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Alfonso “Chico” Carrasquel was the first great Hispanic defensive player in the major leagues. His play at shortstop made him as recognizable a big-leaguer as there was for several years. Carrasquel may not have revolutionized the position defensively like latter-day greats Ozzie Smith and Omar Vizquel – but he brought panache, born of his innate […]

Catchers, like musicians, use both hands for their craft: the gloved one captures the ball while the other acts as a conductor’s baton to guide the action. Johnny Bench, arguably the best player to don the tools of ignorance, stated, “The catcher is in the middle of everything. He sees it best.”1 The statement is […]

Rubén Gómez was the second pitcher from Puerto Rico to reach the majors — and the first to start and win a World Series Game. He led the New York Giants to a 6-2 win in Game Three at Cleveland on October 1, 1954. A limber 6 feet even and 170-175 pounds, Gómez was amazingly […]

For generations, many American fathers have raised their sons with dreams of emulating their baseball hero, Mickey Mantle. Chipper Jones’s father was no different. From an early age, his son reminded him of The Mick: a small-town country boy with charming good looks, a Southern drawl, and a preternatural ability to hit a baseball from […]

This article appears in SABR’s “Puerto Rico and Baseball: 60 Biographies” (2017), edited by Bill Nowlin and Edwin Fernández.   Major-League Spring Training in Puerto Rico The 1936 Cincinnati Reds “The Cincinnati Reds put on the first major league baseball game in Puerto Rican history yesterday” was lead of an AP wire story on February […]