 I saw him in a four-game series against an American League All-Star team headed by Rogers Hornsby, and including such players as Pinky Higgins, Red Kress, Eric McNair, and pitchers such as Ted Lyons and Jack Knott. In this series at Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, Santos played in the outfield, and in the four games he got 13 hits.”

Walsh continued, “But it was as a catcher that Santos was at his best. I have seen [Gabby] Hartnett, [Yogi] Berra and [Bill] Dickey, and none of them was any better than Santos Amaro. You cannot say anything about a baseball catcher better than that.”33 Mexican sources suggest that Amaro’s height hindered him behind the plate and was a factor in his position switch.34 Perhaps his athleticism was better suited to other spots, though – Amaro’s size and leaping ability won him the nickname El Canguro – “The Kangaroo.”35 By another account, though, it came in the 1930s as he was running to try to catch a team bus that had left him behind at a restaurant.36 Amaro’s contemporary, pitcher Conrado Marrero, cited skin color as well as stature.37

In 1937 Amaro went to play in the Dominican Republic. That was a remarkable year for Dominican baseball; the season was dedicated to the re-election of dictator Rafael Trujillo, and Ciudad Trujillo assembled a powerhouse team, luring the best Negro Leaguers of the day to come down. The league’s other teams competed, at least to a degree. Águilas Cibaeñas of Santiago signed Amaro plus Martín Dihigo and another fellow Cuban, Luis E. Tiant. With all the foreign reinforcements, there were relatively few Dominicans in the league, but the Santiago club had one of the nation’s early stars, Horacio “Rabbit” Martínez (Juan “Tetelo” Vargas was with Ciudad Trujillo). Amaro displayed power that was unusual for him; he tied Dihigo for the league lead in homers with four.38

The Dominican pro circuit collapsed after the excesses of 1937, however, not to reappear for another 14 years. Amaro then went to Venezuela in the summer of 1938, as did various other Latino ballplayers. A book called Historia del Béisbol en el Zulia, which focuses on the game in Venezuela’s westernmost state, notes that he joined the Centauros team.39 This locale remained important to the Amaro family over the years. Rubén Sr. became a manager and executive for the winter-ball team Águilas del Zulia, and Rubén Jr. played with that club for six seasons.

Rubén Sr. said that Santos “started to play in Venezuela with the Centauros, but didn’t have any success and they sent him to the other pro league, the Central League, with the Valdés club. He won the batting title. The other teams were Venezuela, Premier, Vencedor, and Vargas.”40 It was a brief schedule, though; Venezuelan baseball historian José Antero Núñez showed that Amaro was 13 for 31 (.419). He appeared in nine of the club’s 15 games.41

According to Who’s Who in Cuban Baseball, 1878-1961, Amaro’s first Cuban winter team was Santa Clara. He was there for five seasons, starting in 1936-37. (The Great Depression hit Cuban baseball hard in the early 1930s; the 1933-34 season was canceled.) In his second year, the Leopardos won the league championship with a lineup that also starred Negro Leaguer Sam Bankhead, who won the Cuban batting title. The staff ace was US Hall of Famer Ray “Jabao” Brown. The 1938-39 squad – featuring the great Josh Gibson as well as Brown – repeated as champs. “My father’s time in Santa Clara was his favorite,” said Rubén Sr. “It was a prelude to arriving at the top of his game around great players.”42

The first available Mexican League records for “Santicos” Amaro (as he was also known) come from 1939, when he was 31 years old. He joined Águila de Veracruz. In 1940 Águila was not in the league; Amaro played 14 games for the Veracruz Azules (Blues). This team was the league champion, which was not surprising – it was loaded with several of the all-time great Negro Leaguers: Josh Gibson, Willie Wells, Leon Day, Ray Dandridge, and Cool Papa Bell, as well as Ted “Double Duty” Radcliffe. Martín Dihigo was also with the club as player-manager. Mexican magnate Jorge Pasquel had bought the club before the season, moved it to Mexico City, and persuaded Dihigo to come aboard.43

“He always mentioned the superb experience of playing against and besides players of that caliber,” said Rubén Sr., “but two players that he considered above everyone else of that era were Martín Dihigo and Alejandro Oms, both from Cuba. His favorite players from the USA were in this order: James Bell (Cool Papa), Buck Leonard, Raymond Dandridge, Roy Campanella, and Josh Gibson.

“Pitchers: Dihigo, Satch Paige, Max Lanier, Ramón Bragaña, Lázaro Salazar, Vidal López (Venezuela), Connie Marrero, Tomás de la Cruz, Theolic Smith, Sal Maglie, Sandalio Consuegra, Agapito Mayor, Indian Torres. Whenever my father talked to his peers about their times, those names were always at the top of his conversations.”44

After his year with the Azules, Amaro then played seven-plus seasons with the Tampico Alijadores45 from 1941. Tampico was one of the better teams in Mexico during the 1940s, winning back-to-back championships in 1945 and 1946 under manager Armando Marsáns, one of the early Cubans to play in the majors. Amaro also gained his first experience as a manager in Tampico. He led the Alijadores for part of the 1943 season (replacing Willie Wells) and part of 1947 (taking over for Marsáns). “I remember the days in Tampico. We lived there more than five years,” said Rubén Sr. “When Tampico left the Mexican League [the club folded partway through the 1948 season], he went back to the Azules.”46

As of the 1941-42 Cuban winter season, Amaro was with the Almendares Alacranes. That team was the league champion, and so were the Scorpions of 1942-43, 1944-45, and 1946-47. During this time, Amaro also appeared in the American Series of 1942, when the Brooklyn Dodgers came to Havana for spring training and lost three out of five games to a Cuban all-star team.

In 1947-48, Cuba had an “alternative” league called La Liga Nacional (or Players Federation). The circuit, which lasted just one year, featured players who had become “outlaws” in the US because of their association with the Mexican League in 1946. Amaro played first with Alacranes, and then he went to the club called Cuba in a trade that also involved Sal Maglie. Amaro took over as manager for Cuba, succeeding Napoleón Reyes, who “retired on doctor’s orders. The combined work of player and manager brought a breakdown.”47

Amaro then rejoined Almendares in 1948-49, playing his last two winters at home for the Scorpions. Both of these teams became league champions and thus went on to play in the first and second Caribbean Series. Though mostly Cuban, there were notable Americans, such as future TV star Chuck Connors and Al Gionfriddo. In fact, Amaro was signed to replace Connors in January 1950 – allegedly after manager Fermín Guerra released the Dodgers farmhand “for failing to respect training rules.”48 It is remarkable to note that one man from the 1949-50 roster still survived as of 2012: Conrado Marrero, at 101 the oldest living major leaguer. (Catcher Andrés Fleitas died in December 2011 at the age of 95.)

Amaro ranked sixth in the history of Cuba’s main professional league in hits (725) and ninth in RBIs (321). He batted over .300 five times in his career there, finishing with a lifetime average of .294 – though he had just 12 homers. (Total games played are not available.) He wasn’t quite through as a player at home, though – in 1950-51, another new league sprang up, again called La Liga Nacional. Background on this league is available in Roberto González Echevarría’s book The Pride of Havana.49 Peter Bjarkman, historian of Cuban baseball, summed it up as follows:

“By that time, the ban had been lifted on [all] former Mexican leaguers, but the overall labor dispute had reduced the number of jobs in the Cuban League for older native Cuban players. With the assistance of Martín Dihigo, some of the over-the-hill veterans organized a separate league in Havana which was considered a minor circuit, not a rival to the normal Cuban League, and drew little attention. Amaro played in that league and did manage the club called Fé (the teams were all named after historic teams from the pre-1920s Cuban League).”50

Rubén Amaro, Sr.’s memory tallies with the historians’ description. “My father was active with Almendares until 1950. In 1951 there was an experiment to see if Cuba could support two professional leagues, the other one playing at the old Tropical Stadium. My father managed the team La Fé; lots of young Cuban players that couldn’t make the big season. Four teams formed the league. The people didn’t support that league, they had a much better show in El Cerro Stadium, better than the big leagues. The best black players, the best white players from the big leagues and the best Cuban players at the time, all in one ballpark distributed in four teams.”51

Over in Mexico, Amaro came back to Águila in 1949 and spent his remaining seven summers as a player at home in Veracruz. The Amaro family traveled between Mexico and Cuba until settling permanently in Mexico in 1951. “My father was finished as a player in Cuba,” said Rubén Sr., “but he was going to continue to play in the Mexican League with the Veracruz team in the summer, as well as managing in the Central Veracruz League in the winter.”52

Santos was always a Cuban at heart, though. As Rubén Sr. said, “Both Pipo and Mima [as the Amaro sons called their parents] traveled several times to see their sons and grandchildren. My father never gave up his Cuban citizenship. We all tried to make him Mexican. It was easier for him to travel anywhere with a Mexican passport.”53 Yet it’s worth noting that Amaro liked to remind everyone about the historical significance of the first Mexican-born major leaguer, Baldomero “Mel” Almada.54

Amaro succeeded Martín Dihigo as manager of Águila in 1951 and led the club to the Mexican League championship in 1952. Though well into his 40s by that time, Amaro still played on occasion. His last five games as an active player took place in 1955. Over his documented summer career in Mexico, he hit .314 with 32 homers and 705 RBIs in 1,186 games.

Amaro had also stayed active as a player in Mexican winter ball. His team was the Orizaba Cerveceros, or Brewers – this city had long been known as “the Mexican Milwaukee.”55 He was manager only in 1951-52, but he had a fine season as player-manager in 1952-53, when the circuit went from four to six teams and became known as the Veracruz Winter League. He batted .360 (45 for 125).56 As Cuban sportswriter Fausto Miranda later remembered, Amaro liked to say, “It’s not age, it’s the shape you can stay in.”57

Dihigo returned to the helm for Águila partway through the 1956 season, and Amaro remained with the team as a coach.58 Santos managed part of the 1959 season for the Mexico City Tigres, but was replaced at the beginning of June after the club got off to a dreadful start.59 He came back to Águila as third-base coach,60 and became manager once again in 1960. He spent four more summers as skipper in his home city, winning another league championship in 1961.

In the winter of 1962-63, Amaro managed Jalapa of the Veracruz League, a team that included his son Rubén. But when the governor of Veracruz state withdrew financial support for the Jalapa franchise, it folded, and the league’s three other teams followed suit.61 The following winter, Amaro set off to manage in another nation: Nicaragua.62 His stay with the Oriental team was brief, though; he stepped down during the Christmas holidays.63 Even Rubén Sr. couldn’t add anything about that chapter of his career.

Amaro started the 1964 summer season with León of the Mexican Center League, a lower-level circuit. He was replaced as manager by Dan Bankhead, the former Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher. Back in the ’30s, Dan’s older brother Sam had been Amaro’s teammate with Santa Clara and an opponent with Ciudad Trujillo. Amaro also managed Reynosa in the Mexican League that summer. The following year, 1965, was his last as a skipper. He managed Aguascalientes in the Mexican Center League for part of the season.

“I believe Pipo finished his career in baseball after the 1965 Aguascalientes job,” said Rubén Sr. “He started work with Rubio Exsome, a construction engineering firm in Veracruz, after that.” Amaro also worked for Deportivo Veracruzano, the city’s foremost sporting institution. His second career continued for 22 years.64

Santos and Pepa Amaro continued to live in their Veracruz home until late 1997. They stayed for a couple of months with a niece, but Rubén Sr. said, “In February 1998, my brother Mario and I decided to put both Mima and Pipo in the nursing home Residencias La Paz under Spanish nuns. Mima suffered a fall trying to clean windows at her house, broke her hip, recuperated very well and we didn’t want them to have any more mishaps. One of the rules of La Paz was that anyone joining them must be able to take care of themselves. If later on they were unable to do that, they could stay. Mima and Pipo continued to travel and visit their family anytime.

