Tony Pérez
Today we intend to review the United States’ Baseball Hall of Fame to illustrate the presence of players from our continent in the Major League Baseball MLB. Only seven Latin American players have had the privilege to join this Hall in Cooperstown.
The Puerto Rican Roberto Clemente was the first in 1973. This outstanding player exhibits twelve Gold Gloves as a fielder and reached three thousand hits. The Dominican Juan Marichal, the best latin pitcher of all times, was allowed to enter in 1983. Marichal, the Star Game MVP, 1965 who won 243 games and lost 142. The Venezuelan, Luis Aparicio, an excellent defense player, was the Novice of the Year in the American League, 1956. He won the 1966 World Series with Orioles de Baltimore. In 1991, the Panamanian Rod Carew, enters the Hall and eight years later another son of Puerto Rico, Orlando Capeda. Cepeda enjoyed the privilege of playing seven star games, hitting hit 379 home runs with 1365 RBIs for an average of 297.
Atanasio "Tony" Perez, from Cuba, left a record of home runs in the Major Leagues, so he was included in the Cooperstown in 2000, so far, the only Cuban who has that privilege in U.S. For twenty-three seasons he made 379 home runs and 2732 runs, scoring 1272, with a 279 average. Seven times he was in the All-Star Game and was MVP in 1967.
It was not until 2011 that another Puerto Rican, Roberto Alomar, writes his name in Cooperstown. This midfielder won ten Golden Gloves, made 2724 hits with 1134 runs and a three hundred average. Four years later, on July 26th, 2015, another Dominican Pedro Martinez joins this important list of Latinos who belong to the Hall. Martinez has participated in eight All-Star games and was the most valuable in 1999. He won three Cy Young Awards and the 2004 World Series. On his brilliant career he reached 219 victories and 100 losses, with an average of 2.93. Of the seven Latinos we refered to on our tour, three belong to Puerto Rico and two are from the Dominican Republic, while Panama and Cuba host a representative on the luxurious list.
Undoubtedly, these seven Latin players deserve to be in the United States' Baseball Fame Hall. In an upcoming work we will refer to the baseball players who are part of the Baseball Fame Hall in Cuba.
