Category: San Francisco Giants

That’s Amaury News and Commentary

The government controlled system in Cuba has taken it’s toll on baseball in that, the largest island in the Caribbean. Cuba was the first Latin American country to have a player in the United States organized leagues.

Esteban Bellán was the first Cuban and the first Latin American to play major league baseball. Bellán, who after playing in the United States, became one of Cuba’s first great baseball player-managers, learned how to play the game while he was a student at Fordham University from 1863-1868.

During his time at Fordham, Bellán played for the newly created Fordham Rose Hill Baseball Club. Founded in the late 1850’s, the Fordham Rose Hill’s played the first ever nine-man team college baseball game in the United States against St. Francis Xavier College on November 3, 1859.

In 1869 Bellán joined the Troy Haymakers for whom he played third base until 1872. In 1871 the Haymakers joined the National Association, which became the National League in 1876. The Haymakers later became the New York Giants, now the San Francisco Giants.

Cuba has been a pioneer in baseball in Latin America, since the 1800’s. In Cuba even under bad government dictatorships, baseball always thrived, When the Castro-Communist revolution took over Cuba, and announced in 1961 that they were banning all professional sports in the island, baseball was among those, and now over a half century later, it is obvious that Cuba is suffering.

After the Cuban team was eliminated recently in the Caribbean World Series, in Margarita Island, Venezuela, (tournament was won by México, for the second year in a row), a lot of baseball experts have noticed that Cuban baseball is not at par with the other countries in the region.

A lot has to do with poor equipment, practice and regular baseball diamonds. In today’s regular Cuban league, when a foul ball goes into the stands, the fans have to throw the ball back. That by itself, should give you an idea of the situation. This is even during their national championship games.

Many players have defected and continue to do so, here in the Bay Area talented Athletics slugger Yoenis Céspedes was one of them. Maybe the most talented player, pound-for-pound on the A’s, he was lucky, he got to finally bring his family to the United States.

It is not easy for a Cuban player who defects, especially if he does it by himself, and leaves his family behind in Cuba, the government will make his family life “very uncomfortable”, in a country where their own citizens do not have the freedom to travel in and out of the island, unless they have special authorization from the government.

Musicians, athletes and public figures usually get that authorization. In the case of Cuban baseball players, they usually travel all-together as a team, with coaches and government representatives, that make sure they are all accounted for at the hotel where they stay, before and after a game, still many find a way to leave their teams when they are outside of Cuba and ask for political exile.

Others, just take the huge risk of escaping Cuba in homemade rafts and head north, searching for freedom. But it is not only athletes. Amnesty International, still list Cuba as one of the world biggest human rights violators.

On March 17, 2013,seven members of the Cuban National Ballet defected to the U.S. and Mexico while on tour with their dance company.

The dancers traveled to Mexico on March 17 during the beginning of the company’s international tour. It was there that they apparently decided to flee, and six out of the seven members went on to cross the U.S.-Mexico border near Texas, and since then they were granted for political asylum. Such is life in the island once called “The Pearl of the Antilles”.

Like Walter Cronkite used to say: “and that’s the way it is”.

Amaury Pi Gonzalez is the Spanish radio voice for Oakland A’s baseball and does News and Commentary each week for Sportstalk

That’s Amaury’s News and Commentary

It’s commendable is the word that some Major Leaguers including former San Francisco Giant Jeff Kent’s whose caliber and whose name has been mentioned for the Hall of Fame there are guys in baseball who make money but Kent is doing it for the love of the game. He’s coaching college baseball and he’s getting a nominal fee nothing like the mnoney he made in the show.

Yes, you can not compare Kent’s coaching baseball in college to being in the big leagues and contracts such as they are today. I applaude Kent and he’s committed to the game of baseball. He loves the game he’s an on and off guy with the media when he was with the Giants and I was there covering the team for their Spanish radio broadcasts when he was there.

If former Giant Barry Bonds sat in one area of the clubhouse Kent would sit farthest away from Bonds, they didn’t get along we all knew that but they were great players. Bonds with the streroid controversey, Kent never had that problem by the way Kent was a very good player, he was an excellent player. Kent started out as a third baseman with the Mets. He wound up playing second base for the Giants and now today he coaches college baseball at Southwestern University.

Brandon Arroyo was signed to a $23 million deal with the Arizona Diamondbacks, we talked about the amount of money that these players make in Major League Baseball and God bless them I don’t envy them, their great athletes but here’s a typical example, Arroyo is going to be 37 in two weeks he pitches over 200 innings a year and he got such a large contract.

This reminds me when you go to a car dealer and you love that car and you say “thats a nice car” and then you check with the salesman who says “well Mr.Gonzalez this has over 25,000 miles on it already” but it’s a good car, it’s going to go over 100,000 miles” and I would say “how do you know that.”

However with Arroyo he has a very good track record, he’s never been hurt for a prolonged time, he throws 200 innings per year, it’s a risk and you take a risk. It’s a big investment, the Diamondbacks again are loaded with talent and their going to be there. ESPN has picked the Dodgers to finish first and the Diamondbacks maybe close to the Dodgers and the Giants will finish in third place.

So Arroyo is joining the Diamondbacks pitching staff and their getting loaded with talent and Arroyo was a good acquistion. The money surprises me but then now that’s the way it is. Arroyo signed a huge deal for two years with the D-Backs for $23.5 million.

