All-Time Indians: Minnie Minoso

Systematic racism is never fair, but in professional baseball it wasn’t even consistent. In particular, Cuban players could play in the Major Leagues during the segregation years, but only if they could pass as white. The first were in 1911 and Mike Gonzalez, who debuted in 1912, went on to have a pretty successful 17 year career. Other players were not so lucky.

For those Cuban born players with a darker complexion, it was the Negro Leagues or nothing and this is how Minnie Minoso began his professional career in 1946. At 20 years old, he played for the New York Cubans in limited action, then was more of a regular in 1947. In a way, Minoso was lucky as many of his predecessors never got a chance to play in the Majors simply because of their skin color, but after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier by signing with the Dodgers in 1946, then Larry Doby did the same with the Indians in the American League in 1947 an opportunity for players from all backgrounds to play in the Majors opened up.

The Indians, lead by Bill Veeck, were one of the first teams to take advantage of this new source of players and brought in not just Doby, but Satchel Paige in 1948 and many other former Negro League players in the following seasons including Luke Easter, Al Smith and Sam Jones. Scouted by Abe Saperstein, the Indians signed Minoso late in 1948 and sent him to Dayton while the Major League squad was on their way to the World Series.

Minoso broke with the club to start the season in 1949, becoming the team’s first Cuban born player, but the trial wouldn’t last long. For a team coming off a World Series victory, a .188 average with no power or speed wasn’t going to cut it and he played just nine games in 1949. The majority of the season was instead spent in AAA San Diego, as was all of 1950 when he simply crushed everything he saw. This was enough to get him a second chance in 1951, but at first base instead of his normal out field position and after eight games he was traded to Chicago.

In exchange, the Indians returned only Lou Brissie for the Philadelphia A’s, a decent left handed pitcher who would have two good seasons before retiring after a poor start in 1953. The Sox lost a great player in Dave Philley to the Athletics as well as Gus Zernial and the Indians also sent Ray Murray and Sam Zoldak to Philadelphia. What Chicago got back was the 4th place finisher in the AL MVP race, an All-Star and second place finisher in the Rookie of the Year race who would star for their team for years to come. Minoso ultimately lead the AL in triples and steals in 1951, finishing behind Gil McDougald for top rookie and Yogi Berra for MVP while former Negro Leaguers took over the NL awards as Willie Mays won Rookie of the Year and Roy Campanella MVP (Monte Irvin and Jackie Robinson also finished in the top six). Minoso held the honor of becoming the first black player in White Sox history.

In his next six seasons with Chicago, Minoso would finish fourth in MVP voting two more times and go to the All-Star game four more times. Playing left field in 1957, he would win his first of three Gold Gloves while finishing 8th in MVP voting.

Now that Minoso had more than established himself, the Indians wanted him back and they sent quite the haul to Chicago to do so as Hall of Famer Early Wynn and the aforementioned Al Smith went West with Minoso and Fred Whitfield returning. Unfortunately, this deal may have been even worse than the first one. Hatfield would play only three games in Cleveland while Smith would go to his second All-Star game and play nearly 700 games for the White Sox and Wynn would have three more All-Star seasons including a Cy Young victory in 1959.

This is not a knock on Minoso, however, as he played at an incredible level over the next two seasons, batting .302 each year with 57 doubles and 45 home runs across the two seasons. He won his second of three Gold Gloves in 1958, again playing in left field and went to the All-Star Game again that season as well. As odd of a talent getting hit by pitches is, Minoso had it and he lead the league in both seasons in his return to Cleveland as well as every other year between 1951 and 1961 with the exception of 1955.

Coming off two of the best seasons in his career and a 12th place MVP finish in 1958, Frank “Trader” Lane could never leave well enough alone and Minoso was traded again. This time, it took Minoso, Dick Brown, Don Ferrarese and Jake Striker to bring back Norm Cash, Bubba Phillips and John Romano from Chicago. This trade should have been a steal. Only Minoso was a legitimate player that went to the White Sox and Striker would pitch in just two more Major League games. On the other side, the Indians would get Cash, who would play over 2,000 more games in his MLB career, go to four All-Star games and hit near 500 home runs before his career ended. However, the franchise ruiner Frank Lane didn’t allow Cash to play a single game in an Indians uniform, trading him just before the 1960 to Detroit for Steve Demeter. Demeter played a total of four more Major League games and didn’t get a hit making this deal essentially the worst in franchise history, far worse than Rocky Colavito for Harvey Kuenn, just not as talked about because Cash never played in Cleveland.

Minoso would continue his legacy, however, with a great season in Chicago in 1960, then partial seasons in St. Louis and Washington before going back to Chicago in 1964. This is where Minoso’s most famous feat came into being. Not being able to keep up with Major Leagues anymore, he went to Mexico where he played each season from 1965 through 1973 when he was 47. In a publicity stunt, he was signed by the White Sox again in 1976 and played in three games, going 1 for 8 as a 50 year old. This gave him games played in four different decades, a Major League record, but he wouldn’t stop there as the Sox signed him again in 1980 and used him as a pinch hitter twice (he went 0 for 2) at the age of 54. They attempted to do the same a decade later to give him six, but Major League Baseball wouldn’t allow it.

Minnie Minoso may not be an “All-Time Indian” per se as he only had two great seasons with the team, but he should be a Hall of Famer (peaked at 21% in 1986) and is a great story. The Indians were smart enough to sign him initially, but too short sighted to keep him around, then lost out on the final years of two other great players to bring him back. Finally, they made the right move in trading him away a second time when the opportunity to secure a future franchise player appeared, but they squandered that away for nothing as well.