The new face of baseball

Latino Leaders: The National Magazine of the Successful American Latino, August-Sept, 2003

By Tim Wendel

Publication date: June 3, 2003

Published by Rayo, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers $24.95

ISBN: 0-06-053631-4

The Latino boom in professional American baseball is evident any time one watches a game. But no one has ever addressed the circumstances leading up to this seismic shift in the cultural makeup of the sport until now. In The New Face of Baseball: The One Hundred-year Rise & Triumph of Latinos in America's Favorite Sport, award-winning journalist Tim Wendel tells the incredible history of the Latino rise to domination in major league baseball and how today's superstars are transforming America's national pastime.

With an introduction by Bob Costas and a 16-page, four-color insert, which includes more than 30 photos from veteran sports photographer, Victor Baldizon, this book is sure to be a hit with all fans of baseball.

From the Pirates' Roberto Clemente, the Dodger's Fernando Valenzuela, and the White Sox's Sammy Sosa, to the million-dollar megastars that we know today, the book showcases the monumental figures who have left a lasting impact on the sport. With the number of Latinos in the United States growing and the Hispanic Heritage Baseball Museum about to open soon in San Francisco, there has never been a more perfect time to explore the Latino contribution to baseball.

Wendel also takes care to highlight lesser-known historical stand-outs such as Adolfo Luque, the first Latino to play in the World Series in 1923, and Martin Dihigo, a black Cuban many insiders consider to be the greatest ballplayer of all time and who has been inducted into the baseball halls of fame in tour countries.

Tracing the spread of baseball fever from the early days of Cuban baseball in the mid-19th-Century to its rising popularity in the Caribbean and Mexico in the early 20th-Century, The New Face of Baseball addresses the discrimination Latinos have faced while playing the sport, from the days when only light-skinned Latinos were allowed to participate hi major league competition, to the linguistic barriers Latinos confronted when playing on teams with "English-only" dug-out rules.