Vic Power: artful storyteller and first baseman
In the 1970s and ’80s, I loved to walk around Condado, then the ritzy tourist section of San Juan, Puerto Rico, with Vic Power. One of the flashiest first basemen the game has ever seen, Vic was just as artful a storyteller. I was more than happy to go along for the ride.
Vic was a proud man who used humor to defuse a tense situation and occasional biting sarcasm to counter racism, both of which were necessary in his playing days. He could speak his mind and put you in your place, but with eloquence.
I met Vic in the winter of 1970-71 at Hiram Bithorn Stadium in San Juan. We were introduced by Francisco “Pancho” Coimbre, one of Puerto Rico’s baseball legends from the pre-integration era who later became a scout for the Pittsburgh Pirates. After shaking Vic’s hand, I noticed that he was reading Norman Vincent Peale’s The Power of Positive Thinking. Right there and then, I knew he was a little different from the usual baseball player.
I asked Vic if he enjoyed reading and he responded, “Reading is my hobby. Books are my best friends. I take pride in my career in baseball, but I’m also very proud of being a good photographer.”
I am a witness to his artistic side. When I covered the World Series as a reporter from 1981 to 1985, Vic was my photographer, credentialed by Major League Baseball.
Sometimes I wondered if there was anything Vic could not do. He probably could have been a doctor, a lawyer or an engineer, had he wanted to. His power of positive thinking was contagious, and led me to believe he could do anything.
The integration generation
Vic Power was born Víctor Pellot in Arecibo, a town on the northwest coast of the island, on Nov. 1, 1927.
As a youngster, he played barrio baseball in Jarealito, a section of town that juts into the ocean next to the Arecibo Lighthouse. Back then, he was an outfielder. He loved to tell people that he mastered baseball and swimming simultaneously.
“Our makeshift field was a few feet from the Atlantic Ocean. Therefore, many were the times I had to dive into the water and swim to retrieve the ball.”
Such was his sense of humor.
Vic was from the generation of Roberto Clemente and infielder Félix Mantilla, fellow boricuas who were dark-skinned like him. This generation not only integrated teams, it helped integrate leagues and towns.
In 1949-50 — Vic’s first two seasons in pro ball — he played for the Drummondville Cubs in Canada’s Provincial League in Quebec, where French predominates. His surname “Pellot” as pronounced there sounded similar to a slang French word for a female private part, so he decided to change it to Power, a take on his mother’s maiden name of Pove. In Hispanic countries, he became known as Víctor Pellot Power.
The New York Yankees purchased his contract from Drummondville in 1951, but never called him up despite three outstanding Triple-A seasons in Syracuse and Kansas City, where he averaged .328 and slugged .501 overall.
In his SABR biography, Joseph Wancho points out that while the Yankees were grooming Power to be their first black player, general manager George Weiss thought him to be “impudent” and didn’t like that he dated white women. The Yankees traded Vic to the Kansas City Athletics after the 1953 season and waited until 1955 to make catcher Elston Howard their first black player.
Stellar fielder
During one of our walks around San Juan in the late ’80s, Vic said, “I would have loved to play in New York, but they always wanted a submissive, timid Negro player to break their color barrier — and that is not the way God made me.”
He would then say, “They missed out of having the best first baseman in the world during those years!”
And you know, he was right. He’s probably the best first baseman you’ve never seen. Between 1958-64, he won the coveted Gold Glove Award in the American League seven straight seasons while playing for three different teams — Athletics, the Cleveland Indians and the Minnesota Twins.
He played as much as 15 feet behind the bag, moving like a dancer and mastering the art of catching the ball with his glove hand in a giant sweeping motion. He anticipated situations and positioned himself wherever he thought best. He pioneered defensive shifts before they ever came into vogue. He was Willie Mays and Roberto Alomar, always in the right place at the right time.