“Both lived there until the Lord took them away. Pipo, May 31, 2001, and Mima, March 16, 2007. They were both cremated and their ashes remain together in Veracruz. Dad passed away of natural causes, all the nuns praying and singing around him. Mima fell in her bathroom early one morning, didn’t call for help, broke her femur in two places and left us after three days from the day she fell.”65

Orestes “Minnie” Miñoso, who played for Amaro early in his career, told Nick Wilson, “[Amaro] was a very kind and gentle man. He never hurt anyone.” A Cuban champion boxer, Ultiminio “Sugar” Ramos, knew Amaro because he fought out of Mexico after Fidel Castro came to power. Ramos told Wilson, “He attracted people and liked to engage them. He was a guy who liked to have a good time.” Beyond that, Ramos said, “He brought a great glory to us because he was such a great baseball player.66 The Cuban Baseball Hall of Fame (in exile) inducted Santos Amaro in 1967. He became a member of the Mexican Baseball Hall of Fame in 1977. In 2012 he was named part of the fourth class of veterans to join the Latino Baseball Hall of Fame in the Dominican Republic.

In November 2012, 101-year-old Conrado Marrero contributed his opinion of his teammate from six decades past. “Santos Amaro was a serious, decent, and honorable man … one heck of a ballplayer from his cap to his spikes.”67

This biography was riginally published in 2012. An updated version appeared in “Cuban Baseball Legends: Baseball’s Alternative Universe” (SABR, 2016), edited by Peter C. Bjarkman and Bill Nowlin. Subsequently, it was further updated on January 7, 2023, to reflect Santos Amaro’s recognition as a major-leaguer.

Sources

Grateful acknowledgment to Rubén Amaro Sr. for his memories (telephone interview, October 18, 2012, and a series of e-mails from October 31 through November 25, 2012).

Continued thanks to Rogelio Marrero for obtaining the input of his grandfather, Conrado Marrero.

Continued thanks to Jesús Alberto Rubio in Mexico for various details of Santos Amaro’s career. Jesús knew Amaro personally when he lived in Veracruz in the 1970s and early 1980s. He devoted the March 14, 2010, edition of his column “Al Bat” to Amaro.

Pedro Treto Cisneros, editor, Enciclopedia del Béisbol Mexicano (Mexico City: Revistas Deportivas, S.A. de C.V.: 11th edition, 2011).

Jorge S. Figueredo, Who’s Who in Cuban Baseball, 1878-1961 (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc. 2003).

Nick Wilson, Early Latino Ballplayers in the United States (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Co., 2005).

Photo Credits

Courtesy of Jesús Alberto Rubio collection.

Notes

Tony Armas was born on July 2, 1953, in Puerto Piritu, Anzoátegui state, a town in eastern Venezuela, 235 kilometers (about 150 miles) from Caracas. His father, Jose Rafael Armas, was an electrician, while his mother, Julieta Machado de Armas, was engaged in household chores, taking care at home Antonio and his 12 brothers.

“My parents were able to keep me on track,” Armas said. “We were a very poor family, and lived on what was achieved. My dad was a farmer too.”

In a place having beautiful beaches, the Armas family also had land that they worked. “We used to plant all kinds of beans, all kinds of fruits. We were poor and planted all kinds of fruit for the sustenance of the house,” Armas said. “As the oldest I was the one who was in charge of that, to load sacks of corn, pumpkin, watermelon, everything that was harvested. I think my strength came from there.”

There was no Little League or the Criollitos of Venezuela in those days, no organized movements that help children and young people today to start polishing their skills. Armas began to imitate his idols playing baseball in the street with older people in his neighborhood.

“There were no baseball schools, no little– league baseball. You become a baseball player through hard work,” he said. “I played caimaneras (baseball in the street) with adults, as everyone did in those days. I played since I was a boy, since I was in school. It is not like today, when children are born with a uniform. Right now they have coaches, all benefits that a little boy may have from birth until (he) reaches his youth. At that time, no, at that time you had to make yourself as a player.”

At 17, Tony played for the first time on a team in an organized league, Deportivo Pachaquito, and began to develop his skills on defense. 

“I ended up not playing the tournament,” he recalled. “I started the championship, but didn’t finish it, because there was a National Youth Championship, to be played in Cumaná city and as I was 17, I was called from the Double A to the youth team to go play.”

Armas had an outstanding performance, starring as his team won the Anzoátegui state title.  He was called to the national team to play for the World Youth Championship in Maracaibo. That was where he caught the attention of the former major leaguer Pompeyo “Yo– Yo” Davalillo, a scout for the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Davalillo, brother of the former All– Star Vic Davalillo, played in the majors in 1953 with the Washington Senators, but a broken leg shortened his career and he devoted his life to trying to recruit players from Venezuela to play in the United States.

“Pompeyo Davalillo had checked me in both the national junior and youth world championships. I also went to a worldwide Double– A championship, in Cartagena, Colombia. I didn’t have much chance to play, because I was very young and we had players who were better prepared than me at that time. I did not play, but I had a pretty good time. I kept playing and in 1971 Pompeyo Davalillo arrived at my house, talked to me, said he thought I could make it to the majors, that I could go far in baseball. He spoke with my parents and that’s how I started my career.”

On January 18, 1971, Armas signed as a free agent with the Pittsburgh Pirates for $5,000. At the same time he signed for 30,000 bolivars to play Venezuelan winter ball with the Caracas Lions, a club that had previously featured two of his idols, Vic Davalillo and Cesar Tovar. Tovar played in the majors from 1965 to 1976 with the Twins, A’s, Rangers, Phillies, and Yankees, with a lifetime average of .278; Davalillo batted .279 between 1963 and 1980 with the Indians, Angels, Cardinals, Pirates, Dodgers, and Athletics.

“I was a fan of Caracas and my favorite players were Cesar Tovar and Vic Davalillo. I also admired Joe Ferguson, a power hitter who came as a foreign player.” Ferguson, who played 14 seasons in the majors with Dodgers, Cardinals, Astros, and Angels, played with the Lions in Armas’s rookie year in Venezuela and batted .294 with 15 homers and 51 RBIs, an inspiration for the young prospect.

“I think they signed me because I was a good outfielder. I was not a good hitter,” he said. “You learn to hit with constant work.”

Pittsburgh assigned Armas to play with Monroe and with Bradenton in 1971, dividing his time between rookie ball and Class A, where he combined for a .230 batting average; it was clear he had to work harder to improve his offense.

“I was a good outfielder and I realized I had to work twice (as hard as) the Americans to keep my job. That’s the way it was at that time, not like now, when someone comes to the majors with a lot of money and have to call you up. Plus there are more teams now. That is the reality of my career.”

In 1972 Armas batted .266 with 9 homers and 51 RBIs in Class– A Gastonia, and in 1973 he got the opportunity to play at Double A in an unusual way, after being a batboy for almost two weeks.

“Not that I was happy with what they were doing, but actually they had a lot of players in spring training. There were about 80 players in camp and on the field there were nine. I had no chance to play,” he said. “The manager of Class A needed a batboy and from among those 80 players they called my name. So I spent a week doing that. It bothered me a little bit, because I didn’t go up there to collect bats. I went to earn a spot. There was a Mexican named Mario Mendoza who helped me a lot; what I did was thanks to him, because I told him I wanted to go home, I was not up there to collect bats. He told me to stay calm, that I was being observed to see what kind of character I had, whether I was spoiled. I followed his advice and stayed. The next week was all the same. We arrived on Monday and started the game the same, ‘Armas, you’re the batboy.’ It turns out that on Wednesday, in a game between Double A and Triple A, the Double– A center fielder got injured. The manager shouted that they needed an outfielder and then he said, ‘Armas, get in there.’  I went in, and I stayed.”

His bat began to speak for him with Sherbrooke in the Double– A Eastern League; he hit .301 with 11 homers and 45 RBIs in 84 games, despite suffering a broken arm that had him away from action several days.

The young prospect continued his rise in the organization and, after another season in Double A in 1974, he was promoted to the Charleston (West Virginia) Charlies (Triple A) in 1975. With Charleston again the next season he showed some power, hitting 21 homers, and earned a call– up to the Pirates. Armas debuted on September 6, 1976, against the Philadelphia Phillies at Three Rivers Stadium. He replaced Richie Zisk in left field in the ninth inning. He played in four games during his call– up. On October 3, in the last game of the season (the second game of a doubleheader), Armas got his first start, in the lineup as the center fielder and batting sixth. He got his first major– league hit off Pete Falcone of the St. Louis Cardinals, a single to center field to lead off the bottom of the fifth.

Falcone was locked in a pitching duel with Jerry Reuss, and the game went into the bottom of the ninth scoreless. Armas came up with a runner on second base and two outs in the bottom of the ninth and singled to right field to give the Pirates a 1– 0 walk– off victory to end the season.

Still, Armas faced trying to break in to an outfield populated by Al Oliver, Omar Moreno, and Dave Parker.

“I had no chance to play, because the Pirates had many good players,” he said. “At the time I was in that organization was (Roberto) Clemente, Al Oliver, Willie Stargell, Dave Parker, Richie Zisk, and I had no opportunity to climb. In 1977 (I was out of options), so they had to keep me on the roster or trade me. At the last minute, they traded me to the A’s. It was there that I got the chance to show my full potential.”

Armas was sent to Oakland on March 15, 1977, along with pitchers Dave Giusti, Doc Medich, Doug Bair, and Rick Langford, and outfielder Mitchell Page, for pitcher Chris Batton and infielders Tommy Helms and Phil Garner.

Oakland, a rebuilding team, relied on the talents of Armas, who hit 13 homers and drove in 53 runs in 118 games. The next two seasons, he played in only 171 games because of injuries.

“In Oakland I obviously had to work hard, because no Latin at that time had a safety spot in the big leagues,” he said. “Thanks to Oakland I received the opportunity to play every day and I was able to prove myself.”

In 1980 Armas was healthy and able to deploy his strength to become one of the most feared sluggers in the American League. That year he hit 35 homers and drove in 109 runs, with a respectable .279 average.

The following year, in a strike– shortened season, Armas tied three other players for the American League lead in home runs with 22. (The others were Dwight Evans, Eddie Murray, and Bobby Grich. Armas drove in 76 runs, took part in his first All– Star Game, and finished fourth in the voting for the MVP award. He was chosen by The Sporting News as the Player of the Year.

Thanks to Armas and Rickey Henderson, the Athletics advanced to the playoffs and swept the Kansas City Royals in the Division Series. Armas was 6– for– 11 with two doubles and three RBIs. His bat cooled off in the ALCS against the New York Yankees (2– for– 12 with five strikeouts); Oakland was eliminated in three games.

Armas’s power caught the attention of the Boston Red Sox. He hit 28 homers for the A’s in 1982 and set an AL record for the most putouts in a game by a right fielder (11, on June 12 against the Toronto Blue Jays). After the season the Red Sox acquired Armas and catcher Jeff Newman in exchange for third baseman Carney Lansford, outfielder Garry Hancock, and Jerry King.

“They wanted a player who would protect Jim Rice and they made the deal,” said Armas, who was surprised by his departure from Oakland. For Boston, Armas played center field, although he wasn’t a particularly fast fielder, but with Rice and Dwight Evans he helped form one of the most powerful outfields in Red Sox history. 

“It was a good team,” Armas said. He hit a career– high 36 homers, with 107 RBIs, topping 100 for the second time in his career, finishing with 107. Rice led the club with 39 homers and 126 RBIs, but Evans fell short with 22 homers and 58 RBIs, playing only 126 games in the final season of future Hall of Famer Carl Yastrzemski.

“It was a real experience to play with a superstar like Carl Yastrzemski was,” Armas said. “I met Ted Williams in spring training, and it was a great experience to meet those two legends.”

Despite his power, Armas heard some boos from Red Sox fans because of his anemic .218 average and 131 strikeouts in 145 games. “At that time, Latinos and black people were not beloved in Boston. I came to Boston and they started to boo me. I spoke with my lawyer and told him to get them to trade me. I didn’t want to play in Boston anymore. There was a pressure in playing for that team. They talked with me and said, ‘Hey, you came over here to help Jim Rice and Dwight Evans.’ ‘Yes, but I can’t, this way. It is very difficult to play like this.’ At that time it was different from the way it would be now – if I had been signed to a $120 million contract, I wouldn’t have cared if they shouted at me and booed me. But at that time you had to earn your place and play hard.” 

A year later the Venezuelan, led by his power, changed those boos into ovations. Injury– free, Armas played 157 of the team’s 162 games and home runs steadily found their way into the stands. He finished as the American League leader in both home runs and RBIs (43 and 123). He dominated the circuit with 77 extra– base hits and 339 total bases.