Amaury Pi Gonzalez is the Spanish radio voice for A’s baseball and does News and Commentary each week for Sportstalk radio

That’s Amaury’s News and Commentary

A-Rod was suspended by an arbitrator for the 2014 season without pay, the whole season, and the playoffs (if the Yankees make it that far) The suspension will cost Rodriguez all of the $25 million the Yankees were obligated to pay him for the 2014 season.

But when the suspension ends, Rodriguez will still be owed $61 million through a contract that runs through 2017. Rodriguez will have an incentive to find a way to keep playing. Next July Rodríguez will turn 39.

That means his “comeback” from the game will be around 40. He said he will appeal the 2014 suspension in Federal court, but very rarely in this case an arbitrator’s ruling is overturned. To refresh our collective memories; Barry Bonds hit 73 home runs in the 2001 season at the age of 41. Both A-Rod and Bonds(together with Roger Clemens) are the biggest baseball stars to date to be accused of using steroids and other illegal substances.

Commissioner Selig is retiring following the 2014 season. Under Bud H. Selig’s reign as commissioner, Major League Baseball revenues have skyrocketed to unprecedented levels, television contracts in the billions of dollars, mediocre players, receiving very lucrative deals, but amid all this bonanza, he will also be the Steroids Era Commissioner in history forever. Bud Selig made money for his fellow owners, no doubt about that.

Common sense tells me, that Selig wants to leave the game and retire without Alex Rodriguez playing on the field. You might called a vendetta (ala Commissioner Bart Giamatti and Pete Rose, years ago)or you might say, that it is a coincidence that both A-Rod and Selig would be leaving the game at the same time, I am not a fan of conspiracies, but this one will always be talked about through out history.

Amaury Pi Gonzalez is the vice president for the Major League Baseball Hispanic Heritage Museum and does News and Commentary for Sportstalk radio

Thats Amaury’s News and Commentary

OAKLAND–Some say that most people do not really get what they deserve in life. That is not the case for these three men that were elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame Museum in Cooperstown, in this class of 2014, the greatest Hall of Fame in sports.

The three not only had great numbers, (that helps) and very long careers, but are men of quality and good role models. Any sports reporter, writer, broadcaster, that covered these guys know they are the cream of the crop.

Gregg Maddux won 355 games, that is the eight highest total of wins for a pitcher in Major League history. Tom Glavine won 305, the fourth highest for a left handed pitcher.

Frank Thomas, a first baseman at the beginning of his career, and a designated hitter the remainder of the way, batted for .301 hit a total of 521 home runs and drove in 1,704 (one thousand-seven-hundred-four)runs in a productive19 year career.

There are many other numbers I am not even mentioning here for these three new members of The Hall of Fame. Thomas, after getting the good news, said he thought he was not going to get in, because he is mostly known as a designated hitter, but he is a first baseman and that teams wanted his bat in the lineup as he got older.

Maddux and Glavine where the first two pitchers to be elected together since Walter Johnson and Christy Mathewson in the first class of 1939, in that pioneering class,together with Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb and Honus Wagner.

Covering these three guys that on July 27 will be officially inducted into Cooperstown, I found not only great class, and professionalism,but the greatest dedication to the game. I called games in which Greg Maddux would throw 87 pitches and finish a game in 2 hours and 12 minutes, that friends, you do not see today.

There are starters that throw 30-40 pitches in one inning today. For me, during the years I have been covering baseball, I do not remember a smarter pitcher with more control that Maddux,who never had great speed on his pitches, but could throw the ball through the eye of a needle.

When I first got started in this business, I remember Jim”Catfish”Hunter, of the Oakland A’s, and later of the NY Yankees, he also had that great mastery of the strike zone, and for some reason I refer to him because of that, although he never attained the great numbers like Maddux.

When I was doing the Giants Spanish radio broadcast, I once asked outfielder Stan Javier. of the Giants, about Maddux: “yes, he doesn’t throw that hard, but his pitches have great movement, and he thinks like the hitter, that is why he is so good” Maddux pitched for 23 years, won 20 or more in two seasons, but between 1988 and 2006 he won 15 or more games, and ended up with a 3.16 earned run average.

Tom Glavine was like a lefty Maddux, because he was not a flame thrower, but could fool the best hitters. He pitched for 22 years, and five times won 20 or more games, and had an earned run average of 3.54. Both were teammates for years on the same Atlanta Braves team, which by coincidence will also have their skipper Bobby Cox, inducted this July.

Frank Thomas who originally went to Auburn to play football, but that school was 3 and 4 deep in football positions, took the advice of a coach who told him he should try baseball, Thomas, a smart man, took the advice.

The years Thomas played for the Oakland Athletics, he was always the ultimate professional. Sometimes he didn’t have the time for an interview or two, because he always follow a steady routine, since he arrived in the clubhouse.

The man worked as hard as anybody, aside from that, God gave him a monster of a body,(6’5″, 240) and is known by many by the nickname, of “The Big Hurt”. And he could do that, some of his home runs still have not landed, I remember a few at the Oakland Coliseum that even after I saw it on the television replay, I could still not believe.

For those older baseball fans, Thomas could hit the ball as high, far and deep as Richie Allen. Frank Thomas never ever was even rumored of taking steroids, Thomas was big as a rookie and big as a veteran, (we cannot say the same for other guys in this game during the past 15 years )his career was as clean as the brand new Chicago White Sox uniform that’s going on display soon at Cooperstown; the same can also be said about Maddux and Glavine.

Amaury Pi Gonzalez is the vice president of the Major League Baseball Hispanic Museum and does News and Commentary each week