Saturnino Orestes Armas Arrieta Minoso, better known as “Minnie,” stepped to the plate as a Major Leaguer on April 19, 1949 when he was 23 (or 26*) years old. His final major league swing was taken on October 5, 1980 when he was 54.
What happened in the ensuring 31 years made Minoso a legend in Chicago, a near Hall of Famer and a bit of a sideshow which may have actually improved his chances at immortality.
Born in Cuba, Minoso began playing baseball as a cane field worker, organizing his own youth team. At 19, he talked his way onto a local and company team where he earned less than $25 a week playing for both franchises. He became a star in 1945 when he earned Rookie of the Year honors while hitting .300 for Marianao in Havana.
The following year he signed a contract with the New York Cubans of the Negro National League.
Minoso played in New York for three seasons, helping to lead the team to victory in the Negro League World Series in 1947. In 1947 and 1948, he started the Negro League East-West Game (the league’s All-Star Game) at third base. By the end of 1948, the Negro Leagues were starting to be plundered by Major League Baseball after Jackie Robinson’s successful integration of the game with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Minoso was one of those scooped up, signed by the Cleveland Indians, who had already featured the first black American Leaguer, Larry Doby.
Playing nine games in 1949, and becoming the first black Latino to play in the Majors, Minoso collected the first of his 1,963 hits on May 4. But with all his talent, he could not find his place on the team and spent much of his time in the minor leagues where he dominated. The Indians still had no room for the speedy hitter and traded him to the Chicago White Sox on April 30, 1951.
The very next day, Minoso became the first black player in Chicago White Sox history. Starting at third base and batting third, he introduced himself with authority, hitting a two-run home run in his first-ever Chicago at bat.
Minoso had found a home.
Over the next decade, he was one of the building blocks of the “Go Go Sox”, a team based on a speed and pitching. In a melancholy coincidence, Minoso was not on the team during the team’s lone World Series appearance of the ’50s, having been traded back to Cleveland in 1958 and the Sox advancing to the Fall Classic in 1959.
From his debut until the end of his first run with the Sox (1951-1957), Minoso led the league in stolen bases twice and triples three times. He also was the league leader in hit by pitch six of seven seasons. Named to the American League All-Star team five times during that period, he also finished fourth in the MVP vote twice (1953 and 1954).
After he brief sojourn to Cleveland, the White Sox, still under the ownership of Bill Veeck, who had signed Minoso originally, brought him back for the 1960 season. In his second Chicago stint, Minoso led the league in hits and hit by pitch and earned his last of three Gold Gloves. He was traded again after 1961 and played a season each for St. Louis and Washington before returning to Chicago for one last time in 1964.
Or so everyone thought.
Upon his retirement in 1964, Minoso was considered a upper-tier player but received only 1.8% of the vote in his first appearance on the Hall of Fame ballot in 1969. According to the rules governing the Hall of Fame, Minoso’s low vote total meant that he was dropped from the ballot.
All the while, Minoso continued his ball playing career by heading south to the Mexican League. He would play eight seasons, now as a slower-footed first baseman, until 1973 when he finally retired for good at the age of 48. As a 48-year-old, to be fair, he had a heck of a season, hitting .265, 12 home runs and batting in 83 runs.
Then, in 1976, Veeck had re-purchased the Chicago White Sox and offered the once nimble infielder a chance to play professional baseball in a fourth decade. At the time, only thirteen men had played in parts of four decades and the last two (Ted Williams and former White Sox pitcher Early Wynn) had not suited up since 1963. So, Minoso made history, yet again, when he returned to the field on September 1, 1976 for the White Sox. Although he went hitless in his first game, the following day he singled to left in the second inning becoming the oldest Major Leaguer to ever record a hit, two months shy of his 51st birthday. He played a final game on September 13 and hung up his cleats for the second time.
In October 1980, Veeck gave Minoso a chance to stand alone in the record books.
The now 54-year-old coach was activated for the last two days of the season allowing him to become the only modern-day five-decade player. Nick Altrock, a pitcher who debuted with the Louisville Colonels in 1898, was a pinch-hitter for the Washington Senators in 1933. Minoso went hitless in two at-bats in two games.
Note: In 1990, White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf tried to get Minoso an at bat in the final season of Comiskey Park, but baseball commissioner Fay Vincent did not think it was “in the best interest of baseball.”
As this was his, truly, final at-bat. Mr. Minoso was returned to the Hall of Fame ballot in 1986. And although his statistics had not changed, his reputation earned him slightly more popularity, finding himself on more than 20% of the ballots on two occasions. However, the Hall of Fame requires players to earn 75% of the vote to be placed among the pantheon of greats. After 1999, he was dropped from the writers’ ballot and his case for enshrinement was handed to a Veterans Committee.
In the most recent election by the committee, Minoso failed to earn induction, finding himself one vote shy of the nine needed to carry him into the Hall. It is unlikely that he will ever get in, although the Hall of Fame has an unusual, and disconcerting history, of admitting candidates after they have died and are unable to enjoy the accolades. The most recent example is Chicago Cubs third baseman Ron Santo.
But the White Sox never doubted Minoso’s greatness. They retired his jersey number, 9, in 1983 and unveiled a statue in his honor outside of U.S. Cellular Field on September 2004. Working as a White Sox coach, Minoso was, by now, a franchise legend. Similar in personality to his north side counterpart, Ernie “Mr. Cub” Banks, Minoso was often called “Mr. White Sox.” An ambassador for the sport, he was considered a mentor by even current players. White Sox shortstop Alexei Ramirez, also from Cuba, felt that Minoso was “like a father.”
Even in his “retirement”, Minoso still had a bit of the national pastime in him. The Independent League St. Paul Saints, run by Veeck’s grandson Mike, allowed Minoso’s the honor of an at-bat in 1993, when the former slugger was 67. He would ground out to the pitcher. A decade later, in his last-ever professional at-bat, Minoso walked. It must have been a sight seeing a 77-year-old man trot down the basepaths becoming, probably, the only person in baseball history with a career that spanned seven decades.
Minnie Minoso died on March 1, 2015 at the age of 90.
* There are debates about whether Mr. Minoso was born in 1925, or 1923, or 1922. Various articles have his death listed at age 89, 90 and 92. I have decided to use 1925, which is the date used by Baseball-Reference.
Sources: NY Times, Chicago Sun-Times, SABR, retrosheet.org and Wikipedia
Photo of Minnie Minoso, in 1951, his first season with the Chicago White Sox, is courtesy of notinhalloffame.com.
Other relevant posts on Obit of the Day:
Ernie Banks – “Mr. Cub” who died only five weeks before “Mr. White Sox.”
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As always, you can see more of Josh Eisenberg’s work over at Obit of the Day.