Some Latin poder.

[Bring Back the Stein]

My ma came from Mexico (de Tamaulipas) so I must note with some pride that the Brewers' resurgence has coincided with the reappearance on the roster of people with vowels at the end of their name, and I'm talking the brown kind, not Corey Koskie (no offense).

 

I'm being light here, but how long was it that we were without Latins on the roster? A Valentin here, a Quevedo there, but now some of the studs of the team are Hispanics. Coco, Villanueva, Estrada and now, of course, the Michoacano that wears Teddy Higuera's number.

 

When I was a kid, my cousin and I would eat a jalapeno slice (from the County Stadium nachos) for every strikeout Higuera threw. The stress to our digestive tract was worth it. Now, we not only have the Chiorizo, but we've got a new mejicano wearing #49 and I'm loving it.

 

Viva los Cerveceros!

[pepsimax23]

i'm sure many of you know, the spring training facility is in the mexican hood. i live in a mexican hood on the avenues side of PHX-metro area.

 

i love the ruben quevedo reference. what would memories of the 90s brewers be like without ricky bones, fernando vina, or ronnie belliard.

 

i remember players like candy maldanado, angel miranda, and of course julio franco. i cant wait to have my chorizo bobblehead!!!!

[TooLiveBrew]

I agree that it's great to see some more diversity on this squad. 3/8ths of our starting position players are black men, while our battery is often powered by Latinos. Clearly there's reason to embrace this, and the Brewers have done a nice job in beginning to really reach out to the Latino baseball fans - the "Cerveceros" days & the TV deal (granted, I know it's just a handful of games).

 

That said, I don't care what color a ballplayer's (or anyone's) skin is, but I can't disagree that it's a good thing to have a relatively healthy mix of heritages in the organization.

[Bring Back the Stein]

Good point: OPS is blind to race and I'm not trying to direct the discussion the way the execrable Gary Sheffield would have, but, for instance, Spanish-language games and promotions with the Milwaukee Hispanic Chamber of Commerce have shown what kind of class the Brewers organization has.

 

If anyone wants any more reason not to work this afternoon-and you want to bone up on your taunts to Carlos Zambrano-check this out:

 

www.baseballhalloffame.or...panish.pdf

[gregmag]

I recall that Bill James wrote, back in the late '80s or early '90s, that the Brewers seemed to overrate and hoard aging, boring, slow white guys. I don't think the implication was one of malicious racism, but more that lazy decisionmakers tend to go with what they know, and when the decisionmakers are all white, race can be part of that (two words: Antone. Williamson.). I think the diversity on the team now reflects colorblindness -- in this era, getting the best baseball players means you're going to have a healthy mix of Latinos, African Americans, caucasians, and increasingly Asians.

 

Greg.

[RightFieldCoder]

I always said the Brewers problems were too many honkey white bread types. Look at who is trashed on this board: Jenkins, Graffy, Counsell, Mench, Gross, Turnbow, Shouse...

 

Honestly, I really don't care about skin color, but that may be just because I'm too young to understand.

[Cooper]

Performance matters more than anything, but it's always nice to find players to identify with and root for. People will do it via the color of their skin, hair color, facial hair style, number, brand of equipment used, position, style of play (gritty!) and countless other things that make any player unique.

 

This Milwaukee team (either naturally or on purpose) appears to be relatively diverse ethnically in comparison to others past and present around the league. In addition, the chemistry of the clubhouse appears that everyone on the team is pulling for everyone else to succeed... or at least it looks like the guys get along. Whether that makes any difference on the field has been argued here previously, but I know I always find it easier to root for the team that seems to enjoy what they're doing.

 

I definitely know I don't miss the days of player's wives beating up Alex Sanchez. I wonder what Mrs. Quevedo is up to these days?

[dadofandrew]

Remember, that one nutty JS writer mentioned we needed more blacks...now, nowhere to be seen with Prince, Rickie, and Bill part of the nucleus.

[gregmag]

So the fact that we've gotten more (really good) black players proves that a guy was nutty to suggest we get more black players?

 

I do think there was a time this team had a kind of cultural aversion to dealing with young black men. I think the beginning of that time roughly corresponds with the Sheffield fiasco. Look, Sheffield could make anybody sour on any group he happened to belong to -- blacks, Shriners, amateur radio enthusiasts, whatever -- but I have a sense that some in the organization may have let the particular hip-hop flavor of his crappy attitude psyche them out. Not every generation of Brewers brain-trusters would have picked up, and staked the team's future on, guys like Fielder, Weeks, and Hall. Team Canada has had the simple good sense to do so. What's so nutty about calling on the team to do something that (a) it hadn't been doing and (b) has now worked out so well?

 

Greg.

[dadofandrew]

He basically wanted to just add blacks, good or not. He was a know nothing, and had no idea how to build a team. My point is, many people used to imply the organization was racist, but now that the team has 3 blacks who are part of the core, they do not admit they were way off base, nor say anything.

 

Basically, people like that will wait for a losing streak and then pick on something.

[gregmag]

I bent over backwards not to use the word "racist" in this setting, and I don't recall that the writer in question used it either, because I think it's both unnecessarily inflammatory and deceptively certain when I don't really know what was in anyone's head. The fact is that the team has come to stake a lot more on young black players than it had for some time previously. You are purporting to use that change in behavior as proof that any criticism of the previous behavior was off-base. With all due respect, I simply don't get the logic of that argument on its own terms, and your unsupported, ad hominem name calling doesn't help your case.

 

Greg.

[dadofandrew]

The players I mentioned were all with the organization when the article was written, they were just not ready yet. The idea they should just sign blacks to play was and remains asinine.

 

The column was not written to make sense, just to point fingers. It was ridiculous, and still is.

