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Hector Espino González spent 1960–1984 in the Liga Mexicana (summer) and the Liga Mexicana del Pacifico (winter). When you examine his career, you can’t help but wonder:

Did anybody ever get this guy out?

He led the LM twice in batting average, twice in homers and twice in RBIs. Until very recently, he held the all–time minor–league homerun record with 484, with a lifetime batting average of .337. He still holds or shares more than 40 batting records in the LMP alone.

In all, he set at least 53 different batting marks in his minor–league career.

He also is one of the few players at any level to be intentionally walked with the bases loaded — in a playoff game. If any minor–leaguer ever seemed pre–destined to show off his skills in New York, Chicago or San Francisco, it was Hector Espino.

So how did this guy never make it to The Show?

The Cardinals sent him to Jacksonville of the International League in 1964, but he left after only 32 games, vowing never to play in the United States again. The reasons why depend on who you ask. Some said it was homesickness, or a preference to dominate a minor league over taking his chances in the majors.

But according to some who followed Espino’s career, there was another reason — the racism he encountered in the American South. With a Southern backlash to the civil rights movement in full effect in the mid–1960s, the timing for Espino’s introduction to American baseball fans hardly could have been worse.

Whatever his reasons for leaving, they obviously had nothing to do with his batting skills. He was hitting an even .300 when he left.

The Cards, Mets, Padres and Angels all tried to sign him thereafter. He rejected them all. Perhaps it shouldn't have been a surprise; one of his nicknames was "the rebel of Chihuahua."

On Sept. 7, 1997, Hector Espino died of a heart attack at 58. His number was retired in both Mexican leagues. In Hermosillo, the Naranjeros baseball stadium bears his name, his statue and a partial list of his batting records, most of which still stand.

—Gregory Alan Gross
 26 May 2007

Had being black not barred him from Major League Baseball throughout his life, Josh Gibson might well have reduced every other power hitter — before and since — to afterthoughts.

His career is the stuff of multiple legends, none of which greater than the one that says he hit nearly 800 homeruns in his career. Some will tell you he hit more than 900.

Beginning in 1930, Gibson spent 17 years as a catcher for two segregated Pennsylvania teams, the Pittsburgh Crawfords and the Homestead Grays. Like Babe Ruth, with whom he is often compared, he was a replacement for an injured player. Except that Grays manager Judy Johnson literally plucked the teenager out of the stands and had him suit up.

But few talk of his catching prowess.

At 6–foot–1 and powerfully built, Gibson didn’t just hit homeruns. He crushed them. And by all accounts, he crushed a lot of them. Research has led baseball historians to conclude that Gibson averaged one homerun every 15.9 at–bats. That’s a lot of homeruns.

Exactly how many, however, is subject to debate.

The Negro Leagues didn’t keep extensive records, and some of Gibson’s homers came in exhibition games against opposition of dubious talent.

Even so, his power was undeniable. Blasts in excess of 500 feet were commonplace for this guy. There are those who swear that he hit one completely out of Yankee Stadium, a feat not even Babe Ruth managed to pull off.

Lots of players hit balls out of the park. Josh Gibson’s homeruns left town.

Probably for their own safety.

Gibson didn’t just hit for power, however. His lifetime average, depending on who you ask, was somewhere between .350 and .384 — and he was hitting in what were considered to be pitchers’ parks.

The most telling statistic, though, may be this one:

No team with Josh Gibson on its roster ever had a losing season.

But Gibson’s numbers aren’t nearly as fascinating – nor as fun – as the tall tales they inspired.

One story has him hitting a walk–off homer in Pittsburgh against a Washington D.C. team that disappears from sight. When the two teams face off again the next day, this time in Washington D.C., a ball suddenly falls from the sky and into a Washington outfielder’s glove. The umpire looks at Gibson and yells:

“You’re out!…in Pittsburgh!…yesterday!”

In his later years, Gibson fell into the dual trap of alcohol and drugs. When he was diagnosed with an operable brain tumor, he refused to have it removed, fearing the surgery would leave him a vegetable. The latter years of his career were spent in and out of mental hospitals, plagued with excruciating headaches.

Even then, he still managed to win batting titles. At one point, he was hitting .404.

Josh Gibson died of a stroke on Jan. 20, 1947 at the age of 35. Three months later, Jackie Robinson integrated the major leagues.

Denied a chance to play in the majors all his life, he was voted into Cooperstown 25 years after his death. A non–profit foundation to help educate children in Homestead, has been created in his name.

—Gregory Alan Gross
 9 June 2007

Every baseball fan knows that Babe Ruth started his career as a pitcher, but that his batting skills led to his playing more and more in the outfield. But even Ruth never led the league in wins and in hitting in the same year. In fact, he never led the league in wins at all.

