Luis Aparicio Ortega: The Father of All

Gavilanes shortstop Luis Aparicio Ortega and his son Luis Aparicio Jr on the latter’s debut on November 18, 1953 before the game vs Pastora in the Venezuelan Western Baseball League. Aparicio Jr. later signed for the Chicago White Sox and played in the major leagues for 18 seasons. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1984. (SABR-Rucker Archive)

 

The name Luis Aparicio in the United States is synonymous with one of the best shortstops in history and one of the top base stealers of all time. However, that very name in Venezuela implicates a series of clarifications and cultural ramifications. It’s just a question of whom we are making reference to: Either Senior or Junior.

That’s why in the South American nation, we differentiate them by using their last and maiden names, respectively: Luis Aparicio Ortega and Luis Aparicio Montiel.

Beyond using both surnames, Aparicio Ortega has been immortalized in Venezuela as El Grande de Maracaibo (The Great One from Maracaibo).

The year 1912 was eventful in several ways. For instance, at the beginning of the year, the United States had 46 states. (The number became 48 when Arizona and New Mexico were admitted to the Union. In that year, most of the streets in the main cities in Germany were the first to be lit by night, with a system called neon gas lighting. 1912 saw the establishment as a republic of what is today the most populous nation and one of the most important economic superpowers on earth; it was January 1 when China was “barely” established as a republic. 1912 might be mostly remembered in popular history because of the most famous maritime tragedy ever remembered: the sinking of the Titanic.

Maracaibo, the city and commercial port in the northwestern part of Venezuela, had electrical lighting since 1888 with the inauguration of the city’s public lighting system. Local authorities planned it this way to celebrate the centennial birthdate of the local patriotic figure Rafael Urdaneta, a hero of the Latin American wars for independence.

The year 1912 is also important for Maracaibo because it is the year in which the arrival of baseball is recorded in the city, and it is also the year of the birth of the “first great urban and popular icon”: Luis Aparicio Ortega.

The Santa Lucía district of Maracaibo was home to the Aparicio family, headed by Leonidas Aparicio and Adelina Ortega. On August 28, God gave them a special gift: Doña Adelina gave birth to a child who was baptized with the name of Luis Guillermo Aparicio Ortega, who, through his baseball prowess, would become known as “El Grande de Maracaibo.”

The Aparicio Ortega family lived on Guayaquil Street, which made a diagonal from the Hospital Central de Maracaibo Doctor Urquinaona, in what is today Avenida El Milagro (The Miracle Avenue).

As a child, Aparicio Ortega shared his studies with his passion for sports. He was initially inclined to soccer, a sport he would start practicing regularly along with his older brother Ernesto. Both were members of First Division teams such as Ayacucho and Guaraní and were teammates of José Encarnación “Pachencho” Romero, a glorious player of Venezuelan soccer, for whom the great Soccer Stadium of the City of Maracaibo, a venue of the 2007 Copa América is named.

The Aparicio brothers learned baseball in the streets of Maracaibo when the sport was becoming popular. And in 1929, they formed a team to compete at the local level: Gavilanes.

Aparicio Ortega was talented in all sports. He was fast in soccer and very skillful in baseball. When he devoted himself to baseball full time at age 14, he caught the eye of local teams, and in December 1930, he went to Caracas to play for the champion of the Venezuelan First Division, the Cincinnati, who hosted the squad from Ponce, Puerto Rico, in a friendly series.

Curiously, his debut in Caracas was with Ponce as a left fielder because an injury left the visitors one man short, and they borrowed Aparicio Ortega to complete their roster. He was hired in 1931 by the Club Lucana of the First Division in Caracas by entrepreneur Alejandro Blanco Chataing, and once he started playing in the capital city, he began to cement his legend, establishing himself as a great shortstop.

Aparicio played for Magallanes and Concordia, the latter owned by the son of General Juan Vicente Gómez, president of Venezuela, a team filled with all-star caliber players that toured the Caribbean. With Concordia, Aparicio Ortega shined in games playing against Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, hobnobbing with the best players of the time in the Negro leagues, some who were on the radar of major-league teams.

Aparicio Ortega’s performance impressed officials of the Tigres del Licey, of the Dominican Republic, who traveled to Maracaibo to sign him. He became the first Venezuelan ballplayer (or athlete) in history to be exported to a foreign team as a professional. On April 29, 1934, while Aparicio Ortega was playing in the Dominican Republic, his first son was born in Maracaibo: Luis Ernesto. Upon his return to Venezuela, Aparicio Ortega married his fiancée and Luis’ Jr. mother, Doña Herminia Montiel.

