Playing America's Game: Baseball, Latinos, and the Color Line (Volume 23)

by Adrian Burgos

Although largely ignored by historians of both baseball in general and the Negro leagues in particular, Latinos have been a significant presence in organized baseball from the beginning. In this benchmark study on Latinos and professional baseball from the 1880s to the present, Adrian Burgos tells a compelling story of the men who negotiated the color line at every turn—passing as “Spanish” in the major leagues or seeking respect and acceptance in the Negro leagues.

Burgos draws on archival materials from the U.S., Cuba, and Puerto Rico, as well as Spanish- and English-language publications and interviews with Negro league and major league players. He demonstrates how the manipulation of racial distinctions that allowed management to recruit and sign Latino players provided a template for Brooklyn Dodgers’ general manager Branch Rickey when he initiated the dismantling of the color line by signing Jackie Robinson in 1947. Burgos's extensive examination of Latino participation before and after Robinson's debut documents the ways in which inclusion did not signify equality and shows how notions of racialized difference have persisted for darker-skinned Latinos like Orestes ("Minnie") Miñoso, Roberto Clemente, and Sammy Sosa.

Genres: Baseball, Sports, Nonfiction, History

384 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

Reviews

[Brina]

Each year there is one book that either gets a lot of hype that I am curious to read or a book that I look forward to for months only to find that it is not what I expected and am letdown. This year, that such book is Playing America's Game by Adrian Burgos, Jr., a book I selected as the current monthly read for the baseball book club. I started to get hyped for this book when the all star game was played this year in Miami and major league baseball chose to honor its Hispanic hall of fame players, paying homage to their unique flair for the game. Perhaps, this would have been an appropriate time to read a book about the Hispanic major league experience, but I chose to read this as the group's selection for Hispanic Heritage Month. Burgos' discourse details the history of Hispanics in baseball, yet not in a manner that made the book enjoyable for me.

History and baseball are my two passions, and Burgos book reads like a history dissertation. Even for someone like myself, I found the introduction and opening chapter to be dull, and academic, not like the history book that reads like a story format I am used to from America's nonfiction masters. In his introduction, Burgos lays out his hypothesis that race was a key component for a Hispanic to become a major league ball player, especially in the days before integration. Light skinned Hispanics had a chance to make the majors, until they were found to not be Caucasian, whereas their dark skinned counterparts, especially those hailing from Cuba and the Dominican Republic, did not. Thus, teams like the Cuban Giants and leagues in Caribbean countries were born, giving Hispanics the opportunity to play the game in their unique way.

What also dulled this book for me was the time devoted to the economic side of baseball. For someone who studies the game as closely as I do, the reserve clause is part of my vernacular. While the business of baseball does explain how in the early days players were the property of one team for their entire careers, Burgos does not specifically define why this posed a problem for light skinned Hispanic players. The economics of baseball is actually a compelling subject, but not one that necessarily should be discussed in conjunction with the Hispanic experience. In fact, the first Hispanic player mentioned is not a household name, but Mexican born Vicente Nava. His story is an interesting one, especially because he had to use his stepfather's surname Irwin to be allowed to play in a California bush league during the 1880s. This anecdote plays into Burgos hypothesis, but too much time is spent on it, and rather than furthering the prose, actually put me out of the mood of reading it.

Adrian Burgos is a respected Hispanic history professor and played college baseball. His historical work is with merit, but for the casual history buff or even ardent baseball fan, this book is too dry with fact to be used as a group read. I would recommend it as a quality reference book, especially if one would like to know the prejudices that early Hispanic players faced when they were first allowed in the majors. Yet, with more fact than anecdotes or stories, it is not a book to be read lightly. I am participating in a personal Hispanic Heritage Month reading challenge where I will read a cross section of Hispanic written fiction, nonfiction, and poetry throughout the month. Perhaps, I will read another Hispanic centric baseball book later in the month, one that focuses on the flair and passion unique to Hispanic ballplayers of both today and of the past.

Skimmed/DNF/Reference book

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have read some 80 baseball books, most all of them famous and others lesser known — all in order to round out my baseball knowledge. This book is one of the few that covers Latino players. I’m not talking about biographies that I’ve read on players like Tony Oliva and Roberto Clemente.

The information content and research that went into this book was extremely high. I learned a great deal on early Latino players and pioneers.

Many of the Latino players who were interviewed about their playing careers in the majors were very bitter about the racism and vitriol directed at them during their playing days. And of course they were totally justified in their resentment. Luis Tiant Sr. and Roberte Clemente, two of the Latino pioneers, were quite candid. Clemente called himself a double [insert n-word] because of his inability to speak English combined with his African ancestry.

The writing here was not the best but I am glad I read this important book. It made me think deeply about and appreciate the achievements of so many men who crossed the color barrier.

3.5 to 4 stars.

[Kristin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well-researched book about the history of Latinos in baseball. Burgos demonstrates that this is not a new happening——not a "wave"——but instead that generations of Latinos have played in American baseball and have had to negotiate the ever changing borders of the color line. At times a little repetitive in the beginning and endings of chapters, Burgos' book is an important transnational addition to baseball history.

[Leonora · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great informational text but hard to focus on due to the true academic style of the writing. I recommend this book but know that it'll probably take you a while to plow through.