“You never have those goals. Your goal is having a good year, but I never thought I would be the home– run king or the RBI champion when there were many superstars in the majors – Reggie Jackson, Jim Rice, Dave Kingman, Lance Parrish, Dwight Evans, many good players. That I could compete with these superstars made me proud, and that year, thank God, I was able to play an almost full season.”

Armas’s remarkable season earned him his second All– Star Game and his only Silver Slugger Award, and he placed seventh in the MVP voting. 

Injuries cropped up again in 1985 and Armas was limited to 103 games; his production declined sharply to 23 homers and 64 RBIs.

In 1986 Armas got into 121 games as the Red Sox advanced to their first World Series since 1975. And if the defeat in 1975 was painful, after the famous Carlton Fisk homer in Game Six forced a deciding seventh game, the loss to the New York Mets was even worse.

“These were frustrating days for me,” admitted Armas, who was the greatest home– run hitter in the American League from 1980 through 1985, with 187 round– trippers, but he hit only 11 in 1986. “In the ALCS I hurt and I couldn’t play anymore, because my right ankle was swollen.”

If Armas’s home runs had seemed to become a constant in Boston, so had injuries. During his career he spent 12 stints on the disabled list, but no injury was as painful as the one in the fifth game of the ALCS against the California Angels at Anaheim Stadium.

In the second inning, Armas chased down a long fly ball hit by Doug DeCinces. “Many of my leg injuries were from running, but the one in the ankle was because I was hooked in the center– field fence,” he recalled. “Now they are cushioned but back then, the walls were all concrete.” Dave Henderson took over for Armas for the rest of the playoffs. Henderson had an immediate impact.

“I tried to play, but I couldn’t anymore,” Armas said. “And that’s when Dave Henderson replaced me and he did a good job.” Henderson’s ninth– inning homer in Game Five against Anaheim spared the Red Sox a loss, and he drove in the winning run with a sacrifice fly in the 11th.  Though Armas’s ankle improved, Henderson made the most of his opportunity; Armas was sentenced to the bench.

In the World Series, Armas was limited to one pinch– hitting appearance in Game Seven, after 15 days without playing.

“The ankle still bothered me, but I could pinch– hit. I could not run at 100 percent,” he recalled. “It was difficult, but I had a strong desire to appear in the World Series. Even if it was just an at– bat, it doesn’t matter, and I appeared in the World Series, which is what anyone wants.”

Armas pinch– hit for pitcher Bruce Hurst in the seventh inning with the game tied 3– 3. The Venezuelan struck out swinging in what it was his last at– bat in a Red Sox uniform. 

About Game Six, he was philosophical. “What happened is what happens so often in baseball. We were winning an easy game. At the end we felt champions but Bill Buckner‘s error left us without the victory. Then we lost the World Series,” said Armas. “We lost by an error that cost us the Series. These are things that happen in baseball.”

“The pitching also faltered. Roger Clemens couldn’t do the job, Dennis Boyd couldn’t do the job, many players didn’t do the job,” he said. “For me it was frustrating because I was playing every day, but then I couldn’t help the team in the World Series because of an injured ankle. That’s not easy for any baseball player.”

After the season Armas became a free agent and, a likely victim of collusion, signed with the Angels but not until July 1, 1987. “The team owners got together and agreed to not sign free agents that year and I was one of those affected,” he recalled. “I had offers from Mexico, but spent all that time practicing in Caracas with Pompeyo Davalillo, who was working with the Angels at the time. That’s where I signed.”

After so much downtime, Armas was sent to Triple A for the first time in more than a decade. He played in 29 games for Edmonton before returning to the majors for the last month and a half of the season. He batted.198 in 28 games.

Armas’s days as a regular came to an end in California, where he was used primarily against left– handed pitchers by manager Cookie Rojas, with whom he had a difficult relationship in 1988. “I started to play against left– handed pitchers and that was hard,” he said. “There was a time when I began to play every day and in a week I hit like five homers – but that’s when I had the mishap with Cookie Rojas.”

“One day we went to Oakland to play and Chili Davis, who was the regular, did not want to play; people were booing him, because he’d played the year before with San Francisco. Oakland was going to start Dave Stewart and they said I was not going to play because I was playing against lefties only. Then I got a chance to start playing against some righties, and I hit two home runs in that game (August 14). Rojas didn’t put me to play anymore and there came all the controversy with the journalists, saying that if I was hitting well, why I did not play. He said it was because he was the manager, and I told them to talk to the manager, that if they did not play me, it was a matter of him.”

From July 28 to August 14, Armas hit.440 with 4 homers and 12 RBIs over a 16– game stretch, including 11 starts, so some sportswriters suggested more playing time for the Venezuelan, even against righties.

“There was this controversy with journalists and Cookie Rojas blamed me because I spoke with the press. Once a newspaper did an article and it was sent to him in Boston and I was called to his office and he asked me why I had told the newspapers that I wasn’t playing. ‘Look, Cookie, I haven’t talked to the press in a long time. They just are realizing what you’re doing to me.’ ‘So you want to play?’ And I got to play against Roger Clemens in Boston. I said, ‘Cookie, if you think you’re going to intimidate me because it is Roger Clemens, you’re wrong. If he was going to give me four strikeouts, I’ll get four strikeouts. If I’m going to hit him, I’ll hit him.’”

And Armas homered against Clemens (two days earlier he had hit one off Bruce Hurst), and then he hit another the next day, on his return to California, against the Yankees. It was Armas’s most explosive month of the year and his last major production in the majors:.386 with 8 homers and 19 RBIs in 24 games in August. Nevertheless, his differences with Rojas continued.

“It came out another article in California, after he took me out in a game for a pinch– hitter, even when I had a hit and a home run. I showered and went to the hotel. I did not talk to any journalist. When we got to California he called me to his office, and we hadn’t an argument, because I’m not used to that, but he said why I had talked again to the press. ‘No, no. I have not spoken to the press.’ But they were already realizing who he was.”

The relationship ended on September 24, when Rojas was fired as the manager of the Angels. Armas returned to the Angels the following year, his last in the major leagues.

“My third year in California was in the same role, as a pinch– hitter and playing against lefties, and because my knee was bothering me and I couldn’t take it anymore, I retired. I could have played for three more years, but unfortunately the knees did not allow it.”

Armas remained active in the Venezuelan Winter League, where he was already a legend for his power. He was the first Venezuelan to lead the majors in homers and RBIs, but his 251 career home runs led all Venezuelans. He was also the home– run king in Venezuelan winter ball, after hitting his 97th home run in the last at– bat of his career in the 1991– 1992 season. (His mark was surpassed by Robert Perez in 2008.)

Armas played a few more seasons in Venezuela, but the knee hampered him badly and he’d have to take off a week now and again. “I thought it was better to retire than continue to suffer, but I thank God for giving me the opportunity to get where I got. Thanks to baseball I am who I am.”

The home run was always Armas’s calling card; it also happened to be his farewell letter. He was an investor in the Caribes de Oriente club and he was able to fulfill another dream there, playing with his brothers Marcos and Julio, all three taking up positions as outfielders. 

“That was a great thing,” Armas said. “It’s never been written in any book. I was with the right team on the right day.”

Both brothers followed in the footsteps of his older brother, but only Marcos managed to make the majors, with the Athletics for a brief period in 1993.

Tony and his wife, Luisa de Armas, had six children. The third was their son Tony Armas Jr., who played 10 major– league seasons with the Expos, Nationals, Pirates, and Mets, between 1999 and 2008. 

“I have much to thank my dad for. Since my childhood he always took me to the stadiums. When you are a child you are like a sponge, absorbing all the information and always trying to imitate someone,” said Armas Jr. “When I decided to play baseball, he said to me, ‘I was a hitter, but if you don’t want to be a hitter, don’t do it.’ He told me, ‘Son, do what you want to do. I support you.’ That was important. My parents, at that time, supported me the most.”

After he stopped playing, Armas remained active in baseball, mainly in winter ball, as coach of the Caracas Lions. Tony Armas Jr. also played with the Lions. “That was special,” said Armas Jr. “It was one of the most special times. I grew up in the Caracas stadium of Caracas, because he always took me there when he played. He felt the same way.”

In 1998 Armas was inducted into the Caribbean Baseball Hall of Fame, thanks to his all– time home– run leadership in the Caribbean Series, with 11. In 2005 he was inducted into the Venezuelan Baseball Hall of Fame and in 2013 into the Latino Baseball Hall of Fame. In 2009 Armas was the hitting coach for the Venezuelan team in the World Baseball Classic, working next to Andres Galarraga, who eclipsed all his home– run records in the majors. (In 1996 Galarraga hit 47 homers and drove in 150 runs with the Colorado Rockies to set the single– season marks for a Venezuelan.)

“Tony was a role model for all the boys that had power,” Galarraga said. “I was fortunate to sign with the Lions and privileged to play with him in Venezuela. He taught me many things, gave me some batting tips and that kind of thing.”

“I always knew that many good players would follow, because in Venezuela we had many academies and we had many players out there,” said Armas. “After Galarraga came Bob Abreu, who was a complete player, Magglio Ordonez, and now Miguel Cabrera, who is even more complete. There is always someone who opens the doors.”

And Armas, 62 in 2015, continued to share his knowledge with the younger generation in Venezuela, as a coach of Leones del Caracas (the Caracas Lions) in winter ball. “He loves to teach, because baseball is his life,” said Armas Jr. That’s never going to change with him. He ends a winter season and during the break goes directly to become a manager in the Bolivarian League with Deportivo Anzoátegui. He is always working with the boys and never stops. He’s always traveling; he is never in one place. That is what he likes to do.”

“Baseball has given me a lot. Now I’m giving to baseball, trying to help young people,” said Armas, who still lives in his native Puerto Píritu. “I am very proud of my career, proud of baseball, and proud of what I do right now, because in my time there were no hitting coaches and I’m proud to work with so many young boys to help them become better players.”

Sources

Author interviews with Tony Armas on November 12, 2014, and August 5, 2015. All quotations attributed to Armas come from these interviews.

Author interview with Andrés Galarraga on July 30, 2015. All quotations attributed to Galarraga come from this interview.

Author interview with Tony Armas Jr. on July 28, 2015. All quotations attributed to Armas Jr. come from this interview.

articles.latimes.com/1987– 08– 19/sports/sp– 773_1_tony– armas

articles.latimes.com/1988– 08– 25/sports/sp– 1345_1_tony– armas

articles.latimes.com/1988– 09– 01/sports/sp– 4439_1_home– run

articles.latimes.com/1988– 09– 24/sports/sp– 2381_1_interim– manager

el– nacional.com/deportes/lvbp/Antonio– Armas– puesto– acepte– recogebates_0_289171243.html

vidaydeportes.com/entrevista– exclusiva– antonio– armas

Cárdenas, Augusto. “El jonronero de Venezuela,” Diario Panorama, December 18, 2005.

Cárdenas Lares, Carlos Daniel. Venezolanos en las Grandes Ligas (Fundación Cárdenas Lares, 1994).

