Expanding the Strike Zone by Daniel A. Gilbert

Expanding the Strike Zone by Daniel A. Gilbert

Author:Daniel A. Gilbert
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781613763193
Publisher: INscribe
Published: 2013-08-15T00:00:00+00:00


Dominican winter baseball at Estadio Trujillo (later renamed Estadio Quisqueya), December 1959. (Hank Walker/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)

After Trujillo’s assassination in May 1961, the prospects for professional baseball’s survival in the Dominican Republic became uncertain. The 1961–62 winter season was forced to end prematurely, and the following season was canceled entirely as a result of the ongoing political turmoil. Without LIDOM in operation, many Dominican athletes sought opportunities in other Caribbean winter leagues.26 In addition, a number of top players participated in local exhibition games, placing those with MLB affiliations in conflict with the commissioner’s office for violating contractual rules regarding unsanctioned, “outlaw” competition. In November 1962 the Dominican government sponsored three exhibitions, pitting a team of local players against a Cuban club. Felipe Rojas Alou, one of the Dominican stars recruited to participate, explains in his autobiography: “Because of the political unrest in my land, the government felt that it had to try something to calm down the people.” According to Alou, when MLB commissioner Ford Frick got word of the planned games, he made it known that any MLB players found participating would be fined. Dominican president Rafael Filiberto Bonnelly intervened, proclaiming to concerned players (as Alou describes it), “I am the president . . . and I say that it is all right to play.” The games went forward as planned, drawing large crowds.27

In the wake of the exhibitions, commissioner Frick followed through on his threat, issuing fines to Alou, Marichal, and other MLB-affiliated participants. A standoff ensued, with the athletes refusing on principle to accept punishment for performing in such an important national cultural event. According to Alou, who became the most outspoken player in the dispute with the commissioner, Frick “had no concept of the political consequences of the three-game series, nor did he have any idea that once the games had been set up there was no way the Dominican people would have permitted big leaguers from their country not to compete.”28 Faced with a challenge to his authority, Frick further escalated the confrontation, threatening banishment. “If Alou doesn’t care to pay the fine,” the commissioner announced, “he will not play ball in this country.”29

Members of the U.S. sporting press lined up in support of Frick’s position, with some invoking racialized stereotypes in their reporting. Dismissively characterizing the protest as a “rhumba,” Joe King of the Sporting News described Alou as having “his Latin blood fired” over the matter.30 The Sporting News also published an editorial in support of the commissioner’s actions, suggesting that the Dominican exhibitions represented a self-serving distraction from the primary obligations of a big league ballplayer:

Ford Frick’s crackdown on wildcat Latin-American exhibitions is a warning to players that major league baseball is their primary business, with a paramount interest in their services. . . . No other business anywhere would allow its employees the freedom to disperse their efforts so widely. At times there is no dignity whatever, but only a seeming cynicism, in the rat-race by some big leaguers for an extra buck.



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