Dec. 18--Cuba's most touching tribute to one of its greatest baseball ambassadors hangs alone on a living-room wall, a large framed painting that pays homage to the man who meant so much to the game here and in the major leagues.
"Saturnino Orestes Arrieta Armas Minoso," a neighbor said, nodding at the artwork.
Chicago knew and loved him as Minnie.
Inside the house Minoso built in 1955, the portrait shows good ol' No. 9 in a white pinstriped White Sox jersey and black hat, gripping a bat in his familiar stance and wearing a mask of intensity that practically dares the pitcher to hit him. The look on Minoso's face is as distinct as the painter's signature in the corner: O. Breide.
Juana Santa Cruz Madrigal, the granddaughter of Minoso's sister who has lived at the address for years, displays only one other piece of Minnie memorabilia in the modest family dwelling -- a much smaller photo of Minoso grinning in an Indians jersey April 19, 1949, when he became baseball's first black Latino player.
"Always smiling," Juana said of her great uncle, who died last March at 90. "Always ... proud."
While the Major League Baseball tour made its way Thursday to Matanzas for a clinic for Cuban kids, I went in search of Minoso's home. And found it, thanks to good directions from Minoso's family in Chicago, a pleasantly persistent cab driver and helpful neighbors.
After a 15-minute ride from the heart of downtown to Playa, the city's northwestern borough, our cab turned down Calle 78 -- think 78th Street. In the middle of this morning, the residential road was busy with men pushing carts full of fruits and vegetables for sale, workers hurrying to their jobs and stray dogs sniffing every stranger. A boxy pastel green bungalow, house No. 1708, sat behind some trees and next to a pollo shack. That's where Juana works.
A guy in a Dodgers hat stopped on the sidewalk to ask about the commotion.
"You here for Minoso?" he asked, noticing the MLB credential. A small crowd of about 10 men gathered in the small driveway, awaiting whatever came next.
Yes, we were here for Minoso.
Nobody answered the first several knocks at the door. When nothing changed after five minutes, Rene the cab driver went around the back entrance to knock. The noise startled the next-door neighbor's two miniature dachshunds, whose barking brought their owner onto Juana's front porch. The neighbor, Finita Perez, a kind woman who offered to help, knew Juana was home and started pounding on the windows.
Rustled out of her sleep, Juana finally answered the front door and invited her American visitor inside.
"For (Minnie) I will talk ... you can stay," she said through Perez, who learned English at the age of 70 and translated. "He loved beisbol."
Juana just nodded knowingly when told how beloved Minoso became in Chicago. How he was eulogized at his funeral nine months ago as the "Latino Jackie Robinson" for breaking his own color barriers. How the Cuban players returning to their home country this week, including Jose Abreu and Alexei Ramirez, who knew Minoso well from their days with the White Sox, owed a debt of gratitude to her great uncle. How people in Cuba still consider Minoso a hero.
Or do they?
"Si, he is," Juana nodded.
Guys such as Ismael Sene continue to do whatever they can to make sure of it.
Sene, one of Cuba's foremost baseball historians, passionately speaks about Minoso like he is still upset he lost the 1951 American League Rookie of the Year Award to Yankees infielder Gil McDougald. He still can rattle off the vital statistics of "The Cuban Comet": In 17 seasons in the majors after playing for the New York Cubans in the Negro leagues, Minoso was a seven-time All-Star who hit .298 in his career and won three Gold Gloves.
Unless you have time, don't even get Sene started on Minnie's omission from the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, the last denial three months before his death when Minoso failed to receive the necessary votes from the 16-member Golden Era Committee.
"I had an opportunity to see him play in 1955, the Orioles and White Sox at Comiskey Park," said Sene, 78. "He was the biggest star. (Luis) Aparicio is in Cooperstown but Minnie isn't there. Why? He should be too. When Roberto Clemente came to the big leagues (in 1955), Minnie already had been to (four) All-Star games. He was the first Latin-American player. He was the most important."
Something in Sene's memory triggered laughter.
"When Minoso hit the ball, the ball did the 'Cha, cha cha,' and they had a song called "Minoso At Bat," that used to play on the radio in Cuba, the cha, cha, cha," Sene said. "We want the young people to know those things, to know who Minoso was. We want people to know and love him here as much as they do in Chicago."
The way Abreu and Ramirez, who considered Minoso a father figure, respected Minnie every day he showed up at 35th and Shields. The way Cubans kids such as future MLB stars Luis Tiant and Tony Perez considered Minoso an idol growing up in the same country he did.
With that goal in mind, Sene joined a group of 13 historians, journalists and academics who resurrected the Cuban Baseball Hall of Fame last year after it had been closed for more than 50 years -- another sign of the changing times in a country that finds itself in flux. Maybe that will help Cuban hall supporters find a site and financial support, maybe not. Wherever it is acknowledged, Minoso always will belong to the group of the first five players inducted Dec. 28, 2014 at the Serie Nacionale.
"We have tried to restore his legacy here," Sene said. "When people think of baseball, we want them to think of Minnie."
The same way people do the instant they walk through the front door Minoso once did and see his image staring back.
dhaugh@tribpub.com