Often referred to as but not actually, “Earl Averill Jr.”, Earl Douglas Averill was the third of four sons of Howard Earl Averill and Loette (Hyatt) Averill and born September 9, 1931, in Cleveland, Ohio. Howard Earl Averill, known as Earl and later Earl Sr., was the center fielder for the Cleveland Indians (1929-39), Detroit Tigers (1939-40) and Boston Braves (1941). The elder Averill was a premier ballplayer of the 1930s and nicknamed, “Earl of Snohomish,” and, “The Rock.” He was selected to the first six American League All-Star teams (1933-38), and, in the 1937 game, hit a line drive off the toe of Dizzy Dean that effectively ended Dean’s career. He was also on the 1934 “All American” Tour of Japan. He was a quiet star compiling 2,019 hits, 401 doubles, 238 home runs and a lifetime .318 batting average.2 In 1975, the Veterans Committee elected Earl Averill Sr. to the National Baseball Hall of Fame, and the Cleveland Indians retired his number 3.3

The Averill family hailed from Snohomish, Washington, a logging town 30 miles north of Seattle. Earl Sr. and Loette married when she was aged sixteen and he was nineteen. She raised four boys, Howard, Bernie, Earl and Lester. The Averill family would split time between Cleveland in the summers and Snohomish in the offseason where the boys were schooled. Young Earl’s first ten years were spent this way. Howard and Bernie occasionally worked as bat boys for the visiting teams and met Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig.4 Bob Feller was known to bounce young Earl on his knee in the clubhouse and later become his teammate.5 After baseball, Earl Sr. and Loette stayed in Snohomish. He worked at Averill Floral, a wholesale florist, with his older brother, Forest “Pud” Averill, and later owned Averill Motel from 1949 until 1971.67

Young Averill made a name for himself around the Snohomish sandlots. More outgoing than his father, he loved to tell stories and play pranks. In high school, Averill played football, basketball, tennis, and baseball. A broken nose in his freshman year sidelined his gridiron ambitions. The Averill brothers were athletically active. Earl and Lester speculated that had World War II and the Korean War not happened, Bernie, who served in the Navy for seven years, would have been a major leaguer. After the Navy, Bernie starred for the University of Oregon at the 1954 College World Series and was a revered teacher and coach at Mercer Island (Washington) High School.8 Lester and Earl bonded as brothers when Lester was bedridden with rheumatic fever for nearly a year in 1940. To keep Lester occupied, they began to build model airplanes together and later flew them. Earl loved the fine detail work.9 His large hands held seven baseballs in one hand long before Johnny Bench made it famous.10 By 1949, Earl was a starting pitcher, catcher, and outfielder and threw a two-hitter to win the Snohomish County championship.11 Earl enrolled at Everett Junior College and led that baseball team to a second-place finish12 In July 1950, he demonstrated power at the plate for the Snohomish Pilchucks with Earl Sr. as manager.13 In 1950, he starred in the annual Seattle Post-Intelligencer youth all-star game.

Earl continued his education, academic and baseball, at the University of Oregon. He bashed his way to being named the Ducks’ first baseball All-American in 1951.14 That fall, he married Patricia “Pat” Allington, high school sweethearts, in Snohomish.15 They moved to Eugene, Oregon and both attended classes. Pat stopped schooling to have the first of four children. Earl finished his studies earning a Bachelor of Arts and a teaching certificate. 16 Averill decided to become a math teacher and had accepted a teaching position at the end of 1952.

Out of the blue, Earl signed with the Cleveland Indians in December 1952.17 He never talked about playing professionally, yet Pat was unwavering in support.18 “I got my great interest in baseball from talking to so many who idolized Dad. I just decided I would never be satisfied unless I, too, gave baseball a try,” he said.19

Earl Sr. thought his son’s powerful swing was suited for Detroit’s Briggs Stadium. The elder Averill had conversations, and reportedly had reached a verbal deal, with Seattle baseball legend and Detroit Tigers manager Fred Hutchinson about signing Earl.20 With both Detroit and Cleveland scouting, Jo-Jo White, scout for Cleveland, arrived first at a planned showcase and Detroit’s scout did not show.21 Earl wanted to be with Cleveland, the team of his father and the town of his birth. He signed for $4,000.22

Cleveland sent Averill to the Reading (Pennsylvania) Indians of the Class A Eastern League in both 1953 and 1954. His big bat (.302 with 16 homers in 563 overall at-bats over two seasons) helped the team reach the league finals in both seasons. His teammates included Rocky Colavito and Herb Score in ’53, and Billy Moran and Hank Aguirre in ’54.23 Averill also played in the 1954-55 Colombian Winter League to hone his skills.24

Spring Training 1955 was solid for Earl. The Sporting News and other publications noticed his big-league potential. It was clear, however, that he was not ready to be a major league catcher and he expected to be sent down to the Indianapolis Indians of the Triple-A American Association.25 He displayed tremendous power but lacked polish at catcher.26 Indianapolis had three catchers on roster, so Earl was shipped to the Nashville Volunteers, a Cincinnati affiliate in need of a catcher, in the Double-A Southern Association.27

Averill quickly learned of the intense rivalry between the Nashville Volunteers and the Chattanooga Lookouts. Rivalry went beyond baseball teams or games. Newspapers in both cities positioned every game as, “Us versus Them.” On July 7, Averill bashed three home runs and two doubles for 16 total bases which broke the 25-year-old Southern Association total base record.28 On a hot, humid August 20 night, the Lookouts hosted the “Vols” at Engel Stadium in Chattanooga. With no love lost between clubs, Vols pitcher Jerry Lane, a former Lookout and Chattanooga resident, amplified the tension. Lane had spent the first month with the Cincinnati Redlegs. At age 29, he had already thrown his last game in the majors. According to Chattanooga press, Lane had a reputation for fire-balling at the heads of batters.29 Lyle Luttrell at age 25, hailed as the Washington Senators shortstop of the future, was in a breakthrough season with Chattanooga. Back from a fractured jaw injury, Luttrell was on a 13-game hitting streak.30 What happened in Luttrell’s second at-bat resonated across the lives of these men for many years, particularly Averill.

During the fifth inning, Lane faced Luttrell with Averill behind the plate. Lane snapped a late breaking slider to Luttrell. Then another. Luttrell responded by moving up in the box. According to Averill, Lane barked, “You can’t step up on me like that.”31 Averill gave Luttrell the same advice. Luttrell remembered Lane’s bark as, “Nobody does that to me. If you, do it again, I’ll stick it in your ear.”32 Another slider for ball three. A fourth slider ran inside with Luttrell up in the box and in front of the plate. The pitch went wide and brushed the back of Luttrell’s pants at the knee. Unhurt, Luttrell responded by throwing his bat with both hands at Lane and stepping toward the mound. Lane jumped to avoid the bat. With Lutrell advancing toward Lane, Averill sprang up, stepped forward and decked Luttrell over his right shoulder. Luttrell fell face first to the ground unconscious. Lookouts’ manager Cal Ermer, coaching third base, rushed at Averill and jumped on his back. Benches cleared. The next five minutes were a free-for-all mele. Players removed shoes to use as weapons. The Lookouts trainer worked to revive Luttrell during the fracas. Chattanooga police entered the field. Chief of Police, Ed Ricketts, in the press box on the stadium roof, ordered for Averill’s arrest. Allowed to shower and dress, Averill was arrested on assault and battery charges. Pat Averill listened to the game on the radio from their Nashville apartment. She remembers, “They kept saying, ‘Luttrell is down. Luttrell is down.’” I had a terrible thought, “I hope Earl has not killed that man.”33

Luttrell revived twenty-five minutes later in the hospital. He suffered a broken jaw, concussion and lost two teeth.34 The only punch Averill threw was the one that clobbered Luttrell as Luttrell advanced toward Lane. Vols manager Joe Schultz said in the aftermath, “I don’t blame Earl. Any catcher in baseball would have done the same thing. It’s part of his job to protect the pitcher.”35 Averill’s worst moment was out in the open. “I lost my temper when he hurled his bat,” said Averill.36 Southern Association suspended Averill for 10 days with a $50 fine.37 Luttrell and Lane went undisciplined. Luttrell responded with a $50,000 civil suit against the Nashville Vols and Averill.38 Averill was recalled to Indianapolis to finish the season.39

1956 spring training provided a fresh start. Cleveland’s training camp in Tucson, Arizona, with its high dry desert air, was a launching pad for Averill’s power. He cranked home runs which earned notice by The Sporting News and other national publications. Manager Al Lopez said that Averill was, “100 percent improved in all ways.” General Manager Hank Greenberg told Averill that he would make the Indianapolis squad.40 Then Averill blasted away during the exhibition trip leading up to Opening Day keeping himself in the competition for the big-league catching job with Hank Foiles.

Averill made the Opening Day roster as backup catcher and made his major-league debut on April 19, versus the Chicago White Sox. Earl Sr. was very proud of the fact that he was just the fourth former player to see his son reach the major leagues.41 His red-hot bat went into an “artic freeze.”42 With only one hit in 18 at-bats, Averill was sent back to Indianapolis. A broken finger limited opportunities to the outfield in his time with Indianapolis; however, he was recalled in June and stuck with Cleveland for the rest of the season.

That winter, Averill homered 15 times to lead the league for Hermosillo in the Mexican Pacific Winter League.43 Spring Training in 1957 did not go as well. Kerby Farrell, Averill’s manager at Indianapolis the year before, was in his first and only season as a major league skipper. Averill felt he was not able to demonstrate his value to the major league club, particularly behind the plate. Farrell had Averill as a reserve with Jim Hegan as starter. Averill did not make the cut and was sent to the San Diego Padres of the Pacific Coast League. He found his stroke batting .273 with 104 hits in 119 games. In May 1957, Earl Sr. would watch Averill play organized baseball for the first time. Earl Sr. gave him advice, “I counseled him always to swing as if he has two strikes on him…Some of the longest homers I ever hit were when I had two strikes and shortened my swing just to keep from striking out.” 44 Earl Sr. was not a fan of the “take to 1” approach stating, “Why are you giving them the first strike?”45 The advice paid off.

In July 1957, matters relating to the Luttrell lawsuit accelerated. A jury found for Luttrell in the amount of $5,000 against the Vols and Averill. The Vols appealed. The judgement was vacated; however, Averill did not appeal and was therefore responsible for the entire $5,000—more than an entire season of minor league salary. Averill with wife and, at the time, two children was put into difficult financial straits. Luttrell’s legal team attempted to garnish wages.46 Averill was unable to purchase a home or a car for his family due to the judgement and interest accrued. There was no support from the Nashville or Cleveland clubs. Pat Averill truly felt that the sport abandoned her husband, and she was not happy with organized baseball.47 Years of financial wrangling ensued which perpetuated life as baseball vagabonds. Finally in 1962, Judge Robert Cannon, an unpaid advisor to ballplayers, learned of the judgement against Averill. Cannon made quiet inquiries and discovered that the Luttrell judgement could be settled for $3,500. He then was able to secure $1,500 from Gabe Paul of the Indians and $2,000 from Gene Autry of the Angels as gifts to Averill.48 Averill and Luttrell settled the matter amicably and with no hard feelings for $3,500 and a handshake. Averill v. Luttrell became an important and cited decision in sports case law. The incident and the eight-year aftermath took its toll and were simply not discussed in the Averill household.49

Russ Nixon beat out Averill at catcher in 1958 Spring Training. Back with the San Diego Padres, Averill had his best minor league season. He was named Pacific Coast League MVP with .347 BA, 24 HR, 87 RBI in 112 games. Ralph Kiner, then San Diego Padres general manager, said, “Averill can become the hardest hitter. He is the best big-league prospect in the Coast League today.”50 Averill earned a mid-season call up to Cleveland. Manager and fellow Oregon Duck Joe Gordon played Averill in 17 games, all at third base. That offseason, contract negotiations with Cleveland GM Frank Lane stalled and Averill and Morrie Martin, both unsigned, were traded to the Chicago Cubs.

Sports Illustrated claimed that Averill was the most important addition to the 1959 Cubs.51 He made the roster and played in 74 games. He hit memorable home runs — often in the clutch. On May 10, in the first game of a doubleheader, he hit his first National League homer in the top of the 11th inning versus the Cardinals. It provided the margin of victory in a 10-9 win. On May 12, Averill entered as pinch-hitter and stroked a walk-off grand slam home run to beat the Milwaukee Braves. He hit another grand slam against the Dodgers on July 22. Averill continued to hit into 1960, but by that July his batting tapered off. The Cubs sent Averill and cash to the Braves for Al Heist. The Braves sent Averill to AAA and then quickly traded him to the Chicago White Sox on August 13.52 Just ever so briefly, for six weeks, the White Sox rostered two “Earls of Snohomish” with Earl Torgeson, the 15-year major league veteran also from Snohomish, Washington and Earl, “Third Earl of Snohomish.” Bill Veeck sensed financial opportunities of the 1960 expansion draft to turn a profit and did not plan on keeping Averill. He was selected by the newly formed Los Angeles Angels for $75,000.53

Averill had his best season in 1961 as a member of the inaugural major league Los Angeles Angels. He played in 115 games and started 78 at catcher. He slugged a team-leading 21 home runs including the first walk-off home run in Angels’ history on May 3.54 Defensively Averill was a liability and finished second in the American League with 44 Stolen Bases Allowed.55 The social life of the Angels ballplayers and their wives was grand, according to Pat Averill. Gene Autry would often host dinner parties for the team and spouses. Ina Mae Spivey, Autry’s wife, was a gracious hostess and Autry, who gave a prized cowboy hat to Earl, loved to socialize with ball players.56

In 1962, Averill was primarily used in left field with only six games at catcher. From June 3-10, Averill put his name in the all-time record book for consecutive plate appearances reaching base at 17. Used as eighth inning pinch-hitter, Averill stroked a two-RBI double versus the Yankees on June 3. Back in action on June 7, Averill went on a tear and continued to reach base in every plate appearance. The mark of 17 still stands in a tie with Frank “Piggy” Ward. Some consider Averill’s record unofficial since there was a fielder’s choice, and he later reached base on an error by Dan Pfister.57 That streak was the highlight of his season.