[gregmag]

Al, you've shifted what had been a positive discussion of diversity and quality into a savage attack on an article that you and I seem to remember very differently. You seem quite sure about what that article said, and I'm afraid I may be doing you a disservice by misremembering it. I can't find the article online; can you please provide the link?

 

Greg.

[DuWayne Steurer]

I recall the article in question as well, and as my memory serves me, it does seem that the writer suggested signing/acquiring black players, just for the sake of having black players. I do remember being disgusted with the way the article was written.

 

 

I think Al's point is that some people have an unfortunate ability to make a situation about race when it really isn't or shouldn't be.

 

 

Back to the topic, nobody mentioned Claudio Vargas!

[iluvlamp]

Does this discussion even matter? Who the hell cares? Well, maybe if I knew how many Irish were on the team I would.

 

I am so sick of everything in this society getting racial. It's almost to the point if you order a certain food people take exception.

[mothershipconnection]

Some racial issues get really blown out of proportion when it comes to sports. All these people care about is winning and making money. Any industry that will employ a bunch of druggies, rapists, wife beaters, thugs, and jerks isn't going to hold someone back because of skin color. The only color that matters is green.

 

Of course, it's still totally possible that minority players get treated like crap once they're on a team, but that's another issue.

[tigerbrew]

Yeah, I think it's very cool that Yovani is wearing Teddy Higuera's number. Hope Yo stays with the Brewers as long as Teddy had, if not longer.

[GAME05]

ah, the race issue is totally overblown. if a GM is racist and doesn't like to sign whatever type of player, they will ultimately be losers in the game, missing out on whatever good Black or Latino players are there. it's an interesting discussion, but i just think in the end, if you have racial preferences, there's no way to succeed in professional sports with that attitude.

[mothershipconnection]

but i just think in the end, if you have racial preferences, there's no way to succeed in professional sports with that attitude.

 

Exactly. When the talent gap between a star and AAAA player is so huge you simply couldn't be racist in your player acquisition and hold a job. It's not like running a fast food place where you could only hire irresponsible dorks from one race and you're pretty much OK because everyone you're gonna get is virtually interchangeable.

 

I guess the very rich franchises could do it, because you'll often have several free agents of similar worth (but widely varying price tags) out there, and you could pay more to be a bigot, but the rest of the teams just want the most production for the lowest salary.

[aracko]

We need more ski's. Koskie was close.

 

Its been a while since I have seen a good Polish man on the Crew. Tom Brunansky gave it a shot but was so bad they had to trade him. Kevin Koslofski gave us all he had but that amounted to 42 ABs and a .214 average. In 1999 - Eddie Zosky gave it his final go as a positional player in Milwaukee. He was so bad that he attempted a return as a pitcher.

 

Pitcher Joe Slusarski made it thru 12 games. After that he was out of baseball for 4 years.

 

 

Thats it. Thats all the Polish Heritage I can find on this team. I am demanding we send more scouts to Poland.

[SoCalBrewfan]

I recall the article in question as well, and as my memory serves me, it does seem that the writer suggested signing/acquiring black players, just for the sake of having black players.

 

If it's the article I remember, it was written by D. Orlando Ledbetter, who was also critical of the Packers for canning Ray Rhodes. As I recall, his article was more a matter of questioning the lack of African American attendance at Brewers games, and among the factors was an absence of black players. Here's one column from May 1998, which is pretty clearly tongue in cheek, that refers to his remarks from 'a few weeks ago', which would have been in April 1998 or so...you can see it's about the fan experience much more than the roster...

 

www2.jsonline.com/sports/...d52398.stm

 

You can see approximately when the original appeared based on the letters to the editor in response (see Apr 19 and 20), and clearly see that the original referred to attendance:

 

www2.jsonline.com/sports/...n33198.stm

 

The players I mentioned were all with the organization when the article was written, they were just not ready yet.

 

That's a pretty definitive statement. It also appears to be wrong. The article was written around opening day 1998. Prince Fielder was 14 then. Bill Hall was an obscure 6th round draft pick in June 1998, a few weeks after the article was written, and I think it's fair to say they weren't planning on him being the face of the franchise. Here's Ledbetter's farewell column, written in 2000, well before Fielder, Weeks, or even Gwynn were drafted:

 

findarticles.com/p/articl..._n10652512

 

But I agree with Greg's larger point that the discussion of the article derails the thread...I just didn't want such an obvious inaccuracy to remain unchallenged.

 

EDIT: I should say, there may well be another article of this nature, but Ledbetter's was the one I recall being very controversial and sticking in people's craws. And, as noted, he was very critical of the Rhodes dismissal, which also grated on Packer fans.

[whizkid]

It was a nice post Stein. Too bad the thread turned into a total crapfest due to poster's other agendas.

[Chio151]

The constant regurgitation of race issues is a holdover from the baby boomers. Anyone born after 1975 or so could really give a darn. Give us good players, no matter where they are from or what they look like.

[dadofandrew]

I'll take a look Greg, it was not the article SoCal linked, it was much more recent.

[Fatter than Joey]

When I was a kid (my first years following the Brewers) the most popular player by far was Sixto Lezcano (moreso than Yount at the time), the other fan favorites were Pedro Garcia (2b) and the Boomer George Scott.

 

Other Latinos I remember from the early years --

 

Bullpen anchors Eduardo Rodriguez and Billy Castro.

 

Ben Oglivie was from Panama I believe.

 

I don't remember him as a Brewer but Ellie Rodriquez was our catcher before Porter showed up.

 

Then I remember utility guys Ed Romero and Lenn Sakata coming up. I dug Lenn Sakata, that dude was some sort of flashy with the leather.