Martin Dihigo was born in Matanzas, Cuba, on May 25, 1905, 10 years after Ruth’s birth in Baltimore. Their careers overlapped, but most fans who saw Ruth likely didn’t even know who Dihigo was, because he had the misfortune to be born black when that was all it took to keep a player out of organized baseball.

Dihigo — the only person elected to the halls of fame in the United States, Cuba and Mexico — did lead a league in batting and pitching categories in the same season. He was 18–2 for Veracruz, Mexico in 1938, with an earned–run average of 0.90 (0.92 according to some sources). He won the batting title with an average of .387.

From 1923, when he was 18, until 1950, when he was 45, the 6–foot–3, 210–pound right–hander starred as both hitter and pitcher in the United States, Cuba, Mexico, Venezuela, Panama and the Dominican Republic.

BaseballLibrary.com researched his career — taking note of the fact that some figures from that era simply don’t exist — and concluded that Dihigo had a record of 263–143 as a pitcher, not counting his time in the Dominican Republic or Venezuela. He was 119–57 in Mexico, 115–60 in Cuba.

In the Negro Leagues, he was 29–26 as a pitcher and hit .299 with 69 homers. In the United States, he was with the Cuban Stars East (1923–1927, 1930), Homestead Grays (1928), Hilldale Daisies (1929–1931), Baltimore Black Sox (1931) and New York Cubans (1935–1936, 1945).

He batted over .300 six times.

He had a .317 lifetime batting average in Mexico in 10 seasons with 130 home runs. He threw at least three no–hitters in Mexico, Venezuela and Puerto Rico.

The first record of Dihigo as a player came in the 1921–1922 Cuban Winter League, when he was 16. He played first base the following year for the Cuban Stars, who toured throughout the eastern United States before the Negro Leagues were established.

He was not, however, just a first baseman. He played all nine positions, and on occasion would do so in one game.

By 1926, Dihigo was one of the stars of the Eastern Colored League, still playing for the Cuban Stars. He hit .327 with 12 home runs. Not long after that, Dihigo took a break from playing in the United States for several years. He was the star pitcher of a league in Venezuela in the mid–1930s.

In 1934–35, with Santa Clara of the Cuban Winter League, he led the league in average (.358) and wins, at 11–2 (11–1 according to some sources). He also managed the team.

A few other highlights, chronologically:

—1937. Dihigo pitched the first no–hitter in the Mexican League. He also became the first hitter in Mexico to have six hits in six at–bats in one game. He spent most of the season with the Aguilas Cibaenas club in the Dominican League, where he tied for the league lead in homers, hit .351 (third) and went 6–4, second only in wins to Paige. (Winter–league schedules generally only lasted about three months, so few people won more than six or seven games or hit more than 10 or 12 home runs.)

— 1938. While going 18–2 with 184 strikeouts and a .387 batting average in Veracruz, Dihigo struck out 22 men in a 13–inning game. He also pitched in a game against Satchel Paige, defeating Paige–s team, 2–1. Statistics were more complete for that season than some others of the era, allowing a clear picture of his success. Along with the 18–2 record, Dihigo allowed only 104 hits and 32 walks in 167 innings, striking out 184.

That ERA remains the lowest in the history of the Mexican League for a starting pitcher. When that season was over, he went to Cuba for the winter, where he hit .291 and went 6–4.

Back in Mexico at the age of 40 in 1945, Dihigo hit .316 and went 11–4 with an earned run average of 2.83 on the mound for Torreon. It was his last good year.

The man known as El Maestro led leagues at various times in batting average, strikeouts, wins, ERA, winning percentage, homers and doubles.

After retiring, Dihigo returned to Cuba, where he was appointed minister of sports in 1959 by President Fidel Castro, a position he held until his death in 1971, shortly before his 66th birthday.

Dihigo was elected to the Cuban Baseball Hall of Fame in 1951, the Salon de la Fama in Mexico in 1964 and the U.S. Hall of Fame in 1977.

Buck Leonard, himself a Hall of Famer, said of Dihigo: “He was the greatest all–around player I know. I say he was the best player of all–time, black or white. He could do it all.”

Another Hall of Fame member, John McGraw, manager of the New York Giants at the same time Dihigo was playing, called him “the greatest natural player” he had ever seen. A generation later, still another Hall of Famer, Brooklyn Dodgers catcher Roy Campanella, said the same thing.

Severo Nieto (1923–2005), a Cuban author and reporter who knew Dihigo and saw him play, wrote “Martin Dihigo, El Maestro” shortly before his death and sent it to McFarland, a North Carolina publisher.

It has yet to be published.

— Jay Berman
11 June 2007

© Gregory Alan Gross,
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