Beyond Baseball's Color Barrier by Rocco Constantino

Author:Rocco Constantino
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: undefined
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Published: 2012-04-15T00:00:00+00:00

Gibson wasn’t the only star African American pitcher of the decade. Just as he was reaching his peak in the late 1960s, Ferguson Jenkins emerged as a star when the Cubs moved the tall righty into the starting rotation. Considered the best major-league pitcher to come out of Canada, Jenkins won 20 games in his first season in the Cubs rotation. It would be the first of six straight 20-win seasons for the Cubs. He won the 1971 Cy Young Award and finished in the top three in the voting four other times. By the time he retired, Jenkins had won 284 games and was sixth all-time in strikeouts, with 3,192. Often overshadowed by contemporaries like Gibson, Tom Seaver, Nolan Ryan, and Steve Carlton, Jenkins was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame on his third try in 1991. He remains the leader among African American pitchers in wins and strikeouts.

While all this was happening, the son of a legendary pitcher from the Cuban Leagues and Negro National League was introducing himself to the majors in a big way. On July 19, 1964, a 23-year-old right-hander made his debut on the mound at Yankee Stadium opposite an aging but still-dominant Whitey Ford. After going 15–1 in 17 minor-league games that season, the Cleveland Indians practically had no choice but to call up Luis Tiant. Tiant shut down the Yankees, striking out 11 in a four-hit shutout that served as a warning for what was to come for the American League for the next decade and a half.

Tiant’s debut came just two days after the White Sox released Minnie Minoso, ending the career of the Cuban legend aside from two publicity-stunt appearances in his 50s. Minoso’s career is a link between two generations of Tiants, and all three Cubans experienced different levels of acceptance of Cuban-born players. Luis Tiant Sr. used a legendary screwball as a star lefty for the New York Cubans in the Negro National League during the segregated era of Major League Baseball. As Jackie Robinson was breaking the color barrier in 1947, Tiant Sr. authored a 10–0 record as a 40-year-old in his final Negro League season. Minoso debuted two years later as just the eighth African American ballplayer in major-league history. The man who came to be known as El Tiante, Luis Jr. pitched 19 seasons in the majors and remains perhaps the best Cuban ballplayer to have graced the majors, regardless of position.

While Gibson, Tiant, and Jenkins were in the early throes of careers that would land them in Cooperstown, another African American pitcher was trying to realize his limitless potential in Cleveland. Jim “Mudcat” Grant debuted for the Indians a year before Gibson broke in with the Cardinals, and it seemed that Grant would be the heir apparent to Don Newcombe as the game’s top African American pitcher. Grant was discovered by Indians scout Fred Merkle as a 17-year-old while he was scouting the State Negro Baseball Tournament in Florida in 1952. Merkle,

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