[William Jeanes Memorial Library]

As noted earlier, I am reading books from a list of best baseball books that was posted on the Major League Baseball website recently.. This list contains 30 books, three of which I have already read in recent years. I hope to read all 27 of the others eventually. I scanned the list to see if I could get a fulfilled activity from any of them, and I found this one, by Latinx author Adrian Burgos, Jr. Burgos is a history professor, and this book is written as an academic, rather than a popular, book. So sometimes the going is slow, when the author invokes academic concepts that don't particularly apply to baseball. But other times he fulfills the other purpose of a historian, which is to tell the story. Many people think that Latinos in Major League Baseball is a recent occurrence, perhaps even postdating Jackie Robinson's debut as the first African American player. (In fact, Robinson was not the first, as Burgos mentions 19th century player Moses Fleetwood "Fleet" Walker and others from that time who played before they were banned). But Latinos have been playing in the Majors since the 19th century. Before integration, teams brought in lighter-skinned players from the Caribbean and Latin America plus ones from the U.S. itself who had Spanish ancestry. There was never a distinct color line. Native Americans as well as people from Southern European countries such as Italy also served to blur the color line. I have been a baseball fan for more than 60 years. Many of the Latino players from my childhood and early adulthood, such as the Alou brothers, Orlando Cepeda, Juan Marichal, Camilo Pascual, Pedro Ramos, Luis Tiant, and Roberto Clemente (a book about him is on the best baseball books list, and I look forward to reading it eventually), are mentioned in detail in this book. Both Tiant and Cepdea had fathers who played baseball but were not permitted to play Major League Baseball due to their skin color. Stories of more recent players, such as Alex Rodriguez (born and raised in the U.S. but with a Dominican background), Rafael Palmeiro (also raised in the U.S.), Sammy Sosa, and Vladimir Guerrero, Sr., are also told. (The book was published in 2007, and even more major leaguers with a Latino heritage have emerged since then.) If you love baseball and want to know more about the history of Latinos in the sport and the barriers they've encountered, I highly recommend this book.
-Patron R.L.

[Danny Juarez · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the book. Baseball is my favorite sport, I’m Hispanic, I love history, and Adrian was my professor at the University of Illinois, so I’m a little biased. In class he talked about how and the amount of research he put into this book so it made me appreciate it more.

There are a lot of names and teams to keep track of and even for someone who is a baseball fan it was difficult for me. That may be more of my lack of knowledge of the sport that should be to blame. Overall, I thought this book accurately filled in a big gap of baseball’s history for some of its most essential players.

[Kyle Magin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really, really well-reported work detailing how Latinos led the push for integration of the Major Leagues. Presents some new scholarship and does some dot- connecting that would serve any baseball fan well to know. The writing can be a little dry and a little repetitive, but that's a small price to pay.

[Roncibio · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the few baseball histories that moves away from the mainstream view of the the game by including the experiences of Latino and African American baseball in the MLB and across the Americans. Burgos is to be commended for bring to light the important contributions of Latino baseball to the history of the game.

[Jenna W · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was really interesting to learn about the meandering of the color line as it fit white people's needs. I am not a baseball fan, but this was a interesting read for the commentary on race relations on American history alone.

[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

First a disclaimer. I played college baseball (Div. 3 former woman's school college baseball) with the author of this book. He's a great guy who loves baseball and his heritage. Adrian is a college professor and "Playing America's Game," reads like it. It's a serious piece of academic research as opposed to a book that is supposed to be a page turner. It is full of interesting ideas and is the in depth research into Latinos in baseball. However, being less of a scholar and I dare say less intelligent than Adrian I can't say it that it was gripping for me.

[hh · Rating 2 out of 5]

interesting ideas and stories about the place of latino players during segregation. the prose is, unfortunately, repetitive and sometimes there are jumps in logic that i don't quite follow. but when there are actual detailed stories about baseball players and their experiences (as opposed to theorizing), the book is exceedingly good.

[Mike Emett · Rating 3 out of 5]

Required reading for the "Latin American Historiography" graduate seminar.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

Burgos argues that Latin American baseball players have always been apart of baseball as a institution, and not a recent phenomenon. In fact, Latin Americans have been key to its development in how they subverted the color line and have always been a source of cheap labor, both as non-citizens and as perpetual foreigners. His thesis is that Latinos adopted America’s game and used it to make themselves into citizens out of colonial subjects, build community, and display masculinity. Furthermore, in places like Mexico, Cuba, Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico, integrated international baseball circuits thrived, where both white Americans from MLB and black Americans from the Negro Leagues came to play in offseasons. While the more powerful white MLB owners tried to discourage white players from participating in offseason Latin American baseball, the practice persisted, while Negro Leaguers had more freedom to play in Latin America because Negro League owners lacked the power to stop them. Teams like the Washington Senators recruited lighter skinned Cubans to play, while black American teams often called themselves “Cuban” as a rouse to sell tickets as they could claim to not be black. Furthermore, of Latinos who came to the United States, 5 to 1 played in the Negro Leagues over MLB. Therefore, all of these factors helped challenge the color line, lastly white MLBers jumping to the Mexican League to play with Negro Leaugers in the 1946 Mexican League war. Burgos argues that after the fall of the color barrier, teams, led by the New York Giants, heavily went into Latin America to exploit a labor market, hastened in the 1980s with the rise of baceros in the Dominican Republic. Players signing receive pennies on the dollar compared to what prospects who are citizens make.


Key Themes and Concepts
-Latinos tested the racial barriers in baseball by challenging what it meant to be white, as well as what it meant to be black. Black Latinos could do more than Black Americans if they would play up their “foreigness”.
-Terms of inclusion depended on racial concepts of white, black, red, yellow, and brown.
-Latinos recruited to not upset the color line and a cheap source of labor, so were light skinned and promoted as “Castillian”.
-After integration, racialization of Latinos hardened in denigration of Latino cultural practices.
-Ted Williams, whose mother was Mexican, never identified as Mexican because he did not want to be singled out for racism faced by Mexicans during his playing career.