The New Face of Baseball

RAY SUAREZ:

The book is "The New Face of Baseball: The 100-Year Rise and Triumph of Latinos in America's Favorite Sport." The author is Tim Wendell, one of the founders of "U.S.A. Today baseball weekly." Well, I was looking at the all- star lineups the other week and six… six of the American league starters were Latinos. And I thought, "wow, this feels new," but at the same time it's something that has been percolating for a long time.

TIM WENDEL:

It's something that has been coming for a long time. You also look at those rosters, ray, that one-third, more than one-third of the combined rosters were Latino or Latino descent. But it goes way back. It goes back to guys like Dolf Luque, '20s and '30s, certainly through guys like Herestas Manoso to Roberto Clemente and Orlando Cepeda.

And what's interesting is a lot of these guys really know their history. They know that these guys kind of paved the way, and I think that's maybe that's one reason why we're seeing such an enthusiasm and such a passion for what I think many Americans feel is their national pastime.

RAY SUAREZ:

Now some baseball historians have suggested over the year that it's just the latest group, that groups cycle through baseball, and you know, Lou Gehrig's parents weren't born in the country. He grew up in a German-American neighborhood in Manhattan, and Yogi Berra's parents spoke Italian as a first language. That in a way there's nothing new about this. But you suggest that it's the size of it and the extent of it and the length of it that's just different.

TIM WENDEL:

That's correct. I don't think we've ever seen like a wave like this, such a cutting edge and so dominant in the game. What's really ironic, Ray, is I think they're kind of bringing baseball back home to where its origins are. I think we've fallen so in love with the home run– "let's get a couple guys on base and we'll, you know, we'll just cross our fingers and wait for the homer." You know, it's funny, I think if you go to a game in Havana, Santa Domingo, you see guys taking the extra base. In a sense, you see the way it was played in the '40s and the '50s here.

RAY SUAREZ:

There were… there was a slow ascent of the Latino player during the mid decades of the century. Talk about why and how it happened.

TIM WENDEL:

Well, in part, they were kind of confined by some of the same things that were confining baseball. I mean, there were so many great players we will never really know about because of the color barrier until Jackie Robinson came along in 1947.

One of the guys that I researched here was a guy named Martin Diego who was a great pitcher and also an everyday player. In a sense, he was kind of the Babe Ruth of his time, but they didn't say "well, we're going to make you an everyday player so up can't pitch anymore." They said, "you can pitch. The days you're not pitching, why don't you play catcher, why don't you third base, why don't you right field."

But he never made the major leagues because, you know, it was before the color barrier. His skin was too dark. So in a sense once Robinson broke it in '47, then you no longer had this criteria that used to be on the scouting cards when they used to go down and scout these players: How light- skinned are they? That was suddenly gone.

RAY SUAREZ:

Were teams that got involved in the Caribbean early able to reap benefits before other teams? Was there somebody who invented Latin scouting?

TIM WENDEL:

Well, there was "Papa Joe" Cambria with the Washington Senators, and in a sense it was done somewhat because of an economic move. And it was interesting that suddenly this guy became the super scout of the Caribbean. He didn't really speak Spanish that well, and potentially even at one point pursued Fidel Castro as a prospect.

And you know, it helped the senators certainly, but like with anything with baseball the other smart teams catch up. You look at what's going on right now, I would say Yankees, Dodgers, Red Sox, I mean, many of the top teams, they have a very significant Latino element not only at their major league level, but certainly at their minor league system as well.

RAY SUAREZ:

Is there an implied unity that really isn't there either in the locker room or on the field or on the roster between the large number of American-born Latino players and those who, in fact, grew up somewhere else? Do we sort of think they should be… there should be some chumminess there that is hard to establish in real life?

TIM WENDEL:

Well, at times I think it's hard to establish, but you look at teams who are doing a good job, not only are they good at kind of seeking out good prospects– whether it's in Venezuela, Dominican Republic, going after the new defector say from Cuba– they're very good at bringing them along in their system.

And that's why I think what's going on right now in baseball, which I really kind of view as a civic institution, you know, I think companies and corporations will study, because this impact in a way is as big as the rise of the African-American athlete in the '60s and the '70s. Okay how do you bring, in a sense, new people, different culture into your organization and have them excel?

RAY SUAREZ:

Is it good for baseball in the united states? I was reading in the paper that the ratings for the all-star game were the lowest ever. Some teams are having some real attendance problems. Is baseball… who they're putting between the lines changing who's out there in the stands?

TIM WENDEL:

I think eventually it has to, Ray, and I think the teams that are really smart are going to do that. You look at attendance, it's fallen off 5-10 percent. Yet I was just out in Los Angeles talking to go some Latino leaders, community leaders and they were telling me, "you know, the NBA, the NFL do a better job of marketing their games to us than major league baseball does?"

And I was just stunned because, again, you look at the breadth and the number of stars, say, coming from these other countries there. I think the other thing that really needs to be done too is from an infrastructure and also, say, playing something of… maybe a World Cup for baseball. I think the average U.S. fan would be stunned by how enthusiastic and how well this game is played outside our borders.

And again we're not just talking the Caribbean or South America. We're talking, you know, all around the world. I just talked to a super scout friend of mine, a guy in Seattle, Roger Jongewaard who signed Darryl Strawberry, A-Rod, Ichiro. I said, "where have you been lately roger?" He said "of course I've been to the Dominican Republic.

But after that, you know, I went to China, Russia, Croatia, Holland, Italy and I signed what I think are top prospects from all those countries." So let's have everybody play for their own country and I think it would be great competition and I think it would really put baseball back on the map.

RAY SUAREZ:

When you buy a paper in Puerto Rico I know and you pick it up, look at the sports page, there's a separate box that you won't see in papers in other places that says our stars in the major league– nuestra estrellas. Do kids grow up still in the Caribbean thinking, "I can be the center fielder for the New York Yankees like Bernie Williams? I can be hitting home runs like Evan Rodriguez?"

TIM WENDEL:

I think they do in a sense, ray, because it's closer. Those people are closer in their community. Like up on my wall at home, I've got a photograph of Willie Mays playing stick ball on the streets of New York when he with the New York giants.

I think right now, so many professional athletes are perceived as living at the end of gated cul-de-sacs, whereas if you go to Cuba, Dominican Republic, you want to know where the top star is, you ask the kids. The kids know where he is, and they know it's perfectly fine to go walking up to his house and knock on his door.

And I think, you know, because they're much more part of the community, even though that's sometimes a very unrealistic dream, maybe it fuels it a little bit more. Okay, there's so-and-so, there's Sammy Sosa, there's Pedro Martinez. They made tonight the major leagues, maybe I can, too.

RAY SUAREZ:

From your reporting and from the traveling you've done throughout the Spanish-speaking world, is this a wave that hasn't even crested yet?

TIM WENDEL:

I don't think so. I asked that question of Junior Naboa who used to play second base for the Montreal Expos. Now he runs the baseball academy for the Arizona Diamondbacks in the Dominican Republic. I said "how far can this go, junior?" He said "I think right now we're looking at probably 20, 25 percent of the players at the major league level right now Latino or Latino descent."

He said that can go easily to 40-45 percent, because that's how passionate they're playing the game. And also, unlike what's happening in this country, in the inner cities, there's the infrastructure, there's the instruction, there's the fathers playing catch with their kids. Baseball is a game that has to be handed down generation to generation. You just don't go out and pick it up one day.

RAY SUAREZ:

"The New Face of Baseball." Tim Wendell thanks a lot.