The plight of African-American ballplayers in the Negro Leagues has drawn much more attention over the last decade than before, at least partially because of Major League Baseball’s recognition of Jackie Robinson’s contributions. Why do you think Latin ballplayers have not drawn as much note for what they have given the game?

Latino contributions to the game have often been overlooked for a couple of reasons. Many who have studied baseball history have failed to place it in an international context, not understanding the impact of the spread of the game into Latin America and the flow of Latino talent into the Negro Leagues and organized baseball that dates back to the 1900s. Just as significant, the narrow approach fails to appreciate how the action that took place in Latin American leagues and the choices of individual black players (U.S. and foreign-born) extended the battle against Jim Crow segregation beyond U.S. territorial borders.

Another reason is that many historians and journalists who chronicled the game’s history lacked the language skills to speak to the Latino players or consult Spanish-language sources to produce a full accounting that includes Latino voices. And this story extends beyond the playing field; this is best seen in the story of Alex Pompez. A U.S.-born Latino, bilingual-speaker, Pompez was a Negro League owner and, after integration, the director of international scouting for the New York/San Francisco Giants. Pompez was a central figure in the internationalization of Black baseball who later opened the Dominican talent pipeline to the majors leagues. His contribution comes most sharply into focus when we examine baseball in the Americas as a transnational circuit in much the same way that Pompez and other Latinos and Negro Leaguers approached professional baseball in that era.

Through the early years of MLB, a number of different races participated as players, including Native Americans like Charles “Chief” Bender and Zack Wheat, Italian-Americans like the DiMaggios, and light-skinned Latinos like Dolf Luque. It would therefore seem like a pretty small jump to allow dark-skinned Latinos and African-Americans to play. Why did it take until 1947 for everyone to be allowed a chance in the Major leagues? Who are some of the best Latin players who never received a chance?

The story of the incorporation of players from the Spanish-speaking Americas into U.S. professional baseball challenges the overly simplistic treatment of the color line that has permeated much of baseball history. Most chroniclers contend that all who were allowed into the Majors were simply “white”. Close examination of the treatment of the Latino players allowed to perform in the Majors prior to the dismantling of baseball’s racial barrier reveals that they were not necessarily received as fellow whites but as not black. This is what John T. “Chief” Meyers, Louis Sockalexis, and Bender, among other American Indian players knew all too well; these players were received as men who occupied the “red” locations along baseball’s color line, not black but not white either. Indeed, the central purpose of the color line was the exclusion of blacks and not all players of color. The inclusion of darker-skinned Latinos or African-Americans involved the dismantling of the color line and therefore a significant policy shift. There was an economic angle and benefit to maintaining the color line for the Major Leagues. Cubans, Mexicans, and other foreign-born Latinos were acquired by the Washington Senators, Boston Braves, and Cincinnati Reds and other Major League teams as a cheap alternative to U.S.-born talent. And the Latinos allowed to perform in the Majors were constantly reminded of this difference.

The color line system the Major Leagues had in place ensured that the majority of Latino talent that came north performed in the Negro Leagues. The elite of this group that never received a chance to perform in the Majors include the amazingly versatile Martin Dihigo (inducted into the Hall of Fame in the United States, Cuba, Venezuela, and Mexico), pitcher José Méndez, who once strung together a scoreless streak of 25 innings against barnstorming Major Leaguers in Cuba, and the powerful hitter Cristobal Torriente, one of the Negro Leagues’ most feared batters. There were dozens of other Latinos who were big league caliber that performed in the Negro Leagues; evidence can be drawn from the number of elite Latino players such as Minnie Minoso, Orlando Cepeda, and Juan Marichal, who performed as part of the generation of integration pioneers in the 1950s. These men did not develop out of the ether; they were the product of ball-playing cultures in the Caribbean and of professional teams that began touring the United States in the 1900s.

David Price, the number one selection in MLB’s 2007 amateur draft, signed a contract for a reported $8.5 million. A 16-year-old Venezuelan pitcher, however, may sign a free agent contract with a team for a small fraction of that. Do you think players from foreign countries should be included in the draft, and thus subject to the draft rules? Or is the free agent path the most fair for these players, who come largely from Latin America?

