I happened to come across an item on Al Gore's Amazing Internet recently that celebrated the greatest Latino ballplayers in history. I've no issue with the inclusion of those who were honored -- Roberto Clemente, Orlando Cepeda, Albert Pujols, Omar Vizquel, Tony Perez ... the names ring true as great ballplayers in pantheon of the major leagues.
Conspicuous in his absence, however, was a Latino outfielder who played in the majors in four decades, and whose entire career was spent with a single team, at least when he wasn't off fighting in two wars (or one war and a police action, depending on whom you ask). His greatness as a player is unquestioned. In fact, in the history of the majors, this amigo ranks second among all players in history in OPS at 1.115, behind Babe Ruth. To give you an idea of what 1.115 means, the leader in the majors this year was the Tigers' Victor Martinez at 0.974. In other words, taking the two offensive figures most closely tied to run production and combining them, our Latino was some 15% more productive for his career than the best hitter in 2014 was for a single season.
No doubt you have discerned that our amigo is none other than the Splendid Splinter, old Teddy Ballgame himself, the immortal Ted Williams. And you have also inferred that the piece is not about his greatness as a player, which is inarguable, but his Hispanicity.
The facts are the facts (a Sheldon Cooperesque tautology). Ted was the older son of Samuel Williams, a Welsh-English-blooded photographer, and Micaela "Salvation May" Venzor, a Texas-born daughter of Mexican immigrants and unquestionably Mexican on both sides. This leaves Ted Williams as 50% Latino, and ironically leaves us in the curious position of looking at Ted Williams as being exactly as Hispanic as Barack Obama is black.
So why, pray tell, do we call Obama the "first black president" and yet no one ever offers up Ted Williams as the "first Latino superstar ballplayer"? They are precisely the same percentage of "preferential" blood, and yet society simply does not celebrate their status in the same way. In fact, while had he not left us in 2002, the conservative Williams would never have voted for the very-left Obama, he certainly would have shaken hands with him (and yelled at him, if you know Ted), much as he made it a point to warm up before games by throwing with Pumpsie Green, the Red Sox' first black player in the '50s. Always conscious of his roots, Ted was simply not a prejudiced man.
I can't help but link this point to my piece yesterday about granting preferential treatment in government contracting based on the race of the owner of a company. I'd love to have seen a discussion at the Small Business Administration if Ted Williams and Barack Obama each showed up to apply for certification for each of their businesses as "disadvantaged." One grew up in dire poverty in San Diego, living off fried potatoes and dying for his next turn at bat; the other with a Harvard Law education and no ancestry of slavery or ghetto life ... the former a Caucasian half-Hispanic, the latter a black but half-Caucasian. Why, pray tell, should either, neither or both be treated differently from, say, an immigrant Bosnian escaping war with the shirt on his back, or a privileged child of physicians in India who comes here well-heeled to start a new life, but is eligible for the "disadvantaged" title.
We either start by deciding Ted is a great Latino, or we simply stop worrying about blood and focus on accomplishment.
Copyright 2017, 2014 by Robert Sutton
