Viva baseball! : Latin major leaguers and their special hunger / Samuel O. Regalado.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [207]-216) and index.

That special hunger -- Beginnings -- Béisbol in El Norte -- In las grandes ligas -- What kind of country is this? -- Strangers in the land -- Nobody cares about us -- Pepper blood -- Adios amigo Roberto -- Fernandomania -- The spirit of the Latin.

Lively and anecdotal, Viva Baseball! chronicles the struggles of Latin American professional baseball players in the United States from the late 1800s to the present. Even as "Fernandomania" raged in 1981, most Latin players felt lonely, shunned, and forgotten. Samuel Regalado reveals the shocking racism faced by these immigrant athletes in a white culture. Only a burning desire to succeed and a grim determination to leave behind the grinding poverty of their homelands could have driven these men to continue in the face of overwhelming hostility. In addition to mining the National Baseball Library in Cooperstown, New York and the Sporting News archives, Regalado conducted interviews with some twenty-five Latin baseball stars, among them Felipe Alou, Orlando Cepeda, and Tony Oliva. Regalado, a nephew of former major leaguer Rudy Regalado, has fashioned a readable and revealing book that will appeal to sport, social, and cultural historians, those seeking new perspectives on Hispanic studies, and baseball buffs. www.alibris.com