Inescapable

I'm watching Viva Baseball on Spike TV, a documentary about the Latin-American influence in baseball. One theme that keeps recurring is not nationality or language but race. A few notable anecdotes:

A Cuban pitcher held the Cincinnati Reds scoreless for 25 innings in 1908 in exhibition play. This led American teams to consider bringing Cuban players into the major leagues. They didn't tap that pitcher, however, because he was black.

Vic Power (born Victor Pellot, but his name was changed when he came to the U.S.--much as Roberto Clemente was often referred to as "Bob" and Orestes Minoso found himself being called "Minnie") was the best player in the Yankees' minor league system, batting in the mid-.300s and gaining a reputation as one of the best-fielding first basemen in the game; but he wasn't brought up. He spent 7 years in the minors before being traded and brought up by Cleveland. One time, when travelling with the team, he was told in a restaurant that they didn't serve Negroes. "That's okay, I don't eat Negroes," Power replied.

Felipe Alou had only seen or heard of white Americans; when he came to the U.S. and saw black people speaking English, he was stunned.

The black Hispanic players were delighted when Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier. And in fact Branch Rickey did begin conversations with a Cuban black player. (Sorry, I don't know what his name was.) As with Robinson, Rickey was as concerned with the player having the personality to withstand the pressure as with his on-field prowess. He asked the potential call-up how he would react if a player came in spikes up intending to hurt him. The player calmly replied, "I would have to kill him." Needless to say, Rickey crossed him off the list.

Once players of color became commonplace in the game (and the overall race situation in the U.S. changed for the better), the issue of language and nationality finally became separate from the issue of skin color.