He is a powerful voice. He reminds us what is at stake. We know we have to be sober-minded in our deliberation. |
He successfully transitioned from the segregated era into the integrated era. |
I think in a certain sense, we lost through history what it meant for a black Latino to break into the game. And that's partly because folks kind of looked at the story of baseball as two distinct eras, of segregated and integrated and forget about the folks who made the transition. |
That is less than half a percent of (the players). Even if the committee elects another 12 or 15, that would be only about 1.2 percent. |
The story of Latinos in baseball, to a large degree was started in Tampa. There was some in Key West, but it really began to flourish in Tampa. |