Viva Baseball!: Latin Major Leaguers and Their Special Hunger (Sport and Society) [Paperback]

Samuel O. Regalado (Author)

Book Description

Series: Sport and Society | Publication Date: February 1, 1998

Lively and anecdotal, Viva Baseball! chronicles the struggles of Latin American professional baseball players in the United States from the late 1800s to the present. Even as "Fernandomania" raged in 1981, most Latin players felt lonely, shunned, and forgotten. Samuel Regalado reveals the shocking racism faced by these immigrant athletes in a white culture. Only a burning desire to succeed and a grim determination to leave behind the grinding poverty of their homelands could have driven these men to continue in the face of overwhelming hostility. In addition to mining the National Baseball Hall of Fame Library in Cooperstown, New York, and the Sporting News archives, Regalado conducted interviews with some twenty-five Latin baseball stars, among them Felipe Alou, Orlando Cepeda, and Tony Oliva.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

This history of Latinos in Major League Baseball from the 1800s to the early 1990s is extensively researched and authoritatively written. The author's interviews with such primary figures as Felipe Alou, Tony Oliva, and Tony Perez add depth and personality to the study. The progress recorded here is portrayed against a background of the players' struggles with strange foods, unfamiliar customs, a foreign culture, the language barrier, and the ever-present race issue in the United States. The author (history, California State Univ., Stanislaus) provides a political framework to the narrative?at times too much of one by typical baseball history standards. But, all in all, this is a good purchase for academic and large public libraries.?John M. Maxymuk, Rutgers Univ. Lib., Camden, NJ
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Book Description

Lively and anecdotal, Viva Baseball! chronicles the struggles of Latin American professional baseball players in the United States from the late 1800s to the present. Even as "Fernandomania" raged in 1981, most Latin players felt lonely, shunned, and forgotten. Samuel O. Regalado reveals the shocking racism faced by these immigrant athletes in a white culture. In addition to mining the National Baseball Library in Cooperstown, New York, and the Sporting News archives, Regalado conducted interviews with some twenty-five Latin baseball stars, including Felipe Alou, Orlando Cepeda, and Tony Oliva.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 264 pages
• Publisher: University of Illinois Press; 2nd edition (February 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0252067126
• ISBN-13: 978-0252067129
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,718,581 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining Superficial Romp, December 20, 1999

By 

Peter C. Bjarkman, Mark Rucker and Todd Radom (Lafayette, In and Boulder, CO) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Viva Baseball!: Latin Major Leaguers and Their Special Hunger (Sport and Society) (Paperback)

Regalado provides a readable survey of the subject but his book is marred by failure to update his much-earlier academic dissertation on the topic, as well has his tendency at times to play rather loosely with the historical facts. It was Juan and not Luis Gonzalez who won a home run title, US sailors did not introduced baseball to Cuba on the Palmar de Junco field (see Roberto Gonzalez for the facts), pro baseball started in Cuba in 1878 and not 1868, Bobby Avila played for Almendares in the Cuban (not Mexican) league, Alejandro Oms did not play in the majors and Fidel Castro did not pitch for the University of Havana, Calvin Griffith was not Clark Griffith's son, Camilo Pascual and Pedro Ramos did not play for the Havana Sugar Kings in the AAA International League, Jose Santiago was Puerto Rico and not Cuban, and the 1891 Pittsburgh Pirates did not feature Ralph Kiner. This is a small sample of the bobbles which often marr an otherwise valuable casual fan's survey of Latino baseball.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Could Have Been Better, December 15, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Viva Baseball!: Latin Major Leaguers and Their Special Hunger (Sport and Society) (Paperback)

This is a passable overview of Latin baseball history but one also filled with numerous smaller and larger errors (San Pedro de Macoris is not by any measure "a small Dominican town" and US sailors did not introduce baseball in Cuba at the Palmar de Junco field in 1866) plus careless treatment of ballplayers names (Luis Gonzalez for Juan Gonzalez, Pinella for Piniella, Roman Mejis for Mejias, etc. etc.). Also the author made little effort to update his work from its earlier incarnation as a doctoral disseration several years earlier. The effort could have been better.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Viva Baseball" works on a multitude of levels., March 19, 1999

By 

Steve Pierce ([e-mail] (Modesto, California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Viva Baseball!: Latin Major Leaguers and Their Special Hunger (Sport and Society) (Paperback)

"Viva Baseball! Latin Major Leaguers and Their Special Hunger" is a nearly effortless and highly entertaining read. Sam Regalado has managed to accomplished something very special: He has written a book for just about the full spectrum of the sports minded. Even if you're tangentially interested in baseball, you are likely to be griped by this heart warming story, which encompasses the hardships faced by Latin American baseball players, along with their "special hunger" to succeed, and finally their eventual triumph that gained them acceptance into North American professional baseball. For those students of history, Dr. Regalado, who teaches history at California State University,Stanislaus, manages to deftly weave in the important social /political and international events that shaped both the United States and the entire Western Hemisphere in the twentieth century. His treatment of the Cuban Missile Crisis, immigration trends and policies in the United States, and the tumult of Latin American politics, not to mention the farm workers movement led by Cesar Chavez and the racial politics of the 1960's in America, is clear, concise, and provides the reader with yet another lens from which to view these seminal events. Lest we forget this is a serious scholarly work, yet one that even neophyte students of history will find friendly.

"Viva Baseball" brings a big smile to the faces of baseball fans as well, especially those who either lived the glory years of the 60's or have since become aficionados. He paints the legends of the San Francisco Giants, such as Juan Marichal (Dominican Republic), Orlando Cepeda (Puerto Rico) and Jose Pagan (Cuba) with such realism by relating fascinating anecdotes that reveal their struggles as dark skin immigrants to a largely hostile racial and nativistic society, and their amazing accomplishments both on and off the field. We witness a side of the great Robert Clemente hitherto hardly offered for popular consumption. He was portrayed by the press in Pittsburgh as aloof, temperamental and even hypochondriac. Clemente's sullenness was in reality a normal reaction to the racism he and other players faced and the unwarranted jabs thrown at him by sports writers. The true measure of the man was both in his classy prowess on the field and in his efforts to help those less fortunate, such as the event that claimed his life in 1973. The plane crash and sorrowful aftermath of Robert Clemente's death are portrayed with great emotion.

My favorite story is of Luis Tiant Jr. Cold War politics isolated the Cuban member of the Boston Red Sox from his parents for fifteen years, until 1975 when Senator George McGovern apparently convinced Fidel Castro to allow Tiants to visit their son in Boston. The city of Boston, not known for its racial tolerance, rolled out the red carpet. Luis senior, who once objected to his son playing baseball in the U.S. because of prejudice, and Mrs. Tiant, watched their son win two games in the 1975 World Series. They both died the following year.

"Viva Baseball!Latin Major Leaguers and Their Spceial Hunger" satiates a wide spectrum of readers,with many different appetites. With perhaps minimal intellectual engagement and reflection by the reader, Dr. Regalado demonstrates how sport has the capacity, not only to reflect important societal trends and events, but also to qualitatively transform society into a more just and tolerant order.