¡Fanáticos! A Hall of Fame golfer’s baseball story
By Chi Chi Rodríguez
Even as a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame, baseball remains my first love.
My name is Juan Antonio, but I became famous as “Chi Chi.” Few know that I can thank baseball for my nickname. As a child, there was a very popular third baseman in Puerto Rico named Chi Chi Flores. Although he never made it to the big leagues, he is in the Puerto Rico Baseball Hall of Fame.
While we played a very rough version of Little League, I don’t mind saying that I was one heck of a pitcher. Every time I walked toward the mound, I would shout, “Look, I’m Chi Chi Flores!” Soon all of the kids were calling me “Chi Chi,” and the rest, as they say, is history.
Growing up in Puerto Rico during the Great Depression, playing baseball was the one thing that the neighborhood kids could do without requiring more than a bat and ball.
There was a small barren parcel of land nearby that served as our field. The bases were sheets of white school notebook paper affixed with twigs at each corner, forced into the ground by rocks. Running around the diamond barefooted, we gingerly tapped a toe on each base, all the while daydreaming we were sliding into them instead.
Someone was always able to borrow a bat and a couple of old beat-up balls.
Gloves were fashioned out of small brown paper bags that had once housed a half pound of beans, with five holes strategically and carefully placed and punched out of the bottom half.
Now, I will tell you as a pitcher, catching any throw with that glove could be painful, but a little imagination went a long way — we had the “look,” and that was all that mattered.
Knack for golf
I started working at a golf course at the age of seven and soon realized I had a knack for the game. Whenever I went to the park to pitch, I always brought along my golf gear. A club and ball.
Clubs consisted of an L-shaped branch from a guava tree in our yard. After scraping off the twigs and new growth, I would carve out the wedge, and insert the stick into a long metal pipe; that was my iron. I found a ball bearing, but it was much smaller than the standard golf ball; so, after much thought, I improvised and placed it inside a discarded tomato sauce can, taking a hammer to it on all sides and shaping a ball until it was just the right size.
Before any baseball game started, I would pull out my penknife to dig or clean out a two- to three-inch hole right in front of both home and second bases. As soon as the game was over, I would practice my golf.
As we played, we were not distracted by the sound of empty bellies, laughter and scuffles, but lived within the magic that was occurring through baseball. We were learning the most essential of life’s lessons: selflessness, cooperation, camaraderie, respect, and how to win and lose.
When I was 16, I started to play Class A ball; it was an opportunity to sharpen my curve and screwball. At 19, I was asked to join Double-A ball, with the Sabana Llana Stars, the same team Roberto Clemente played with as a pinch hitter. At the time, the best part of playing was that they served lunch.
I remember pitching to Orlando Cepeda — the second Puerto Rican to enter the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. He hit a fantastic home run off one of my pitches; they still have not found the ball. My baseball career was short-lived, since I enlisted in the Army later that year.
In 1955 at Fort Sill, Okla., recruits were asked, “Who plays a sport? Who plays baseball? Who plays golf?” I raised my hand every time. Separated into groups according to our chosen sport, I went with those that played baseball.
As soon as I got to the field, I saw a fellow soldier, Daryl Spencer, hitting. A utility infielder with the New York Giants, Spencer interrupted his career in 1954 to serve in the United States Army. Yes, the same Daryl Spencer who stood 6-foot-2 and played 10 seasons in the majors.
Me, at 5-7 and 117 pounds, looked at his size, his powerful bat and thought, “If I ever got hit by one of his line drives, it would crystallize me!” Right then and there, I turned around and left the field, deciding that I would play golf instead. At that moment, I had made the one decision that would define my life forever.
Lessons learned
Baseball taught me to be part of a team, while still taking personal responsibility for my actions and values I used later on when I proudly served in the United States Army and in my long career as a golf professional.
Borrowing a line from the Cuban pioneer Minnie Miñoso, golf has been very, very good to me, yet it is an individual sport where the focus is solely you and a ball.
At 82, I often reminisce about the sweet days of my youth, as they remain as the happiest time of my life.
Oh, I almost forgot the greatest lesson baseball ever taught me, and that was how to argue. No matter whether I was right or wrong, arguing with the umpire was fruitless, an experience well worth remembering once I got married.
Featured Image: La Vida Baseball