Averill’s hot bat cooled, and so did manager Bill Rigney’s enthusiasm for utilizing Averill. When he felt he was not playing enough, Averill was impishly playful. In a close game in Detroit, the Angels were up by a run in the bottom of the ninth. The bases were loaded with two out and a full count on Rocky Colavito. Rigney’s stomach was in his throat. Colavito fouled one off, then Averill sidled up to Rigney and let him know 26 lights on the light pole had gone out.58 Rigney blew a fuse. Averill quipped, “How did I know that Rig already counted?”59 After Averill finished with a .219 batting average in 1962, the Angels cooled on him. He was traded to the Philadelphia Phillies for outfielder Jacke Davis.

With the Phillies, Averill, in a backup role, played in only 47 games as a pinch-hitter, left fielder, first baseman, third baseman, and catcher. He was never able to succeed at any given position. Costly errors were atoned with by home runs and doubles. At the end of the season, Averill’s contract was sold to the Triple-A Arkansas Travelers.60 In 1964 there were discussions with the Baltimore Orioles, but Averill signed with Red Sox’s Pacific Coast League affiliate, the Seattle Rainiers. In 1965, Boston switched its Triple-A affiliate to Toronto. After 16 games with Toronto, Averill arranged to stay close to home and play for Seattle, by then affiliated with the Angels. At the end of 1965, Averill had an opportunity to play in Japan. Earl and Pat considered the move but with the children in school and 39 moves in 14 years, they wanted stability for their family. Averill retired from professional baseball.

Averill and his father played together at the first Old-Timers Game in San Diego on August 18, 1972.61 Both Averill’s starred for the Pacific Coast League All-Stars. Randy Averill, Earl’s son then age 13, remembers Casey Stengel in the clubhouse, fresh out of the shower after the game and dripping wet, wearing only a loose bath towel demonstrating Earl Sr.’s swing to Randy and telling him how no one could pitch his grandfather inside because of his swing and power.62

After baseball, Averill put his teaching certificate to work with the Anaheim school district for three years as a math teacher. After teaching, he joined American Research Corporation as an analyst.63 Unsuccessfully, Earl attempted to sign on as an executive with the Seattle Pilots, and successfully joined Claremont Men’s College as Director of Corporate Relations. In 1975, after ten years in southern California, the Averills relocated to Tacoma. “Got to go home. Got to fish,” he told wife Pat. They were all too happy to be closer to family.64 Earl and Pat now had four children, Mike, Carol, Randy and Julie Anne. Mike was drafted by the Boston Red Sox in 1971 and played four seasons in the minor leagues.65 In his retirement, Earl was active in the Major League Baseball Players Association, aiding players who had not been as fortunate as he after their playing days.

Later Earl and Pat started an upholstery business out of their Auburn, Washington home. “For as big as he was, he was very good with his hands,” Pat related. Averill continue to build model planes and had a whole bedroom full in their home. Also, Earl was a great fishing pole and fly maker. His trout flies gained notoriety among his many friends.66

Averill loved people and loved to tell stories. No surprise that he was friends with Dave Niehaus, legendary Seattle Mariners sportscaster. They met in California when Niehaus was with the Angels and carried their friendship back to the Pacific Northwest. Averill embellished often that his consecutive plate appearances record reached on error was committed by Brooks Robinson and it was his only error that season.67 Another repeated embellishment was that he stole Stan Musial’s bats. Averill also claimed to lead the league in 400-foot foul balls. His charm and sense of humor won him many friends.

Earl Douglas Averill, age 83, passed on May 13, 2015, from complications following surgery.68 Two nights later, the Seattle Mariners held a moment of silence in his honor.69

Last revised: June 20, 2022 (zp)

Acknowledgments

Special thanks to Randy Averill (son) and Lester Averill (brother) for their input.

Sincere thanks to Pat Averill (wife) for the interview and sharing their baseball life.

This story was reviewed by Malcolm Allen and Bruce Harris and fact-checked by Ray Danner.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com, baseballalmanac.com and LA84 Foundation Digital Library Collections.

Notes

1 Dan Raley, “Earl Averill – Ex-Big Leaguer, Son of Hall of Famer No Couch Potato in Upholstery Shop,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, August 6, 2003: D2.

2 Baseball-Reference.com, https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/a/averiea01.shtml.

3 Baseball-Almanac.com, Retired uniform numbers in the American League, https://www.baseball-almanac.com/feats/feats10.shtml.

4 Interview with Paul Jackson, colleague and friend of Bernie Averill, February 5, 2022. (Hereafter Jackson interview).

5 “Young Earl Second Averill to Play with Feller on Tribe,” The Sporting News, April 4, 1956: 3.

6 David Eskenazi, “Wayback Machine: The Earl (and Pearl) of Snohomish,” Sportspress NW.com, https://www.sportspressnw.com/2119569/2011/wayback-machine-the-earl-and-pearl-of-snohomish.

7 Glenn Drosendahl, “Averill, Howard Earl (1902-1983),” HistoryLink.org, https://www.historylink.org/File/9513.

8 Jackson interview.

9 Phone Interview with Lester Averill, January 18, 2022 (Hereafter Lester Averill interview).

10 Phone interview with Randy Averill, January 11, 2022 (Hereafter Randy Averill interview).

11 “Averill Tosses 2-Hitter,” Spokane Chronicle, May 24, 1949: 19.

12 Everett Community College Hall of Fame, https://athletics.everettcc.edu/information/hall_of_fame/2018/bios/averill_earl?view=bio.

13 “Averill Named Manager,” Bellingham Herald (Bellingham, Washington), July 14, 1950: 7.

14 University of Oregon, Hall of Fame, Earl Averill, https://goducks.com/honors/hall-of-fame/earl-averill/25.

15 Marriage License, http://www.averillproject.net/showmedia.php?mediaID=4597&medialinkID=3729.

16 Phone Interview with Patricia Averill, January 15, 2022. (Hereafter Patricia Averill interview).

17 Baseball Reference, Earl Averill, https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/a/averiea02.shtml.

18 Patricia Averill interview.

19 Raley.

20 “Another Averill Story Starting on Tribe,” The Sporting News, April 4, 1956: 3.

21 “Voice of the Fan,” The Sporting News, March 30, 1955: 19.

22 Patricia Averill interview.

23 Baseball Reference, Eastern League Standings, https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/league.cgi?id=af825f91.

24 “Young Averill Appears Close Student of Game,” The Tennessean, June 5, 1955: 33.

25 Franklin Lewis, “New Earl Averill with Indians – Son of Outfield Star is Catcher,” The Sporting News, March 16, 1955: 17.

26 Lester Koelling, “The Bullpen,” Indianapolis News, April 9, 1955: 21.

27 Lester Koelling, “Indians Whip Home from 9-3 Road Trip,” Indianapolis News, June 3, 1955: 17.

28 “Earl Averill Jr. Smashes Record,” Knoxville News-Sentinel, July 8, 1955: 12.

29 “Luttrell Injured in Brawl; Nashville Catcher Is Jailed,” Chattanooga Daily Times, August 21, 1955: 1.

30 Wirt Gammon, “Averill Strikes Shortstop in Jaw,” Chattanooga Daily Times, August 21, 1955: 43.

31 “Vol Catcher,” Nashville Banner, August 22, 1955: 21.

32 Bob Weatherly, “Nashville Vols, Send Lyle Bouquet; Luttrell says suit is up to Engel,” Chattanooga Daily Times, August 25, 1955: 35.

33 Patricia Averill interview.

34 Allan Morris, “$5,000 Verdict for Luttrell in Suit Based on Field Fight,” The Sporting News, December 5, 1956: 24.

35 “Nashville Club Named Co-defendant in Suit,” Chattanooga Daily Times, August 25, 1955: 36.

36 “Vol catcher,” Nashville Banner, August 22, 1955: 21.

37 “Averill Is Fined $50, Suspended for 10 Days,” Chattanooga Daily Times, August 25, 1955: 35.

38 “Lookout Star Sues Nashvols for $50,000,” Knoxville News-Sentinel, August 25, 1955: 28.

39 “Averill Back with Indians,” Chattanooga Daily Times, September 2, 1955: 35.

40 Hal Lebovitz, “Rookie Fights for Cleveland Catcher’s Job,” The Sporting News, April 4, 1956: 3.

41 Eskenazi.

42 “Indians Hoping Earl Averill Can Handle Catching,” Daily Times (New Philadelphia, Ohio), March 7, 1957: 12.

43 “Mexican Pacific Coast,” The Sporting News, March 13, 1957: 13.

44 “Averill, Sr., Gives Batting Advice to Son,” The Sporting News, May 29, 1957: 20.

45 Lester Averill interview.

46 John McGrath, “Long before Offerman, there was Averill,” Tacoma News Tribune, August 19. 2007: C6.

47 Randy Averill interview.

48 Red Smith, “Baseball at End of Feudal Era,” Philadelphia Inquirer, December 8, 1967: 43.

49 Randy Averill interview.

50 Dick Beddoes, “From Our Tower,” Vancouver Sun, June 30, 1958: 9.

51 “Chicago Cubs,” Sports Illustrated, April 13, 1959, https://vault.si.com/vault/1959/04/13/chicago-cubs.

52 “Sox buy Earl Averill; Release Bob Rush,” Chicago Tribune, August 14, 1960: 35.

53 Alan P. Henry and David Kritzler, 1960 Winter Meetings: The Missouri Compromise, https://sabr.org/journal/article/1960-winter-meetings-the-missouri-compromise/.

54 “1 Day Until Opening Day,” https://www.halosheaven.com/2013/3/31/4155982/1-day-until-opening-day.

55 Baseball Reference, https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/AL/1961-fielding-leaders.shtml.

56 Patricia Averill interview.

57 Paul O’Boynick, “A’s Skid Reaches Six,” Kansas City Times, June 11, 1962: 23.

58 Glenn Schwarz, “Breeze Blows in Arizona – it’s Rigney Talking,” San Francisco Examiner, March 23, 1976: 45.

59 Ross Newhan, “Analyst Averill Misses His Angel Days,” Los Angeles Times, June 11, 1968: 11.

60 “Phils Recall Six Players from Farms,” Evening Sun (Hanover, Pennsylvania), November 6, 1963: 17.

61 “Old-Timers Game Coming Aug. 18”, Star-News (Chula Vista, California), July 9, 1972: 14.

62 Randy Averill interview.

63 Newhan.

64 Patricia Averill interview

65 Baseball Reference, Michael Averill, https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=averil001mic.

66 Lester Averill interview.

67 Randy Averill interview.

68 Dave Boling, “Earl Averill is Gone, but his Stories, Smile Live on,” Tacoma News-Tribune, May 15, 2015: B1.

69 Adam Jude, “Ex-Major League and Snohomish Star Earl Averill Jr. Dies,” Seattle Times, May 14, 2015, https://www.seattletimes.com/sports/mariners/ex-major-league-and-snohomish-star-earl-averill-jr-dies/.

The last baseball on the wall displayed the number 3, which belonged to Cleveland outfielder Earl Averill. He was likely the least recognizable of the quartet. His years (1929-1939) in Cleveland were not punctuated with a pennant. The team finished no higher than third place and no lower than fifth in the American League standings during Averill’s tenure. Cleveland had competitive teams with good players; however, during the decade of the 1930s, when Averill was with the Indians, they could not put it all together for one season. New York, Philadelphia, Detroit, and Washington all won pennants during those years, while Cleveland was left looking forward to next season.  

Despite the club’s lackluster performance, Averill’s offensive impact could not be overlooked. When he was traded to Detroit in 1939, he was the Indians’ team leader in seven offensive categories. In 2024 Averill remained the franchise leader in runs (1,154), RBIs (1,084), triples (121), total bases (3,200), and extra-base hits (724). Averill is also in the top five in five other offensive categories.1

Averill finally reached the World Series with the Detroit Tigers in 1940. Although he was a backup outfielder at this point of his career, Averill proved how valuable he could be, batting .308 as a pinch-hitter.

