Houston – The new champions of America’s national pastime are Las Medias Blancas. They wear White Sox, but speak the new language of baseball.
With a 1-0 victory Wednesday night, Chicago broomed the Houston Astros from the World Series in a game where anybody with ears can hear the sweeping cultural changes.
Venezuelan Ozzie Guillen made history, becoming the first Latino manager to win it all.
Chicago pitcher Jose Contreras, the leading man of this October, lit up a Cuban cigar.
Nowhere is the steady rise of Latino influence in U.S. society so apparent as at our ballparks, where 25 percent of the athletes speak a language as robust as cafe con leche.
Rewind this American success story a generation, and there would be no way to forecast the happy ending.
In the same city where the Sox ended an 88-year championship drought, pitching legend Juan Marichal can still recall the pain of a generation ago, as he watched a young Orlando Cepeda cry, stung by prejudice.
“He wanted to go see ‘Cleopatra,’ the movie with Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. I reminded him we were in Texas,” said Marichal, a native of the Dominican Republic and a San Francisco teammate of Cepeda’s in the 1960s, when Spanish was a language very foreign to American baseball. “About 35 minutes after (Cepeda) left, there was a knock on the door to my room. I thought it was the cleaning lady. It was Orlando. I was laughing. He had big tears in his eyes. They would not let him in the movie theater.”
It took 40 years. But, between the white lines of baseball, a man of color is finally the No. 1 manager in two languages.
“This trophy is going to Venezuela,” vowed Guillen, so proud of Latino baseball history he built a shrine in his house to the late Roberto Clemente.
Around the batting cage at the World Series, jokes often are shared in Spanish, as when Guillen grabbed the elbow of visiting superstar Ivan Rodriguez. The boys of summer increasingly move to a salsa beat.
“When you see a Latino playing in the World Series, it inspires you as a kid,” said Damaso Marte, winning pitcher for Chicago in the 14-inning marathon that was Game 3. “Coming to America and hearing everybody cheer for you is the dream come true.”
Now, it seems almost unfathomable that 40 years ago, a major-league team could – and did – ban Spanish in the dugout. But, once upon a time, the game refused to be bilingual. With a wink, Marichal revealed the reason. A paranoid manager feared Latino players might tell secrets behind his back.
Back when John Kennedy sat in the White House, the Giants took a road trip to Houston and played the expansion Colt .45s. The visitors, with the names of Cepeda and Alou on the lineup card, were heckled as they walked to home plate.
“A group of people drinking beer behind the dugout kept yelling at us,” Marichal recalled. “They called us Kennedy’s boys.”
In 1962, the Bay of Pigs was fresh fodder for racist humor.
A generation can make a world of difference.
On the final night of the 2005 season, baseball acknowledged its Hispanic heritage on the game’s biggest stage, honoring Rod Carew, Fernando Valenzuela and the all-time heroes who gave the majors the rich flavors of Mexico, the Caribbean and South America.
The Latino legends team introduced at Minute Maid Park included Alex Rodriguez, baseball’s wealthiest man, a hitter with roots in the Dominican who grew up to be a Yankee.
“I received so many hugs from players in thanks for what I did, allowing them to be the superstars of today,” Carew said.
It’s so hip to be Hispanic that the game sometimes loses its head, as some historians now claim the Splendid Splinter was a chip off a Mexican block, because the maternal grandparents of Ted Williams had ties to South of the border.
“That’s crazy. Ted Williams is not Latino. He never said ‘Hola’ once in his life,” said Guillen, who laughed all the way to the championship.
Fire up a Cuban cigar.
Say hello to baseball’s brave new world.
Staff writer Mark Kiszla can be reached at 303-820-5438 or mkiszla@denverpost.com.
