El Profe: Felipe Alou A Giant of Latino Baseball

If one were to construct a Mount Rushmore of Latinos in Major League Baseball, Felipe Alou would be on that memorial, right next to Roberto Clemente. Both men posed proud and dignified, deserving of such reverential treatment and respect.

Alou was a pioneering figure in baseball: first Dominican to come straight from the island and make it to the major leagues; first Dominican manager in the majors. He also wrote an article that was published in a major U.S. magazine, one that powerfully detailed the challenges of life as a Latino in professional baseball that was also a call to action.

The Dominican native had a voice, and he realized early on he had to use it. In reading his memoir Alou: My Baseball Journey (officially released on April 1), two things become abundantly clear: Felipe Alou refuses to be silent or be silenced; and the Dominican remains steadfast in his commitment to the belief that everyone deserves to be treated with dignity and respect — from immigrant newcomers and the poor to black and Latino baseball players, as well as those beyond the playing field.

In an interview with La Vida Baseball that flowed between Spanish and English, Alou shared what he thought would make him feel like he accomplished his purpose in writing the book: “If just one person could improve their life by reading the book, then it was worthwhile,” he stated.

World on His Shoulders

Alou has been on a journey like no other. He grew up poor in the Dominican Republic under Rafael Trujillo’s dictatorship and left his homeland to play baseball in the racially divided U.S. of the late 1950s and 1960s. He played in the majors while his native land descended into a civil war. He rose to manage the Montreal Expos and San Francisco Giants. His journey, which includes over a half-century in professional baseball, is worth knowing about, whether or not one is a baseball fan. Indeed, there is much to learn from Alou, especially when it comes to the racial experience of Dominicanos, and Latinos in general, in the U.S.

Arriving in the U.S. was (and often remains) a bewildering experience for Latino players. There’s not just a language barrier, but a cultural one. And in the 1950s, the U.S. was a society with an alien set of rules when it came to race — from the Jim Crow laws of the South that dictated where they could eat, sleep or use the bathroom; to other American towns, where the players were supposed to just know where they might or might not be welcomed.

That race was going to shape Alou’s experience and even impact whether he would make it to the major leagues became quickly apparent. Although he was initially assigned to the Giants’ farm team in Lake Charles, La., authorities throughout the Evangeline League refused to allow Alou and his black teammates to play. Forced to reassign him, the Giants sent Alou to a lower-level affiliate in Cocoa, Fla. One feels the haunting isolation the 20-year-old Alou experienced as he recounts his three-day bus trip to Cocoa, eating only 50 cents worth of peanuts from vending machines, drinking only from colored water fountains, and defying the Greyhound bus driver’s persistent signaling to get to the back of the bus.

“It wasn’t that I was making a social statement,” Alou recalls, “I was so panicked I would miss the Cocoa bus station that I would hover in the seat behind the driver, asking in my fractured English whenever we stopped: ‘Cocoa. Me Cocoa. Cocoa?’”

Arriving in darkness, there was no welcoming party at the Cocoa bus station, which was just a road-side bench. Alou had to find his own way to the ballpark with no address or phone number to call. That he found his way was a testament to his determination, to his sense of commitment to his family (who were depending on his earnings), and to those (chiefly Horacio Martínez and Alex Pompez) who had believed the young Dominican had what it took to become a big leaguer.

A Latino Giant

To meet Felipe Alou is to meet a giant of Latino baseball. In the book’s foreword, Pedro Martínez describes the same sentiment I felt after my first face-to-face with Alou at the winter meetings in December.

“Sometimes you meet somebody you’ve heard about your whole life and looked up to from a distance, and you’re disappointed. Felipe was different. Felipe exceeded my expectations,” Martínez writes.

Alou knew how to manage people, how to guide, cajole, inspire. The two Dominicans most recently elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame acknowledged the importance of Alou’s guidance and ability to instill confidence in their careers.

“He gave me the opportunity to be an everyday player,” Vladimir Guerrero shared at a Hall of Fame press conference in January, “and even though I was a rookie, he was very patient explaining things to me and continued to put my name in the lineup.”

What kind of manager was Alou? The Dominican manager’s words when he named Pedro Martínez the No. 4 four starter in the Expos rotation still lingers in the pitcher’s mind. “‘You are my No. 1 whenever you take the ball,’” Alou told him. “With those few words, Felipe built my confidence in a way I’ll never forget and I’ll forever appreciate,” Martínez added.

Alou persevered throughout his major league playing days, and was a three-time All-Star who batted .286 and accumulated 2,101 hits over 17 seasons. He showed that same perseverance in earning his chance to become the first Dominican to manage in Major League Baseball. Ever the teacher, Alou even spent six straight seasons (1986-1991) managing the West Palm Beach Expos, a single-A team. He had accumulated 17 years of managing experience in the minors before he got the call from Montreal to manage the big league team in 1992. Alou would spend 10 seasons as the Expos’ manager and another four managing the San Francisco Giants, winning 1,033 games and two first-place finishes.

A Brotherly Bond

The San Francisco Giants of the early 1960s showcased diversity before it was ever a thought in the majors. The Giants had players from throughout the Americas, a talented collection of stars: African-Americans Willie Mays and Willie McCovey; Dominicans Juan Marichal and the Alou brothers; Puerto Ricans Orlando Cepeda, and José Págan, to name a few.

The Giants’ Latino players shared a unique bond, forged through the common experience of coming through the minor leagues and having made it to the majors despite the obstacles. That bond often extended to Latinos on other teams, vividly captured in Alou’s chapter on Roberto Clemente.

He was at a Pirates-Giants postgame dinner party in San Francisco hosted by a pair of Puerto Rican women when he first met Clemente. There, while breaking bread with Clemente, Alou got to know the proud Puerto Rican. “Everything about Clemente radiated passion — his voice, his words, even his gestures.”

The two giants of Latino baseball talked into the early morning hours, not even noticing that all the other players had retired to their homes or hotel rooms. That conversation made Alou realize how the two were kindred spirits: They weren’t talking baseball into the wee hours, “it was about race, culture, language, social issues, the disadvantaged, how the Latino ballplayers were treated by the American media, how Puerto Ricans were treated like second-class citizens in America. … That’s when I became aware of Roberto Clemente the man.”

The enduring impression Clemente made on Alou came through in our phone interview. Aware that Clemente’s tragic death prevented the Puerto Rican from the opportunity of writing a memoir to reflect on his career and life, Alou’s voice became quieter, as he stated, “If Clemente had written a book, it would have been very similar to my book.” After all, they shared a bond in seeking to illuminate the plight of the poor, and in addressing social issues and the experience of race in America and their native lands.

Such concerns had inspired Felipe Alou to write the 1963 Sport article “Latin American Players Need a Bill of Rights,” which powerfully detailed his early encounters with racial segregation and how Major League Baseball was not equipped (and to a certain extent didn’t care enough) to address the particular experience of Latinos in baseball.

His memoir reflects that same passion for justice; the need to capture, in full, his journey as a proud Dominican man of African and European ancestry compelled him to write once more.

Featured Image: Jean Fruth / La Vida Baseball

Inset Image: University of Nebraska Press