In 1975 the Veterans Committee elected Averill to the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Finally, 34 years after he played his last professional season, he took his rightful place with the game’s greatest players.

Howard Earl Averill was born on May 21, 1902, in Snohomish, Washington. He was the youngest of three children (brother Forrest and sister Valera) born to Jotham and Anna (Maddox) Averill. Jotham Averill died in 1904 and Anna had to take on work in a shingle factory to support her family.  

Averill dropped out of high school his freshman year. He worked in lumber mills and on road crews. He was not a big man (5-feet-9½, 160 pounds), but the hard labor resulted in brawn and muscle in his upper body. Averill played baseball on the Snohomish town team, battling neighboring cities after work and on the weekends. Although the players did not receive a salary, fans often took up a collection for the player who distinguished himself the most in the game. Averill was often the recipient of this largesse, one time receiving a pot of $80.

On May 15, 1922, Averill married Gladys Loette Hyatt in Mount Vernon, Washington.2 Earl and Loette were married 61 years and had four sons: Howard, Bernard, Earl, and Lester.3 

In 1924 citizens of Snohomish raised money to send Averill to Seattle to try out for the Seattle Indians of the Pacific Coast League. However, manager Red Killefer was not as impressed with his abilities and sent Averill home.

The Averill family grew to four when Bernard was born in 1925. Averill played two days a week for Bellingham (Washington), earning $15 a game. He also worked for the county painting bridges and picked up other jobs to support his growing family. After a few weeks in Bellingham, he moved on to Anaconda (Montana), where the baseball team paid $250 a month.4 Averill batted .430 at Anaconda, drawing interest from the San Francisco Seals of the PCL.

Averill won a spot on the Seals’ roster during spring training in 1926. Before long he was slashing line drives all over Recreation Park in San Francisco as well as the other venues in the league. In his three years with Seals, Averill averaged 250 hits and 50 doubles, 26 home runs, and a .342 batting average.5  

What was the secret to Averill’s hitting success? Why, it was sauerkraut juice. When Averill mentioned to Seals manager Nick Williams that he might give up the bitter elixir in favor of milk, Williams balked. “If you do, I’ll run you clean out of the joint,” threatened Williams. “If there are base hits in sauerkraut juice, as I suspect, you are going to drink lots of it and what is more, I think I’ll drink some myself and hit in a pinch.”6 

In 1928 Cleveland general manager Billy Evans had a pocket full of cash as he headed to the West Coast to sign players. The first player on his list was Seals outfielder Roy Johnson. But Detroit beat Evans to the punch and signed Johnson. Next was another outfielder, Smead Jolley. Seals pitchers Duster Mails and Dutch Ruether interceded, sending Evans in a different direction. “Forget Jolley. Forget Johnson, too. Buy that Averill,” they told Evans.7    

Evans took their advice, plunking down $45,000 to acquire Averill. “The Snohomish slugger came fast last season,” wrote the San Francisco Examiner. “He was always a good hitter, but last season he polished up his play in the outfield; learned how to play for batters and once he learned the lesson, did not forget it.”8

When Indians owner Alva Bradley first saw Averill, he said to Evans, “You paid all that money for a midget.”9 Bradley and the rest of the Indians would soon learn that Averill packed plenty of power in his compact body.

In 1929 Roger Peckinpaugh was in his second season as the Cleveland skipper. The year before, the team finished the season with a 62-92 record. Averill and fellow rookie outfielder Dick Porter garnered many of the headlines during the ’29 spring training. However, Irving Vaughan, beat writer for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, doused any hope that Cleveland fans might have for their team, writing, “There may be some improvement if a rookie comes through, but while these happenings are always looked for, they occur only about as often as Halley’s comet whistles through the heavens.”10

Maybe he wasn’t a comet, but Averill quickly became a star. Cleveland opened the 1929 season on April 16 against Detroit at League Park. Averill, playing center field and batting third in the lineup, came to bat in the bottom of the first inning. Detroit starter Earl Whitehill threw the rookie a fastball on a 0-and-2 count. The left-handed-hitting Averill sent a towering drive over the 45-foot right-field fence. The blast warmed the chilled crowd as Averill became the second American League player to homer in his first big-league at-bat.11

Later in the game, in the top of the sixth, the Tigers had a baserunner on first when Averill lunged forward and caught a sinking line drive off the bat of Detroit’s Marty McManus. Both plays contributed to the Cleveland 5-4 win. “Whitehill apparently thought he could slip a fast one by me,” said Averill. “I was all set, took a healthy swing and as the ball hit the bat, I knew it was going somewhere.”12 

Decimating minor-league pitching on the West Coast was one thing, but hitting against major-league talent was another. Averill batted .332 his rookie season and set a team record for home runs in a season at 18. As a team, the Indians finished in third place.

Averill also demonstrated a keen batting eye. While some home-run hitters tend to be free swingers and would rack up the whiffs, Averill did not. In the first 11 seasons of his career, he totaled more walks than strikeouts. He was the perfect hitter who combined hitting for power and average. 

Despite his size, Averill wielded one of the heaviest bats in the league. His bat was 36 inches long and weighed 42 ounces. Averill would also swing a 44-ounce bat from time to time.13

While many batters stand toward the back of the batter’s box to better pick up a pitch, Averill had a different philosophy. “I virtually straddled the plate,” he said. “The farther you stand in front, the smaller the break on the ball when you meet it. “I kept two things in mind at the plate. One was that I was up there to swing; the other was to keep my eye on my target. That was the pitcher’s cap. I always aimed for that, tried to go to the middle. But, if the ball was outside, I’d hit to left.”14 

One of Averill’s signature games occurred on September 17, 1930, at League Park. In a doubleheader against Washington, he smashed three home runs in the opener and drove in eight runs to set a team record in Cleveland’s 13-7 victory. In the second game, Averill came to the plate in the first inning with two runners aboard and smacked a drive to deep center field. He raced around the bases for an inside-the-park home run, his fourth home run and 11th RBI for the day.        

Averill was not the only formidable batsman in the Cleveland lineup. In 1930 the Indians hit .304 as a team. Besides Averill, who hit .339, their lineup consisted of Porter (.350), Johnny Hodapp (.354), Eddie Morgan (.349), Charlie Jamieson (.301), and Joe Sewell (.289). But opposing teams batted .305 against the Indians pitching staff. The result was an 81-73 record, earning the club a fourth-place finish, 21 games behind first-place Philadelphia.

Peckinpaugh was replaced as manager by Walter Johnson on June 9, 1933. Peckinpaugh was a players’ manager and Averill was sorry to see him go. “He knew more baseball than the rest of them put together,” Averill said, comparing Peckinpaugh to his other managers.15 Johnson had recent success as a field manager, guiding the Senators to 92 and 93 wins in 1931 and 1932. However, he had been replaced by Joe Cronin, who led the Senators to the AL pennant in 1933.      

The 1933 season was a historic one for major-league baseball. The year marked the first-ever All-Star Game, pitting the best players of the NL against the AL. Billed as “The Game of the Century,” the game was played on July 6, 1933, at Chicago’s Comiskey Park. Cleveland pitchers Oral Hildebrand and Wes Ferrell joined Averill as members of the American League squad. Averill was the only one of the trio to see action, pinch-hitting for Washington pitcher Alvin Crowder in the bottom of the sixth inning. Averill singled sharply to center field to drive Cronin in from second base, giving the AL a 4-2 lead that ended up being the final score.

Hal Trosky moved into the Cleveland lineup as the starting first baseman in 1934. Averill and the young Iowa slugger each played in all 154 games. They combined for 66 home runs and 255 RBIs. Trosky became another solid player in the lineup, one who could hit for power and average.

After the season, Averill joined a traveling all-star team that went to Japan. Babe Ruth, Jimmie Foxx, Lefty Gomez, Lou Gehrig, Lefty O’Doul, and manager Connie Mack were among the party who made the trip.

Averill was awarded a Japanese sword for being the first American player to hit a home run against the All-Nippon Stars. He treasured the gift for years.16 “The Earl of Snohomish has been doing some long-distance clouting on his own hook in the land of cherry blossoms,” wrote Ed Bang of the Cleveland News. “Truth be, he has experienced no trouble in holding to the pace of the other sluggers. It so happens that Averill is the smallest member of the ‘Big Four’ home run manufacturers and that being the case, he should inspire the Japanese players far more than those Goliaths – Ruth, Gehrig and Foxx.17 

“The Japanese are small in size, and their main drawback is our national pastime, which they appear to have adopted as their own, has been their inability to pack enough force to drive the ball for the well-known bacon-getting route. However, since they have not seen Averill, who, while small, still is well-muscled and has perfect timing at the plate, they have evidently concluded they, too, can develop the well-known punch at bat.”18 

On June 28, 1935, the Indians had a day off and were enjoying a team picnic. “Earl threw a firecracker that didn’t go off,” said Mel Harder. “When he picked it up, it exploded. Joe Vosmik and I put him in a car and took him to St. Luke’s Hospital. It looked bad. There was a lot of blood.”19 This incident resulted Averill getting his nickname, Rock.20  

Averill missed three weeks as his right hand healed from the burns and scars caused by the firecracker. Vosmik replaced Averill for the All-Star Game, which in 1935 was played at Cleveland Stadium.

There had been weeks of speculation, especially in the Cleveland media, about the security of Walter Johnson’s job as manager. He dismissed popular players Willie Kamm and Glenn Myatt from the team because he felt that they were no longer useful. The Indians (37-26-1) were 2½ games behind New York (40-24) on June 30. They went 2-13-1 from July 1 to July 18. Obviously, Averill’s injury did not help the situation. “I’m 100 percent for Walter and I think the whole team is for him,” said Averill, “The boys have found Walter is on the level and has plenty of guts.”21  

Despite Averill’s stance, Johnson was fired on August 5 and replaced by Steve O’Neill, a former Indians catcher and a coach on Johnson’s staff.

In 1935 Averill did not bat over .300 for the first time in his career. He rebounded the next season in a big way, posting a .451 batting average in the month of July. His season average was .374 and climbed to over .380 in August. Averill was leading the AL in hitting going into September, but Chicago’s Luke Appling batted .477 in September to surpass Averill, .388 to .378, for the season. Averill led the league in hits with 232.

While Averill was hitting line drives around AL ballparks, a teenager from Van Meter, Iowa, joined the Indians. Bob Feller was 17 years old when he started his first game for Cleveland, against the St. Louis Browns on August 23, 1936. The right-handed fireballer threw a complete-game six-hitter against the Browns. He struck out 15 in the 4-1 win. Feller became, and still is, the face of the Cleveland franchise. 

Another game Averill is known for, perhaps infamously, is the All-Star Game on July 7, 1937, at Washington’s Griffith Stadium. The American League had taken a 2-0 lead on Lou Gehrig’s two-run home run off Dizzy Dean. Averill stepped to the plate and sent a liner back to the mound. “Diz threw that big curve,” said Averill. “The last thing I remember is seeing it break toward the outside of the plate. I was already into my swing. I connected and saw the ball hit him in the toe and bounced right into the second baseman’s glove. 

“That was the third out. Not many people remember that. We passed as Diz was on his way to the dugout. He said, ‘Hey, you didn’t have to hit me with it.’ I laughed. Heck, I wasn’t trying to pull the ball at him, I was just trying to hit the thing.”22 

Dean’s left toe was broken, his plant foot when he pitched. He was not the same pitcher for the rest of his career.

Off the field, a highlight of 1937 was when Averill appeared on the cover of Wheaties cereal boxes. There was a tradition by General Mills to choose an athlete, either national or regional, to be in the advertisement on a box of the popular cereal. In Averill’s case, he often started his day with a bowl of Wheaties.23     

Cleveland manager O’Neill failed to move the needle in a positive direction and was fired after the 1937 season. He was replaced by Oscar Vitt. They were like night and day: O’Neill was a friendly, outgoing sort while Vitt was a taciturn, disciplinary type of manager. Club owner Bradley also gave Vitt the power to make trades, undermining general manager Cy Slapnicka and causing tension between the two. Vitt also didn’t make many friends when he stated that he “had only two major leaguers, Feller and Harder.”24  

Averill began the 1938 season on a hot streak. After his average climbed to .397 on May 5, he began to have back pain in Philadelphia. He played through the pain. However, his average started to drop. A groin injury in early September kept him on the bench. Averill hit .330 in 1938, which for most players would have been a very successful season.