The two-track system for incorporating foreign-born Latinos is part of the legacy of organized baseball’s approach to Latin America as an unfettered market. This created both opportunity and, at times, chaos as organizations signed players on the cheap and made little effort to manage diversity. Joe Cambria and the Washington Senators exploited this system the most prior to baseball integration. Starting in the mid-1930s, Cambria signed Cuban players by the dozens with little more than a promise of a try-out and a one-way ticket to the States. When other organizations began to compete for Cuban prospects by offering higher signing bonuses, Cambria complained that these offers (substantially less than what U.S.-born players were receiving) were spoiling the Cubans. The Senators organization did little to prepare Latino players for what they would encounter in terms of the different cultural or racial practices in the States. The organization also lacked an institutional approach to managing diversity, lacking a single person on its managerial staff that spoke Spanish (including Cambria) and also failing to move any of its farm teams out of the segregated south to ease the transition. It would not be until the New York Giants named Alex Pompez as its international scouting director in the late 1950s that a Major League organization had in place a bilingual representative capable of managing the unique challenges involved in incorporating foreign-born Latinos.

The precedent established by the Senators’ approach illustrates that fairness did not drive organized baseball’s Latin American policy of signing Cuban and other Latino players. Dick Balderson, formerly a front office official for the Colorado Rockies, aptly called the approach long embraced by many Major League organizations as a “boatload mentality.” Teams offered signing bonuses that enabled them to sign Dominican and/or Venezuelan prospects by the “boatload” in the hope that one becomes the next Sammy Sosa, Pedro Martinez, or Omar Vizquel. In so doing, organizations can come out well ahead in the financial ledger compared with what signing bonuses they pay to first-round draft picks. Moreover, the lack of regulation in this open market resulted in those who needed the most protection of Major League Rules for contracts and signings to become the most susceptible, teenaged Dominican and Venezuelan prospects. Many viewed violations of Major League rules by unscrupulous talent developers, scouts, agents, or team officials as normal business practice in Latin America. Practices such as team scouts tampering with signed contracts or keeping significant portions of a prospect’s signing bonus for themselves came under increasing scrutiny in the early 2000s. The opening of an office of the Major League Commissioner in the Dominican Republic has resulted in closer supervision of scouting and signing practices and thereby introduced a level of fairness previously unforeseen. As a result, competition in conjunction with regulation has increased the signing bonuses enjoyed by these prospects, although they still pale in comparison with what U.S.-born prospects receive as selections in the amateur draft.

Detroit Tigers’ outfielder Gary Sheffield made comments recently about why the number of African-American players has declined while the number of Latin players has ballooned, saying that Latin players are “easier to control” than African-Americans. What is your take on his comments?

Sheffield is partly right, but his reasoning is flawed. Major League organizations do prefer to sign foreign-born Latinos over African Americans. But this has much more to do with U.S. citizenship (and lack thereof among Dominican and Venezuelan nationals) along with economics than it does with a masculine culture about respect among African American players where they refuse to be “controlled” or a submissive culture among Latinos wherein they are easier to control. African American players are able to assert their rights as U.S. citizens not to be exploited as laborers whereas foreign-born nationals have to go through the immigration visa application process and are subject to different pressures.

What is also lost in the controversy over Sheffield’s comments is the long history of this preference of Latino players over African Americans in the Major Leagues. This preference was part of what made the color line work for Major League officials until 1947: Major League teams dipped into the Latin American talent pool rather than signing talented African Americans and thus acquired cheap labor while maintaining a segregated system. In so doing they established the practice of procuring Latino talent as an alternative labor source to U.S. talent.

Economics remains a significant factor today in the preference for Latino labor at professional baseball’s entry level. This preference operates at the levels of player procurement and development, for once a player makes it to the Majors he will be properly compensated for his ability and performance. The different entry points for Latinos and the U.S.-born into baseball’s development system is established through the rules that Major League Baseball sets for itself. These rules define a 16-year old born in Latin America (with the exception of Puerto Ricans, who are U.S. citizens) as eligible to be signed as an amateur free agent while U.S.-born individuals and Canadians are eligible to be selected in the amateur draft once they are age 18 or their high school class has graduated. As individuals eligible for the draft, they are better positioned to have their rights protected along with receiving higher signing bonuses. This two-track system of talent procurement ensures that Dominicans, Venezuelans, and most other foreign-born Latinos are signed at a much younger age and for far less money than North Americans.