Latin Americans In Major League Baseball

Major League Baseball, as the combined National and American leagues in the United States are now called, faces new challenges—both external and internal—with the increase of baseball’s international appeal. External pressures include strong professional baseball leagues in Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea (see Japanese baseball leagues) that could hamper major league baseball’s expansion into those Asian markets. Internal pressures involve such issues as the location of the major leagues themselves, which are no longer based exclusively in the United States (each league includes a Canadian team), and the enormous increase in the number of foreign players, particularly Latin Americans from the Caribbean basin. Both of these factors could hinder the sport’s ability to market itself as “all-American.” When the major leagues and affiliated minor leagues were called organized baseball to distinguish them from independent baseball (i.e., the Negro leagues), they withstood gambling scandals, desegregation controversies, expansion, and rule changes. Now Major League Baseball may be facing yet a new test: how to deal with the globalization of the game.

Though there have been Latin Americans in the major leagues since the 19th century, not until now have they been so numerous and played so many different positions and roles. At the start of the 2000 season, there were 71 major league players from the Dominican Republic, 33 from Puerto Rico, 31 from Venezuela, 14 from Mexico, 9 from Cuba, 8 from Panama, 2 from Colombia, and 1 from Nicaragua. Thus, of some 1,200 players in the major leagues, 169 (about 15 percent) were from Latin America. There were also a number of players of Latin descent (mostly with Puerto Rican, Cuban, or Mexican ancestry) born in the United States. However, the increase in Hispanic players on the field has not been accompanied by a proportionate rise in the number of Hispanic managers. There have been a few Latin managers in the past—Miguel Angel González, Octavio (“Cookie”) Rojas, Preston Gómez, and Tony Pérez, for example—but in each case these men were the sole Latin major league managers during their tenure.

In the past, Latins gravitated to positions in which strength was not at a premium. Their forte tended to be fielding, and in some cases pitching, but not hitting. By contrast, the 1990s featured Latin sluggers in the outfield (José Canseco, Juan González, Manny Ramírez, and Sammy Sosa), catchers (Iván [“Pudge”] Rodríguez and Sandy Alomar), and hard-hitting first basemen (Rafael Palmeiro and Andrés Galarraga). Latin pitchers tended to be, and still are, guileful rather than fast, but this, too, has changed. Pedro Martínez and Armando Benítez, for example, both have exceptional speed.

The dramatic increase in Latin players in the major leagues is due to several factors. First, the major league expansion that began in 1961 eventually increased the number of teams from 16 to 30 and forced owners to look farther afield to fill player rosters. Second, the increasing competition for young athletes in other professional sports, such as gridiron football and basketball, decreased the number available to play baseball. The popularity of football (soccer) in the suburbs, the unsuitability of baseball to the inner city (because of the need for large fields), and fewer collegiate scholarships being offered in baseball in comparison with gridiron football and basketball also served to make the game less attractive to young men in the United States. By contrast, boys play baseball year-round in the warm Caribbean basin and Panama, and there is little competition from other sports. In Mexico, Central America, Venezuela, and Colombia, football plays a more important role than baseball, but, particularly in Venezuela, baseball is also a strong component of the national culture. Further, baseball’s lifting of the colour bar with the signing of Jackie Robinson in 1947 permitted black Latin players to play major league baseball and thereby greatly increased the number of players eligible to play in the United States. Finally, Latin American players are cheaper to sign and develop than other players are in the United States. Many Latin players come from impoverished backgrounds; they seldom have legal representation; and they typically are not covered by the rules governing recruitment (except in Puerto Rico).