Cleveland dealt Averill to the Detroit Tigers on June 14, 1939, for left-handed pitcher Harry Eisenstat and cash. Averill was inserted as the Tigers’ starting left fielder. He batted a career-low with the Tigers, hitting .262 with 10 home runs and 58 RBIs. Detroit finished in fifth place with an 81-73 record, 26½ games behind the red-hot Yankees with a record of 106-45, who went on to sweep the Cincinnati Reds in the World Series.

The 1940 AL pennant race came down to Detroit and Cleveland. The Tigers held a two-game lead over the Indians heading into the season’s final three games at Cleveland Stadium. The Tigers won the first game, clinching the pennant.

Cincinnati defeated Detroit in the World Series in seven games. Averill went 0-for-3 in three pinch-hitting appearances. He made the final out of the Series, a 2-1 Reds win.

Averill was released by Detroit and signed with the Boston Braves for the 1941 season. With just two singles in 17 at-bats, he was released after eight games. Averill then returned to the Pacific Coast League, joining the Seattle Rainiers. Also on the Rainiers was Earl Torgeson, also of Snohomish. After the season, Averill retired from professional baseball. In his 13-year career, he hit 238 home runs, 401 doubles, and 128 triples. Averill batted .318 (2,019-for-6,353) and drove in 1,l64 runs.

In retirement, Averill worked in a greenhouse he owned with his brother, Forest. For 20 years, he also owned and operated the Averill Motel in Snohomish. Averill spent time keeping tabs on his son, Earl Douglas Averill, too. Sometimes mistakenly referred to as Earl Jr., the younger Earl carved out a modest baseball career for himself. Primarily a catcher, with some time in the outfield, Earl Douglas played seven seasons with Cleveland (1956, 1958), the Chicago Cubs (1959-1960), the Chicago White Sox (1960), the Los Angeles Angels (1961-1962), and the Philadelphia Phillies (1963). He had a lifetime batting average of .242 with 44 home runs and 159 RBIs.

On February 3, 1975, the elder Earl Averill was elected to the Hall of Fame unanimously by the Veterans Committee. Also elected were Billy Herman, Bucky Harris, Judy Johnson, and Ralph Kiner. Averill was outspoken about how long it took for his election to the National Baseball Hall of Fame. He was also candid about players who he believed merited inclusion but had not been elected, urging that the voting rules be changed.25

“It’s been a long time coming, but better late than never,” said Averill. “It is wonderful to make it while you are still alive. I’m going on 73. In fact, I told my sons that if I didn’t make it while I was still alive, that they turn it down if I made it afterward.”26

“My ambition is reached. I really longed for this. And, you know, a lot of good ballplayers never make it. I understand that it was a unanimous vote. That kind of makes up for the long wait.”27

Not everyone agreed with the election of Averill. Jack Lang of the New York Daily News wrote, “The moment he’s inducted, Averill pops off that it took baseball too long. Funny thing, but all the while he was waiting to get in, he expressed no resentment. If we are going to have these old geezers popping off after they’ve received the tributes, maybe they don’t deserve them to begin with.”28 

On June 8, 1975, the Cleveland Indians retired Averill’s uniform number 3, joining Feller (19) and Boudreau (5).

In 1983 the All-Star Game was held at Comiskey Park to commemorate its 50th anniversary. The living All-Stars who played in the first game in 1933 were invited to Chicago to take part in the festivities.

About six weeks later, on August 16, Averill died from respiratory problems brought on by pneumonia. He was survived by his wife, Gladys Loette; four sons; numerous grandchildren; and six great-grandchildren. “He had a real good time in Chicago, but when he got back he was really down,” said his son Earl. “Of the 33 All-Stars in 1933, only 13 were left. Now with Dad’s death, there are only 12.”29      

Center fielder Doc Cramer, a contemporary of Averill’s , said “Earl Averill was a great hitter and a fine outfielder all around. … Whatever you write about Earl won’t be enough.”30   

Photo credit

Earl Averill, SABR-Rucker Archive.

Notes          

1 Cleveland Guardians 2024 Media Guide, 272. 

2 Ancestry.com marriage records, Howard Earl Averill, accessed June 8, 2024.

3 A.C. De Cola, “Earl Is Pal to His Sons,” Cleveland Press, July 2, 1936: 21.

4 Vince O’Keefe, “‘Hard Rock’ Earl Averill dies,” Seattle Times, August 17, 1983: E1.

5 It must be noted that the Pacific Coast League played 190-game schedules. 

6 Abe Kemp, “Earl Averill’s Bat Impresses Pirate Leader,” San Francisco Examiner, March 23, 1928: 1.

7 Gordon Cobbledick, “Hometown Fans’ Cash Started Averill on Career to Fame,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, July 26, 1936: 4.

8 Abe Kemp, “Young Star Outfielder Will Go Up to Big Top,” San Francisco Examiner, November 20, 1928: P-3.

9 Bob Dolgan, “A Man of Talent, Consistency, Class,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, August 7, 1996: D-6.

10 Irving Vaughan, “Vaughan Sees Tribe Improved This Year,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, March 19, 1929: 26.

11 Luke Stuart of the St. Louis Browns hit an inside-the-park home run at Washington’s Griffith Stadium on August 8, 1921.

12 Earl Averill, “The Biggest Thrill of My Career,” Cleveland News, undated, 1930. Player’s Hall of Fame clippings file.

13 Hy Zimmerman, “Gab Session With the Earl of Snohomish,” The Sporting News, December 25, 1965: 5.

14 “Gab Session With the Earl of Snohomish.”

15 Doug Simpson, “The Earl of Snohomish,” Baseball Research Journal,1982. https://sabr.org/journal/article/the-earl-of-snohomish/. Accessed June 15, 2024.

16 Penny Sopris-Kegerreis, “Cast a Vote for the ‘Rock’ of Snohomish,” Monroe (Washington) Monitor and Valley News, January 27, 1999: 8. 

17 Ed Bang, “Scribbled by Scribes,” The Sporting News, December 6, 1934: 4.

18 “Scribbled by Scribes.”

19 “A Man of Talent, Consistency, Class,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, August 7, 1996: D-1.

20 Bob Broeg, “Averill Shy, Except at the Plate,” The Sporting News, March 8, 1975: 8.

21 Henry W. Thomas, Walter Johnson: Baseball’s Big Train (Washington DC: Phenom Press, 1995), 326.

22 Don Duncan, “Earl Averill Recalls Infamous ’37 Game,” Seattle Times, July 15, 1979: J3.

23 “Cast a Vote for the ‘Rock’ of Snohomish.”

24 William H. Johnson, Hal Trosky: A Baseball Biography (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2017), 80.

25 Transcript of Earl Averill Hall of Fame Induction Speech, Cooperstown, New York, August 18, 1975, in player’s Hall of Fame clippings file.  

26 Hy Zimmerman, “The Earl of Snohomish Feels Like a King,” Seattle Times, February 3, 1975: B1. 

27 “The Earl of Snohomish Feels Like a King.”

28 Jack Lang, “Reds Respectful of Mets Pitching,” player’s Hall of Fame clippings file.

29 “His Son Recalls Earl Averill,” player’s Hall of Fame clippings file.

30 Simpson, “The Earl of Snohomish.”

James Charles Jacob Bagby Jr. was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on September 8, 1916, while his father was pitching with the Indians. Jim spent much of his childhood in Atlanta, Georgia, where his father had settled after playing with the Atlanta Crackers of the Southern Association. Eventually the family re-located to the prosperous Atlanta suburb of Marietta, where both father and son resided until their deaths. The family was small but close. There were three children, Jim and his older sisters, Betty and Mabel, who was named after her mother, the former Mabel Smith. The bond between father and son was especially close.

As a child, Jim Jr. avidly followed his father’s career and spent a lot of time at Ponce de Leon Park, home field for the Crackers, starting when his father played there. When not watching his father play, Jim spent many hours playing catch with his dad. It wasn’t long before the younger Bagby learned all of his father’s pitches. Jim’s mother disapproved. Her thoughts, echoing those of so many baseball wives of the generation, were highlighted in a Liberty magazine profile that quoted her talking to her husband:

The conversation was repeated many times. Often enough to impress Jim Bagby Jr., young as he was. “I don’t know why you want him to grow up to be a baseball player,” his mother would say. “What has baseball ever done for you, Jim? You worked hard in the minor leagues for years, and then you were in the majors for a spell, and here you are in the minors again. After all those years what do you have to show for it? First I want our boy to have a good education, and then a job in some reliable business.”

The talk would die down, and then, when his mother had left the room, his father would ask, “Ready, Jim?” And Jim would nod eagerly and the two would go out behind the little house in Atlanta and play ball.¹

Young Bagby’s course to the majors was not a straight line from childhood to adulthood. There came a time in his adolescence when he came close to giving up on baseball completely. As a 12-year-old he was the best pitcher on the Atlanta area sandlots but then mysteriously, Liberty recounts, his arm “went lame.” His mother’s emotions were mixed but young Jim felt that she was secretly glad of the situation.

For three years Jim didn’t touch a baseball. Things changed when he turned 15. Starting slowly, he ultimately rediscovered his old form. The team he played on tied for the city of Atlanta championship game but lost the playoff. The re-emergence of his son’s talent elated his father. The elder Bagby knew the owner of a semipro team in Montgomery, Georgia. Beginning in 1932, the son pitched semipro ball in Montgomery and was winning consistently.

In the spring of 1935 the senior Bagby finagled a tryout for his son with Cincinnati. Amid the hubbub of Chuck Dressen’s first full season as manager of the Reds, the gangly 18-year-old attracted almost no attention. Embittered, he left the Reds spring training camp on his own volition after three disheartening weeks. A pep talk from his father soon revived his spirits. When the Boston Red Sox played in Atlanta as they barnstormed their way north to open the season, the father tried something else.

Gaining the ear of Red Sox manager Joe Cronin, he arranged another tryout for Jim. Cronin liked what he saw and wired Eddie Collins to find a position for the 6-foot-2, 175-pound pitcher with great stuff and a solid assortment of pitches. As a result Jim found himself in the ranks of professional baseball as a member of Boston’s Piedmont League farm club, the Charlotte Hornets.

With the Class B Hornets he compiled a 13-9 record while appearing in 40 games and pitching 218 innings. Showing a maturity beyond his years on the mound, Bagby possessed a wicked curve, a fantastic changeup taught to him by his father, a sinker, and his main weapon, blinding speed. In 1936, Charlotte dropped out of the Piedmont League and the Red Sox switched their affiliation to the new team in Rocky Mount. Bagby was assigned there.

But Rocky Mount was a bit of a setback; Bagby compiled a 9-12 record while pitching 169 innings in 38 games with an ERA of 5.11. Despite the mediocre season, Jim was promoted to the 1937 Single-A Hazelton (Pennsylvania) Red Sox (New York-Pennsylvania League), where his talents emerged. He went 21-8 in 37 games (his 21 victories led the league) with a stellar ERA of 2.71 to earn not just league MVP honors but also a promotion to the majors.

Jim made his debut in a way that every kid in America dreams about. He started on Opening Day, April 18, 1938, against the world champion New York Yankees, the most potent lineup in baseball. When he arrived at Fenway, Jim had no idea he would be on the mound to kick off the season. In what was also the first major-league game he had ever seen, Jim found himself inserted as the starter by Joe Cronin. Cronin made the conscious decision to not tell Bagby sooner because he did not want the 21-year-old to mentally “pitch himself out” with distraction.² Bagby pitched six innings and earned the win. The game was tied, 4-4, when he was lifted for a pinch-hitter and the Sox rallied to take an 8-4 lead. The lead held up and Jim Bagby, Jr. had the first of his 97 major-league victories.

Jim compiled a 15-11 record in 43 games, 25 as a starter. He had 10 complete games but achieved only one shutout that season, a tight 2-0 home win over the visiting Philadelphia Athletics on August 18. His ERA stood at 4.21 with 73 strikeouts – but 90 walks. He surrendered 218 hits and 110 runs. It was a fairly decent start for what became a successful career.

