Posted October 3, 2019
Racism and segregation were a part of U.S. history from its beginnings, and it was a part of baseball's history, too. In 1919, Major League Baseball did not allow non-whites to play. That wasn't a written rule, but rather a "gentleman's agreement" among managers and team owners. This meant no African Americans, of course, but it also meant no black people from Latin America.
(Latin America includes most of the nations and dependencies in Central America, South America, and the Caribbean. It's called "Latin" America because the European nations with Latin-based languages - mostly Spain but also Portugal and France - colonized those regions, intermarried with the native peoples to varying extents, and left their mark of influence including their languages.)
The fact that, on this date in 1919, Dolf Luque became the first Latin American ball player to play in a World Series Game was unfortunately not a blow against segregation. Adolfo Domingo De Guzmán Luque was born and raised in Cuba, but he had blue eyes and fair skin, and he was therefore considered white.
Actually, quite a few white Cubans made it into MLB when it was still segregated - 17 of them between the years 1911 and 1929. Many of them also played Negro League baseball with integrated teams from Cuba - and that included Luque. (Professional baseball in Latin America was always integrated.)
You probably figured that Luque started his baseball career in the Cuban League; he also played a lot of winter ball there, and he became a manager in both the Cuban League and in the Mexican League.
So - a lot of different leagues!
Luque in Major League Baseball
During his MLB career in the United States, Luque was a pitcher who played for the Boston Braves, the Cincinnati Reds, the Brooklyn Dodgers, and the New York Giants. He hit above average of other pitchers, and he helped the Giants win the fifth and final game of the 1933 World Series.
In addition to his excellent play, he was really good at helping others with their pitching; he ended up being the pitching coach for the Giants for a number of years. As I mentioned above, he was a coach and manager in Latin America in between and after his work in MLB.
Baseball's infamous color barrier
Before Jackie Robinson famously broke the MLB color barrier in 1945, the line was mussed a bit - maybe even downright blurred - by MLB's inclusion of non-black races such as Charles Albert Bender, who was part Chippewa and part white. There were numerous attempts to sign talented African American players under the pretense that they were Native American, and that held even more true for Latin American players who were often part white...and part indio, or African, or both. If the public questioned a player's brown skin, baseball managers often assured people that "So-and-so isn't Negro; he's Cuban" (or Puerto Rican, or whatever).
Thanks to Jackie Robinson and everyone else who chipped away at and then tore down baseball's color barrier, black players have grown to 10% to 20% of all MLB players, and more than a quarter of all MLB players are from Latin America. (Obviously, there's a fair amount of overlap between those two figures!)
Integration of all races in all places and industries has been a huge boon - and we are still working on this goal! And celebration of all races, everywhere and everywhen, is another goal we have only begun to chip away at!Also on this date:
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