But the true patriarch and legendary superman of Cuban baseball, was without a doubt, Adolfo Luque, known in the US as Dolph or Dolf Luque. Much has been written about Luque and his impact on Cuban baseball (none better that Roberto Gonzalez Echavarria's The Pride of Havana).
However, I believe that Luque's contribution to how US owners, fans,
newscasters and players viewed Latin American players, as well as his
outgoing, aggressive personality, and ability to float back and forth
between professional Cuban and American baseball at all levels of
organization, delivered a key ingredient for the eventual breaking of
the race barrier.
Luque was the first true Latin American star of the Major Leagues. He
won nearly 200 games, played in nine World Series, and in 1918 had an
astonishing 27 and 8 record with a 1.93 ERA while playing with the
Cincinnati Reds.
He was also a man who did not take insults from anyone,
and according to Gonzalez Echavarria, he was a "snarling, vulgar, cursing, aggressive pug, who, although small at five-seven, was always ready to fight."
These characteristics served Luque well in the racist environment of
the early 20th century MLB. Although he was very fair and blue-eyed, and
no one could distinguish him from the other white players until he
opened his mouth, Luque was nonetheless the butt of many racial insults,
to which he usually responded with brutal beanballs.
Once, while
pitching for Cincinnati, Luque heard insults coming from the Giants'
dugout. The fiery Cuban charged the dugout and
punched Casey Stengel in the mouth (
Stengel later claimed it wasn't him who had called Luque a "Cuban N-word," but it was the man seated next to him,
Bill Cunningham).
The police sent Luque back to his bench, but his Cincinnati teammates
took over the fighting to restore Luque's honor, and a near riot began.
In the chaos of the fighting, Luque grabbed a bat and headed back to the
Giants dugout.
Order was finally restored and both Luque and Stengel
were ejected.
It was not the first time that the aggressive Luque had taken matters
into his own hands, for earlier in his career he had also
fired a ball into his own dugout and chased one of his own teammates with an ice pick.
Luque died in 1957,
after playing in the Majors from 1914-1935. After his playing career
ended, he returned and began coaching in 1941 in the US Major Leagues
and also managed several teams in the Cuban League (he even pitched in a
game in 1946, when he was pushing 55) as well as many other teams in
Latin America.
Adolfo Luque's overall impact upon the world of professional baseball certainly merits his inclusion in the
Baseball Hall of Fame, where many lesser players of his era are included. As his
New York Times obituary
testifies to, Luque was a respected coach in the Major Leagues, and
like Gonzalez, had a significant part in helping to establish Latin
American players as part of the national game.
Because of his temper,
Luque also commanded a respect, sometimes out of fear, that also played a
key part in the acceptance of Latin American players, and helped
immeasurably in paving the road for Robinson and all the others who
followed in his steps. As Hemingway wrote in
The Old Man and the Sea:
"Who is the greatest manager, really, Luque or Mike Gonzalez? -- I think they are equal."
Between 1911 and 1929,
seventeen Cuban-born Caucasian players played in the Major Leagues and many more, both black and white, in the
Negro Leagues.
Somehow, along the line, and probably helped by the full acceptance by
MLB of players and coaches like Gonzalez and Luque, and clearly assisted
by the exposure of American owners, white players and managers to Cuban
baseball players, the pedigree requirement for obvious "whiteness" was
discarded. As a result, in 1935, a Cuban of clearly defined African
features makes his debut with the Washington Senators.
PARTICIPATING ARTISTS:
Those of you who know me well, and those of you who know me through my writing, know that one of my pet peeves is the usage of "labels" to box people and art, or art and people, into easily distinguishable categories.
Lori Anne Boocks's solo show at Studio Gallery is a dynamic exploration of
the power of stories and memory. In her acrylic paintings, she renders
text in expressive charcoal and forces the personal to become universal.
Words are rehashed, reworked, and stripped down to the bone then built
up again. Layers of color are added and partially removed to become a
lens through which she shares her cache of stories and invites viewers
to reflect upon their own.
A
couple of years later, John McGraw
brought to the US a Cuban player named Luis "Anguilla" Bustamante, who
he called "the perfect short stop." Unfortunately for Bustamante, who
was half black, his timing was off by half a century.
The two Cubans had an escort who had brought them to Cincinnati, and he
in turn approached and spoke to a shaky Herrmann, who then met the
Cubans for the first time. Herrmann was pleased and relieved about their
appearance. 
Once, while
pitching for Cincinnati, Luque heard insults coming from the Giants'
dugout. The fiery Cuban charged the dugout and punched Casey Stengel in the mouth (Stengel later claimed it wasn't him who had called Luque a "Cuban N-word," but it was the man seated next to him, Bill Cunningham).
The police sent Luque back to his bench, but his Cincinnati teammates
took over the fighting to restore Luque's honor, and a near riot began.
In the chaos of the fighting, Luque grabbed a bat and headed back to the
Giants dugout.
Adolfo Luque's overall impact upon the world of professional baseball certainly merits his inclusion in the Baseball Hall of Fame, where many lesser players of his era are included. As his New York Times obituary
testifies to, Luque was a respected coach in the Major Leagues, and
like Gonzalez, had a significant part in helping to establish Latin
American players as part of the national game.
There exists a fairy tale perception in the United
States of a Cuban society that is a fully integrated, equal society
where race doesn't matter, and everyone lives in a happy melting pot
where the races mix and blend and racism is not a problem. Nothing could
be further from the truth, even today (especially with the revival of tourism), and while many advances have been made for racial equality
in Cuba, this perception diminishes the suffering and pain that
Afro-Cubans, like African-Americans, have had to endure for centuries.
What tribulations Estalella must have endured! He was no blue-eyed, pale skinned
Luque, able to blend in visually, and certainly in the Deep South, no
one was fooled by the owners' claim that Estalella was not black but
Cuban.
Cincinnati in 1944, as well as a Cuban of Chinese ancestry, Manuel
"Chino" Hidalgo, who was signed by the Senators and played in the Minor
Leagues, but never broke into the majors. Hidalgo was probably the first
man of Asian ancestry to play in organized professional baseball in the
US.
If
we are to believe many Cuban stories of the times, Branch Rickey
started to seriously consider that the best strategy to break the color
barrier would be by bringing a black Cuban player to the major leagues.
His initial choice was a very good Cuban shortstop, Silvio GarcÃa. According to Edel Casas,
the noted Cuban baseball historian, Rickey met with GarcÃa in Havana in
1945 to explore the possibility of bringing Garcia to the Dodgers.
In
1947, after Robinson finally broke the obvious racial barrier for
African-Americans, many black Cubans followed in his steps, in many
cases becoming the first black players in many MLB teams. None of these
was greater than Orestes Miñoso,
called "Minnie" in the United States. On April 19, 1949 Miñoso made his
debut with the Cleveland Indians, and became the first black Cuban and
Afro Latin American to play major league baseball. He collected 1,963
hits in his career and became the second major leaguer to play in five
different decades.
And perhaps there is no link more brilliant to this past than Roberto Estalella's grandson, Bobby, also a great Major Leaguer, who carried the great baseball tradition
of this unheralded hero of the past.
If you watch the new CBS series "Vegas" - look out for my daughter Vanessa Campello -- she's a recurring extra on the show (she plays the receptionist)... yay!