Once he made the majors, Jim and his father only argued about one issue: who was the better hitter. Both were good hitting pitchers, and Jr. actually was used as an occasional pinch hitter. His lifetime average of .226 was eight points higher than his father’s. The two were profiled in The Sporting News, the article ended thus: “But Junior is certain of one thing: that he can outhit the old man. The old man will grant him only one thing—that he probably gets more distance. ‘But look what he’s got to hit?’ says Pop, ‘Who couldn’t knock the rabbit ball a country mile?’”³

For Jim another life adventure began in the off season. On October 13, 1938, he married 21-year-old Leola Hicks in the pastor’s office of the Druid Hills Baptist Church in Atlanta. The two had met two years previously at a local basketball game. In a small, simple ceremony, Jim’s sister, Mabel – herself married for only a short time — served as the matron of honor. The marriage would last the rest of his life.

Perhaps he had played over his head in 1938, perhaps he was distracted by the responsibilities of being a new husband, but whatever the reason, Bagby came out flat in the 1939 season. He amassed a 5-5 record with an ERA of 7.09. In mid-season the Red Sox decided that he needed to be sent down to the minors to get his game back, so he was sent to the Little Rock Travelers of the Southern Association. The Southern Association was Class A1, just a notch above his most recent minor-league assignment, in Hazelton.

The demotion had exactly the effect the parent club desired. Bagby pitched to a 7-6 record and a 3.54 ERA with Little Rock. Whatever the Red Sox were looking for in him, Jim found it. He was back in the majors to stay in 1940, although at first it didn’t look that way. His 1940 numbers were nothing to get excited about: a 10-16 record in 36 games. His ERA of 4.73 was a tad high, although he began to work relief on a regular basis. The combination was good enough to keep Bagby in a Sox uniform.

On August 24, he found himself involved in perhaps the oddest moment of Ted Williams’ long career in Boston. Although Ted was to say, “The only thing dumber than a pitcher is two pitchers”. Ted had been pestering Joe Cronin to let him pitch. Ted liked to brag about his youthful pitching exploits and when the first game of a doubleheader against the Tigers turned into a 11-1 blowout, Cronin decided that it was time for Ted to put up or shut up.

Jim Bagby, who was on the mound, was moved to left field and Ted came in to pitch the final two innings. Ted faced nine batters, allowing three hits and one run. The highlight was striking out Rudy York on three pitches. Interestingly, the catcher was Joe Glenn, who had also caught Babe Ruth’s last major league pitching performance.   

Jim stayed in a Red Sox uniform until December. The one thing the Sox lacked in 1940 was a quality catcher; at the league winter meetings, Joe Cronin, at the behest of Eddie Collins, rectified that problem. In a complicated deal to get Frankie Pytlak from Cleveland, Cronin “sold pitchers Fritz Ostermueller and Denny Galehouse to the St. Louis Browns for $30,000. Purchased Pete Fox from Detroit for an unannounced sum. Swapped Roger “Doc”Cramer, his veteran outfielder, to Washington for Gerald “Gee” Walker, and immediately turned over Walker, pitcher Jim Bagby and catcher Gene Desautels to Cleveland, receiving in return Pytlak, pitcher Joe Dobson, and infielder Odell Hale.”⁴

The deal was initially unpopular in Cleveland, as Pytlak was a fan favorite and the Indians seemed to get the worst of the deal. Bagby was perceived in Cleveland as a mediocre pitcher at best. It turned out that the Lake Erie air would eventually turn out to be just the tonic Jim needed.

The deal was, however, considered shrewd by most of the experts. The Sporting News ranked the Indians’ rotation of Bob Feller, Al Smith, Al Milnar, Bagby, and Mel Harder as “best in [the] loop.”⁵ Bagby’s season was not spectacular by any standard, but he did find a home with Cleveland. With the Tribe, Jim started 27 games but finished only 12; he won nine games while losing 15. His ERA was a pedestrian 4.04, but was an improvement over 1940. Interestingly, the same man who signed his father’s checks when he was with the Indians signed Jim’s as well. Indians bookkeeper Mark Wanstall had been with the club for 25 years. The Sporting News observed, “It happens only once in a lifetime, and can certainly occur only once in the history of major league ball in Cleveland.”⁶

Cleveland also offered some important off-field impact on his life. No doubt aware of his mother’s fears of a baseball career being an economic dead end, Jim enrolled in art school. Jim took morning classes at a Cleveland school; his long term goal was that of becoming a professional artist.  

The highlight of his 1941 season would ensure that his name would live forever, if only as the answer to a trivia question. It is almost impossible to convey the atmosphere and the national mania that was singularly focused on July 17, 1941. For the previous 56 games, Joe DiMaggio had hit safely at least once. The streak was the centerpiece of the nation’s newscasts; it was followed breathlessly by newspapers and fans to the exclusion of all else. Attendance for Yankees games both at home and on the road soared. Some 67,000 fans turned out at Cleveland’s Municipal Stadium that night to see if “Joltin’ Joe” could extend the streak.

Cleveland starter Al Smith pitched the first 7 1/3 innings. He walked Joe once, and also got some exceptional help from third baseman Ken Keltner, who made two stellar grabs to retire DiMaggio in the first and seventh innings.  Bagby came in with one out in the eighth inning. For years afterwards he would tell all who asked what he pitched that night. Most reporters over the years usually asked about that night in 1941 when the country watched him end DiMaggio’s streak. Jim loved to tell and retell the story. “Just fastballs”, Bagby said when asked about pitch selection by interviewer John Holway. Bagby continued, “Joe hit one of them hard but he just hit it at somebody.”⁷ DiMaggio hit into a 6-4-3 double play, Boudreau to Mack to Grimes, which just beat Joe to the bag. Ultimately the Yankees won the game, 4-3, but that was distinctly an anticlimax for the evening.

Jim achieved some professional highlights in 1942 and 1943. In both years he led the American League in games started. In 1942 he compiled a 17-9 record in 38 games. The 1942 season was Jim’s single greatest season. He started 35 games and recorded 16 complete games with 4 shutouts, both professional bests. His outstanding ERA of 2.96 was also his personal best. Jim was a natural selection for that July’s All-Star Game. In 1943 he returned to the All-Star Game but in neither year did he see action. His 1943 numbers were 17-14 in 36 games while leading the league in innings pitched with 273. His ERA of 3.10 however, was closer to his final major league average of 3.96. (His father led the American League twice in games, and once each in victories, complete games, and innings pitched.) 

In 1944 Jim appeared in just 13 games before leaving baseball for a one-year stint in the Merchant Marine. His hitch was uneventful and perhaps left Jim with a desire for more. Early in 1945 Jim took the Army physical but was rated 4-F because of his harelip. He returned to the Indians for the final year of World War II and had an 8-11 record. He started 19 games and worked 6 in relief. On December 12, 1945, the fifth anniversary of the trade from Boston, he was traded back to Boston for pitcher Vic Johnson and cash.⁸

With Boston he was used almost equally as a starter and as a reliever. Bagby built a 7-6 record, he started 11 games and completed six with one shutout. He also relieved in 10 games. The highlight of his career came in October when the Red Sox went to the World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals. In Game Four, after Tex Hughson surrendered three runs in the second inning and two more in the third inning without recording an out, Bagby was called upon to face Enos Slaughter with Stan Musial stationed at second base. Bagby got Slaughter to ground out and Whitey Kurowski to foul out before Joe Garagiola singled to drive in Musial. Bagby struck out Harry Walker to end the uprising. In three full innings of work, Jim gave up one earned run on six hits and a walk. Jim flied out to center field in his one Series at-bat, falling short of his father’s 1920 feat: a pitcher hitting a home run in a World Series. Jim, Sr. was the first pitcher to homer in the fall classic.

On February 10, 1947 the Pirates bought Bagby from the Red Sox for slightly over the $10,000 waiver price.⁹ It turned out to be his last big-league season. In another parallel with his father, the Pirates were the last major-league team for both Bagbys. With the Buccos, his record was 5-4 in 37 games with an ERA of 4.67. He started six games and finished two of them, as he was used almost exclusively in relief.

His big-league career was almost the same length as that of his father. “Sarge” played nine years, while his son hung on for one more year, making an even decade in the bigs. The 1948 season found Jim in the Triple A American Association with the Indianapolis Indians, trying to pitch his way back onto the Pirates’ lineup. He amassed an impressive 16-9 record in 31 games but it wasn’t enough to get him back to the smoky Steel City. At the end of the season, the Pirates gave Jim his outright release.

As a free agent in 1949, Jim latched on with the Atlanta Crackers. He was pitching in his hometown, in the same stadium he had grown up in as he watched his father’s professional baseball life begin to sputter down. In 30 games he completed a 10-14 record in 178 innings, not quite good enough at age 33 for someone to pick up his option.

The story was even more interesting in his final year as a professional baseball player. With the Class B Tampa Smokers of the Florida International League he put on an impressive show with a 9-1 record in 26 games and 114 innings pitched. Not bad at all for a 34-year-old. His final big-league career record was 97-96 with an ERA of 3.96. He recorded 84 complete games and 13 shutouts. With the conclusion of that season, Jim adjusted to life without baseball. He settled in Marietta and began working as a draftsman in the aircraft industry. Those old art school classes he had taken in Cleveland paid dividends. This job lasted until he retired in the 1980s. He also began playing golf seriously. He had started golfing as a player but now had time to work on his game. He became adept enough at golf to turn professional, playing in tournaments on weekends or while on vacation from the airplane factory. These jobs paid him more than baseball had. A life-long smoker, Jim’s cancerous larynx was removed in 1982. From that point on he relied upon Leola to communicate with the world, as she became an accomplished lip-reader.  

Jim’s cancer re-emerged in 1988 and killed him on September 2, just days before his 72^nd birthday. Completing the pattern set in childhood, he was buried not far from his father in Atlanta’s Westview Cemetery. Jim followed his father posthumously in still another way in 1992. Ten years after his father had been enshrined, James Bagby, Jr. joined him in the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame.          

Notes

1. Graham, Frank, “Bagby and Son.” Liberty, September 26, 1942 p.21

2. Clifford Bloodgood “Beginner’s Luck” Baseball, April 1941 p.487

3. Troy, Jack “Bagby, Jr, Just Like His Pop, Even to Ability to Sock, Happy with tribe for Whom Father had 31 wins in’20” The Sporting News February 27, 1941 p. 3

4. “Bosox Chief Lack Plugged by Pytlak In Three-Way Deal” The Sporting News December 19, 1940 p.1

5. McAuley, Ed, “Cleveland Pitching Keeps Its Date with Best In Loop Rating” The Sporting News April 24, 1941 p.1

6. “Once in a Lifetime” The Sporting News February 20, 1941 p.8

7. Holway, John B. “A Mystery Man in the End to DiMaggio’s Streak” The New York Times July 15, 1990 p. S1

8. Who’s Who in Baseball 1947, p.60

9. Doyle, Charles J. “Hank Quit When Bucs Snubbed His Bid For Release” The Sporting News, February 19, 1947 p.3

Sources

Graham, Frank “Bagby and Son” Liberty, September 26, 1942, p.21

Bloodgood, Clifford “Beginners Luck”, Baseball, April 1941, p. 487

Troy, Jack “Bagby, Jr. Just Like His Pop, even in the ability to Sock, Happy with Tribe for Whom Father had 31 wins in ’20” The Sporting News, February 27, 1941, p.3 

“Bosox Chief Lack Plugged by Pytlak in Three Way Deal” The Sporting News, December 19, 1941, p.1

“Cleveland Pitching Keeps its Date with Best in Loop Rating” The Sporting News, April 24, 1941, p.1

“Once in a Lifetime” The Sporting News, February 20, 1941, p.8

Holway, John B. “A Mystery Man in the End to DiMaggio’s Streak” The New York Times, July 15, 1990 p. S1

Who’s Who in Baseball 1947, p. 60

“Hank Quit When Bucs Snubbed His Bid for Release” The Sporting News, February 19, 1947, p. 3

Statistics come from: Palmer, Pete and Gillette, Gary, The Baseball Encyclopedia (New York: Barnes & Noble, 2004)

Additional data from www.retrosheet.org and the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame and Museum website: http://www.gshf.org/site/