A baseball player with a famous moment (and grief from Fidel Castro) after-the-jump ...
But first: Top Comments appears nightly, as a round-up of the best comments on Daily Kos. Surely ... you come across comments daily that are perceptive, apropos and .. well, perhaps even humorous. But they are more meaningful if they're well-known ... which is where you come in (especially in diaries/stories receiving little attention).------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Send your nominations to TopComments at gmail dot com by 9:30 PM Eastern Time nightly, or by our KosMail message board. Please indicate (a) why you liked the comment, and (b) your Dkos user name (to properly credit you) as well as a link to the comment itself.
Regular readers of mine know that when I feature a sports figure … it needs to have more than just x’s and o’s.
Like many, I only knew of Sandy Amorós for his most memorable day … but to just recently learn of his having played in the later stages of the Negro Leagues, being one of the first Latino players in the Major Leagues, being affected by the horrendous McCarran Act of immigration, running afoul of Fidel Castro and learning of efforts by both former teammate Ralph Branca and NY mayor John Lindsay to assist him in his later struggles …. his story seems more significant.
Born Edmundo Amorós near Havana, Cuba in 1930, he saw Jackie Robinson play when the Brooklyn Dodgers held 1947 spring training games in Havana and wanted to follow in his footsteps. He played the 1950 season for the New York Cubans, as the Negro Leagues (after integration) began to wind down. Brooklyn Dodger scout Al Campanis saw him back in Cuba the next year and watched him nearly beat-out a routine ground ball to second. Signed to a minor league contract, he acquired two nicknames: Sandy (after his resemblance to a boxer) and sometimes the “Cuban Comet” (more often the nickname of Minnie Minoso).
He had an up-and-down career, shuttling back-and-forth between Brooklyn and the minor leagues from 1952-1957. Some of this was his inconsistency: having trouble hitting curve balls and (as a left-handed batter) having great difficulty against left-handed pitching. Some was his inability to learn English (without teammates who spoke fluent Spanish), as author Peter Golenbock felt managers were wary of someone they weren’t sure understood them. And some was due to race: the McCarran Act of 1950 (inspired by Joe McCarthy) — passing over Harry Truman’s veto— restricted immigration in 1952 at its height. Plus, the Dodgers had starting lineups that were nearly ½ Black, which Dodger management (which had, after all, integrated baseball) were wary of. In time, Amorós managed to be at least a part-time player from 1954-57 (the last years of Brooklyn).
Going into the 1955 season, the Dodgers were one of only three of the sixteen franchises (since 1901) never to have won the World Series (the others were the St. Louis Browns — who became the Baltimore Orioles — and the Philadelphia Phillies). The Dodgers lost in 1916 (to the Boston Red Sox), in 1920 (to Cleveland) and five times (in the 40’s and 50’s) to their cross-town rivals N.Y. Yankees. “Wait ‘till Next Year” was the perennial cry— which was the title of the childhood memoirs of the eminent historian Doris Kearns Goodwin (a terrific read about growing up in the 1950’s).
The 1955 World Series went to a seventh game at Yankee Stadium, when the Dodgers opened up a 2-0 lead on two runs batted in by Gil Hodges (who, fourteen years later, managed the 1969 Miracle Mets to the World Series title) going into the bottom of the sixth inning …….. when fate intervened.
Actually, it began in the top of the inning: when second-year manager Walter Alston pinch-hit for second baseman Don Zimmer. Pinch-hitting for him was someone I noted in a previous T/C diary as a teammate of Jackie Robinson’s in his minor league season in Montreal, George Shuba (the subject of a famous handshake in a game in New Jersey). Alston had left fielder Jim Gilliam move to second (for the bottom of the inning) and substituted Sandy Amorós in left field.
The Yankees had runners on first and second with no one out and Yogi Berra (a left-handed pull hitter to right field) up. The Dodgers had Sandy positioned close to center field, sixty yards away from the left-field foul line … when Berra sliced a line drive down the left-field line. If it dropped, it would be a tie score with no one out and a runner on second …. and many Brooklynites thought, “Oh no, here-we-go-again!!!” … except that ….
… the fleet Sandy Amorós out-ran the ball and — critically — being a left-hander with his glove on his right hand — made the catch. What’s more: he turned to throw to shortstop Pee Wee Reese, who doubled-off the runner at first (who was certain the ball would drop). The lead was still 2-0, now with two out.
The Dodgers held on to win their first championship … with this headline:
There may have been greater catches, but not decisive in winning a championship (i.e., Willie Mays’ 1954 over-the-shoulder catch was part of a four-game sweep).
Sandy returned home to Cuba …. a national hero, with a ranch and fame. His next few years in Brooklyn were up-and-down, traded to Detroit in 1960 and his major league career ended there. His career average was .255 with 43 home runs… yet fell one week short in tenure for qualifying for a pension.
He played ball in Mexico afterwards and in 1962 was “requested” by Fidel Castro to manage a Cuban team in a league Castro was organizing. He turned-him-down, because (1) at age 32, he he still wanted to be playing, (2) wasn’t sure he could manage and (3) was uneasy about working for the regime. Furious, Castro stripped him of his ranch, car and all assets .. and would not let him leave Cuba.
Depressed, he lapsed into alcoholism and developed diabetes (twelve years later having a leg partly amputated). Allowed to emigrate in 1967, he was hired by the Dodgers (now in Los Angeles) for enough time to qualify for his pension. Later, a friend prevailed upon NYC mayor John Lindsay to get Sandy a job in the Parks Department during his term.
His baseball pension was augmented by a separate pension he received from an organization devoted to assisting retired ballplayers down on their luck. Baseball Assistance Team (BAT) was founded by the broadcaster Joe Garagiola and from someone I profiled a few years back, Ralph Branca (briefly a teammate of Sandy) who found this organization to be his own salvation from hard times.
June 20, 1992 was to be Sandy Amorós Day in Brooklyn …. alas, he contracted pneumonia in Florida on June 16th and died June 27th … thirty-one years ago this week. His attorney Rafael Sánchez spoke of the one constant in his life:
“From the days when he played until now, he’s always had that wonderful smile. You’ll look at him and just marvel at that smile.”
Let’s close with the longtime Nancy Sinatra collaborator Lee Hazlewood (1929-2007).
Now, on to Top Comments: ….. nothing came-in from the field tonight
And from Ed Tracey, your faithful correspondent this evening ........
In the front-page story about Chris Christie going after Ron DeSantis as well as the Trumpster— the fact that a kid asked DeSantis a question he should have been prepared for (but seemingly wasn’t) was duly noted by TJonBen.
Next - enjoy jotter's wonderful (and now eternal) *PictureQuilt™* below. Just click on the picture and it will magically take you to the comment featuring that photo.
TOP PHOTOSJune 28th, 2023
|
Alas, yesterday's Top Mojo is not operational today …. hoping it will be tomorrow.