He finished his 12-year career (1954-65) with a .994 fielding percentage at first base, tied for 47th all-time with three others, including Hall of Famer Carl Yastrzemski and Keith Hernández, who won 11 Gold Glove Awards, the most at the position.
Not surprisingly, over the course of his career, he played every position except pitcher and catcher.
At a party at the New York Hilton during the 1981 World Series, Dodgers general manager Al Campanis asked if that was Vic with me. I nodded, and Al walked up to him while loudly stating, “Vic Power… the best second baseman I have ever seen.”
Steady in choppy waters
The Vic Power I knew was a champion of race relations, diffusing tough situations without allowing himself to be demeaned, an amazingly fine line to walk. He was the Muhammad Ali of his time. He was constantly interested in bettering himself through education. He knew how blacks were treated both in Puerto Rico and the United States.
Early in his career, he was arrested for jaywalking while in Florida. He pleaded innocent, telling the judge, “Your Honor, I come from Puerto Rico and I don’t know much about Florida. I see signs all over: ‘For Whites Only’, ‘For Colored Only’… I thought the green light was for whites and that the red light was for blacks like me.”
One day in the late 1950s, while playing for Cleveland, Yankees fireballer Ryne Duren was pitching Vic hard and inside repeatedly. Vic dealt with the situation in his own unique way.
“I went to the front of the Yankees dugout and told manager Casey Stengel that if Duren hits me with a pitch, I would fight with him, not with Duren,” Vic recalled, adding that the aging Stengel, then nearly 70, and a few of the players cracked up.
It was said later that Stengel would tell his pitchers, “Leave Vic Power alone. Don’t wake him up, let him sleep.”
Over his career, he played for the Philadelphia and the Kansas City Athletics, the Cleveland Indians, the Minnesota Twins, the California Angels and the Philadelphia Phillies. He accumulated a solid .284 batting average, 126 homers and 658 RBI while being voted a six-time All-Star.
After retiring in 1965, he stayed in California, hoping to make a career as a movie star. He got a gig as a cowboy in a movie, but came away unimpressed.
He remembered, “I sat on a horse for hours during several days in intense heat. I was filmed in a nonspeaking role as part of a posse, but when I went to see the movie, the scenes I was in weren’t shown. That was the end of Hollywood for me.”
Vic explored all the cities in which he played and was an avid traveler in the offseason. He loved jazz and Latino beats, befriending some of the biggest performers of the 1950s and 1960s, including Latin legends Tito Puente and Tito Rodríguez. He had a wide taste. While vacationing or playing in Boston, he would often attend the Boston Pops.
He loved Cuba, finding it similar to Puerto Rico. He once visited the island as the manager of a Puerto Rican amateur team playing in Havana during the early 1970s. While leaving the stadium after a game, a uniformed army officer told him that there was a man who wanted to meet him.
“I followed the officer and out of the blue, Fidel Castro was almost face-to-face with me. He shook my hand while smiling and told me that he was proud to meet the best first baseman in the world,” Vic said.
After thanking Fidel, he said, “Thanks, I’m honored to meet you. I have always heard you were once a good ballplayer.”
Castro smiled and asked Vic if he could have a picture taken with him. That photo was perhaps one of the most treasured photos Vic possessed.
After his playing career, Vic settled in Puerto Rico, where he managed professional and amateur teams, scouted for the Angels and paved the way for young talented players from the island to obtain high school or junior college scholarships to study in the U.S.
His prized prospect, lefty Juan Nieves, won 32 games for Milwaukee. On April 15, 1987, against Baltimore, Nieves became the third Latino and the second boricua after Nuyorican John Candelaria to throw a no-hitter, beating Baltimore, 7-0.
On November 29, 2005, Vic Power died of cancer at age 78 in Bayamón, Puerto Rico. His soul flew peacefully into eternity without hurrahs, honors or ovations. He was an important influence in my life. I miss him and will always treasure his solid friendship.
Featured Image: Bettmann
Inset Image: Luis Rodríguez Mayoral