The New Face of Baseball: The One-Hundred-Year Rise and Triumph of Latinos in America's Favorite Sport - Hardcover

Wendel, Tim

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060536314 ISBN 13: 9780060536312

Publisher: Rayo, 2003

Synopsis

For decades, Americans have been fascinated by the complexity and rich history of baseball. No other sport has captivated so many fans. The New Face of Baseball explores a different chapter in baseball's chronicles, one often ignored but remarkably influential. Into the tapestry of baseball history, Tim Wendel weaves the stories of its Latino athletes -- who they are and how they helped transform the sport into what it is today.

Going as far back as the mid-nineteenth century, to the early days of Cuban baseball, Wendel traces the spread of American baseball fever in the Caribbean and Mexico, and discusses lesser-known historical standouts, including Adolfo Luque, the first Hispanic to play in the World Series (in 1923), and Martin Dihigo, a black Cuban whom many baseball insiders consider the greatest ballplayer of all time.

Wendel masterfully describes the days when only light-skinned Latinos were allowed to participate in Major League competition, much like their inspirational African American counterparts, and the linguistic barrier Latinos were confronted with when playing on teams with "English-only" rules inside their dugouts.

Featuring material on Roberto Clemente, Fernando Valenzuela, and Sammy Sosa, as well as interviews with Latino superstars past and present -- such as Alex Rodriguez, Ivan Rodriguez, Mariano Rivera, Alfonso Soriano, and the Hernandez brothers -- The New Face of Baseball helps fans of America's favorite pastime to understand the history of those who bring hope and honor every season to the teams they have given their lives to, and the Hispanic culture that, if allowed, can lie hidden and unnoticed under a team jersey.

With a foreword by Bob Costas, the first-ever-published Latino All-Century Team featuring players selected by Omar Minaya, and photos taken by award-winning Sports Illustrated photographer Victor Baldizon, this important book is sure to make as much of a splash a the Latino players themselves -- the new faces of baseball.

About this title

About the Author:

Tim Wendel is an award-winning journalist and the author of Castro's Curveball, a novel about baseball in Cuba. Wendel is one of the founders of USA Today Baseball Weekly, where he served as an editor and writer. He teaches at Johns Hopkins University and lives, in Vienna, Virginia.

From Publishers Weekly:

Wendel's story of the Latino experience in baseball is a faithful and functional roundup of player mini-bios and factoids. With a foreword by Costas, the book's got the black-and-white down, but one wishes for more color: Wendel, a founder of USA Today Baseball Weekly, gets his subjects' on-field accomplishments, but could have dug deeper to explore their experiences as people, not mere athletes. Such episodes as Pirate Roberto Clemente's insistence that people call him by his given name and not "Bob," as on his baseball card, and his speaking Spanish during a national television interview following the Pirates' World Series win in 1971 are inspired glimpses into the player's psyche and excellent examples of the strides Latinos have made in the game over the last century. However, while the 1998 home-run duel between Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire is an intriguing swatch of baseball lore, the reader only partially gets a sense of where the Dominican-reared Sosa's unique enthusiasm for the game comes from. Similarly, an excerpt about miscreant slugger Jose Canseco reveals little more than even a casual baseball fan would have read in the tabloids. At times, Wendel is guilty of suspending objectivity in praising his subjects: in detailing the infamous incident of superstar second baseman Roberto Alomar spitting in an umpire's face, the ballplayer becomes the victim, and fans who still remember "the unfortunate situation" are seen as the transgressors.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Rayo
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0060536314
• ISBN 13: 9780060536312
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 288