This summer, the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., is marking its 70th anniversary with, among other highlights, "Viva Baseball," its first permanent exhibit on Latin American baseball. At the exhibit's opening, former first baseman Orlando Cepeda spoke for the nine Latinos already inducted into the Hall. "To be here today," he said, "we went through some obstacles."
Cepeda was referring to the racial prejudice and cultural incomprehension that Latinos have encountered since 1871, when Cuban third-baseman Estaban Bellan of the Troy Haymakers became the first Latino major leaguer. For more than seven decades after that, only "white" Latinos were allowed in the majors (and even they often felt uncomfortable) -- until Jackie Robinson integrated the game in 1947. Many took Anglo names or otherwise downplayed their roots. Even Ted Williams, one of the best-known players in baseball history, got through his entire career without publicly mentioning the fact that his mother was a Mexican American.
After integration, dark-skinned Latino stars began playing in the U.S. The first Latino elected to the Hall of Fame, Roberto Clemente, was called "Bob" on his early baseball cards. He bitterly resented the way Anglo sportswriters quoted him in pidgin English and portrayed him as a "typically" temperamental Puerto Rican.
These days, writers no longer make fun of the accents and temperament of Latino players (at least not in print), but there are other, newer stereotypes to contend with. The most damaging is the notion that Latinos are responsible for introducing banned steroids into the pristine sanctuary of major league clubhouses.
This image owes a good deal to the fact that the widespread use of performance-enhancing drugs in baseball was revealed to the public by the self-proclaimed "Godfather of Steroids," slugger Jose Canseco. It is also true that a disproportionate share of Latino players have been caught juicing. In 2005, according to Newsweek, almost two-thirds of the players who tested positive (and half the minor leaguers) were from Latin America.
"The data raise a troubling possibility that few in baseball would like to address head on," Newsweek concluded. "Are players from Latin America simply too driven to succeed?"