The game of baseball solidified in the country with the formation of Liga Venezolana de Béisbol (LVBP is the commonly-used Spanish acronym; in English, it’s called the Venezuelan Professional Baseball League). The first official game was on January 12, 1946, when the teams of Venezuela and Magallanes squared off in Estadio Cervecería Caracas, in the San Agustín neighborhood. Luis Aparicio “El Grande,” as the leadoff man for Magallanes, wrote his name in golden letters by becoming the first player to get a base hit in the newly formed professional baseball league that still remains as the most solid professional sports league in the country. He also became the first to score a run. That game marked a before-and-after in the history of Venezuelan baseball, being the foundation of the game as it is currently known and revered.

Seven years earlier, in the defunct Estadio del Lago, in Maracaibo, Aparicio Ortega had a starring role in the longest game played in the country, known in history as “El juego de los 20 innings” (The 20-inning game). The game was between Gavilanes and Pastora, the two baseball teams that gave birth to the biggest rivalry in the country during those years. Such rivalry had so much influence that after every game between the two clubs, the streets were filled with the few vehicles circulating back then, with big and noisy caravans as if it was an endless carnival celebrated by Zulian people, made up of followers from both “sides,” especially the winning team. In that 20-inning match, Aparicio Ortega was the shortstop for the Gavilanes, who lost 1-0 to the “Pastoreños.”

In the Venezuelan domestic leagues in which Aparicio Ortega played: the Primera División (First Division) of Maracaibo and in the LVBP, he coincidentally ended up with a lifetime batting average of .269 in each of them, playing for the Gavilanes de Maracaibo and with Magallanes and Vargas in Caracas.

Perhaps the most relevant episode of his career came upon his retirement. Venezuelan baseball authorities decided to merge its professional leagues for the 1953-54 season, holding a trial tournament with the four best clubs from Caracas (Cervecería Caracas and Magallanes) and Maracaibo (Gavilanes and Pastora).

The special date came on November 18 in Maracaibo, where Aparicio Ortega, already revered by the fans as one of their greatest idols, and at age 41, made a small symbolic act in front of the fans by giving his glove and bat to his son Luis Ernesto, then 17 years old, thus finishing his professional career that started alongside the humble beginnings of baseball in Venezuela.

For fans in attendance to this game, it was an act considered as “magical” in the book of urban legends. The significance of the great idol, opening the doors of baseball to a youngster full of expectations. Father and son starred in a generational switch in the field, all while honoring the Virgin of Chiquinquirá, the holy Saint-mother of this city, to whom the game has been dedicated every November 18th.

As it is well known in history, Aparicio Ortega is the father of the only Venezuelan player who has been inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown; Luis Aparicio Montiel, who was elected in 1984. Quite a significant debut!

There are many things “Luisito” (Little Louie) could say about his father, but what he has emphasized the most has been: “When I decided to become a ballplayer, my mother got really upset because I had to drop out of my studies. But my father said nothing. He just told me, very convinced: “I will only tell you that if you are going to play baseball, you can be second to none… and I think I didn’t let him down.”

In 1969, Luis Aparicio Ortega was the first manager of the newly professional team Águilas del Zulia, to this date, one of the most prolific baseball franchises in Venezuela and locally, a baseball brand that connects generations as the most followed team in Western Venezuela. One of the three Venezuelan teams to win the Caribbean Series championship twice.

Retired as a player for 16 years, Luis El Grande died of a heart attack on January 1, 1971. That year, because of his impact around the diamonds of Venezuelan baseball, he was inducted into the Venezuelan Sports Hall of Fame, as part of an inaugural class of pioneers that also included Alejandro “El Patón” Carrasquel, the first Venezuelan player in MLB.

He was also inducted into the later-established Venezuelan Baseball Hall of Fame, selected by the Historic Committee, on November 28, 2005.

It is worth considering all cultural aspects to help understand the importance of “El Grande de Maracaibo,” whose legacy and example at shortstop were followed, years later, by many extraordinary Venezuelan shortstops such as Alfonso “Chico” Carrasquel, his own son Luis Ernesto, Enzo Hernández, David Concepción, Oswaldo Guillén, and Omar Vizquel. Aparicio Ortega and his brother Ernesto left a mark of excellence and integrity on the field. “El Grande” was the first great star of baseball in Maracaibo and the first “franchise player” identified with the Gavilanes, his perennial local team. Ernesto, his sidekick on the field, left Maracaibo after his death and resided in Caracas after his retirement, where he devoted himself to developing players. One of his main pupils became one of the greatest Venezuelan stars in the majors and the first Latino manager to win a World Series: Ozzie Guillen.

Aparicio Ortega is not only the father of a Hall of Famer, but for many players of the developing professional baseball era in Venezuela, he was seen as a father figure. Many of these players dared to take their talent overseas and were the foundation to keep Venezuela as an international superpower in the game and a top exporter for MLB talent.

Information and references in this article come from the book El Grande: Homenaje en el Centenario del Nacimiento de Luis Aparicio Ortega by Eliexser Pirela Leal, published in 2012 by Premium Publicidad, Maracaibo, Venezuela.