Roberto Clemente, Minnie Minoso, Orlando Cepeda, Miguel Tejada and José Santana. These men are the immortals, the pioneers, the famous, the soon-to-be famous and the forgotten ones. They know that home is everything—home is the barrio where they improvised baseball on unpaved streets and sandlots; home is home plate where the batter stands waiting for the next pitch, where runs are scored and games are won; and home is the magical ballparks of major league baseball where they dream to play. Villegas’ wonderful full-color photographs, with Breton’s companion bilingual text, reveal the essence of the Latino ballplayers’ journey: the struggles, dis-appointments and the sometimes enormous successes. The book features the journey of Miguel Tejada, All-Star shortstop for the Oakland Athletics, from his barrio in the Dominican Republic through his 2002 breakout year. The photographs let us witness the barrios where the dreaming begins, the young dreamers who will never leave their home, the major league facilities where young players learn English and gringo baseball, the forgotten players playing semi-pro in the Bronx and keeping their dreams alive, Latinos struggling through the foreign world of the minor leagues, the major leaguers and the immortals.
Preface by Orlando "the Baby Bull" Cepeda from Ponce, Puerto Rico. Lifetime .297 batting average, 379 homeruns, MVP 1967 with the Cardinals, Hall of Fame 1999.
José Luis Villegas is a long-time sports photographer and contributor to Edward James Olmos’ photo-anthology Americanos. With Marcos Bretón, he received the Alicia Patterson Fellowship for their collaboration on Latino baseball, culminating with Away Games: The Life and Times of a Latin Ballplayer (Simon & Schuster, 1999). Bretón collaborated with Chicago Cubs star Sammy Sosa on Sosa: An Autobiography (Warner Books, 2000). Bretón also contributed to the Subway Series Reader (Simon & Schuster, 2000). Villegas and Bretón live in Sacramento where they work for the Sacramento Bee.
