In 1963, a baseball all-star game was played that few fans watched, and 59 years later, nobody remembers. The game, exclusively with Latino players from the American and National Leagues, took place at the New York Giants’ historic Polo Grounds — the last game played at Coogan’s Bluff.
The exhibition game, played before 14,235 fans, was a charity event to benefit a new Latin American Hall of Fame.
The Polo Grounds, the temporary home of the New York Mets during their first two seasons, 1962 and 1963, had showcased some of baseball’s greatest players — 373-game winning pitcher Christy Mathewson; right fielder Mel Ott, who came up as a rookie at age 17 and retired, still with the Giants, 22 years and 511 home runs later; and Willie Mays, the “Say Hey Kid.”
Baseball’s most dramatic moment, Bobby Thompson’s 1951 “Shot Heard ‘Round the World,” thrilled Polo Grounds’ bugs.
Nearly six decades ago, on that warm and sunny Oct. 13, a week after the Los Angeles Dodgers swept the New York Yankees in the World Series, the lineups were filled with Latin American and Caribbean nations’ players — Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Panama, Puerto Rico and Venezuela. Black or multiracial, they endured the same bigotry as African-Americans.
Among them were future Hall of Famers Luis Aparicio, Orlando Cepeda, Roberto Clemente, Juan Marichal, Minnie Miñoso and Tony Oliva. Others honored included Minnesota Twins MVP Zoilo Versalles and Vic Power; San Francisco Giants star outfielder and future manager Felipe Alou; and the Yankees’ Héctor López, who was coming off his fourth straight World Series appearance.
Unlike the 2022 All-Star Game at Dodger Stadium, the Latinos played their game in obscurity — no television, no media hoopla and no promotional advertisement. Three of Latin music’s biggest talents, however, performed on field before the game — bandleaders Tito Puente and Tito Rodríguez and Cuban bombshell singer La Lupe.
For the Latin stars, the game was emotionally charged.
“There was a lot of emotion among all the players, and you could tell the fans were excited about it, too,” recalled Marichal, the “Dominican Dandy.”
Manny Mota, a Dominican and Pittsburgh Pirates outfielder then in his second major league season, stressed how proud the players were to represent their countries — “prestige and pride” were his words.
For all its historical importance, the game was a snoozer with the NL, which had won the official 1963 All-Star Game in Cleveland 5-3, pulled away by the ninth inning, 5-0.
Alou, Mota, St. Louis Cardinals shortstop Julián Javier and the Pirates’ Al McBean contributed the winning RBIs. Alou’s single came off the Twin’s losing pitcher, Cuban Pedro Ramos.
Marichal, the Giants ace and a 25-game winner in 1963, hurled four innings of shutout ball, allowing just two hits, no walks and fanning six. But the win went to McBean, who followed Marichal to the mound with four shutout innings of his own.
After the game, the players lined up in the clubhouse to collect their $175 stipend, a far cry from what today’s All-Star Game participants receive. While not paid in folding money, the 2022 All-Stars get six free tickets to the game and to the Home Run Derby, free first-class airfare and hotel, the daily $117.50 Major League Baseball meal stipend, and a swag bag.
And don’t forget that the crème de la crème All-Star Game players have negotiated into their contracts bonuses for up to $500,000 just for being selected.
But at least three of the Latin players had the last laugh. Cepeda, Clemente and Power were such unfamiliar faces that after getting paid the first time, they went to the back of the line, and unrecognized, collected a second time.
“The guy never realized he paid us twice,” Cepeda said.
— Joe Guzzardi is a member of the Society for American Baseball Research and the Internet Baseball Writers Association of America who now lives in Pittsburgh. He can be reached at guzzjoe@yahoo.com, or follow him on Twitter: @joeguzzardi19. Click here to read previous columns. The opinions expressed are his own.