MANNY TRILLO. AN OILFIELD BRED MAJOR LEAGUE HERO Jesús “El Indio” Marcano Trillo BASEBALL ARRIVES IN VENEZUELA It is generally accepted that baseball was first played in 1839 at Cooperstown, New York, located in the northern part of the state. Later the game crossed the borders to Canada, Mexico and the neighboring islands where leagues were started. Venezuelans students attending American schools brought the game to Caracas, the capital city and an American by the name of William Phelps, owner of a department store in 1912 to Maracaibo by then a major hub of the oil industry where many Americans resided. Baseball caught on and several ballparks were built. Around the same time Venezuelan players began playing in the leagues in Mexico, Cuba and Puerto Rico. In 1939 a Venezuelan pitcher Alex Carrasquel became the first native to play major league baseball for the Washington Senators. In 1950 his nephew Chico Carrasquel became a star with the Chicago White Sox., in 1956 he was replaced by Luis Aparicio, so far the only Venezuelan to reach the Baseball Hall of Fame. Back in 1941 an important event highlighted Venezuela baseball when the National team won the World Amateur Championship in Havana beating Cuba in the final game. Upon their return home the players were welcomed as heroes at the Caracas seaport and thus baseball became Venezuela's unquestionable main sport. Years later then many Venezuelans have been active stars in most of the MLB teams. Besides Aparicio names like Vizquel, Johann Santana, Galarraga, Cabrera, Altuve and Trillo, the subject of this story. VENEZUELA'S OIL INDUSTRY Venezuela's oil boom started in 1922 with the huge blowout of the Los Barrosos well in a town near Maracaibo. It confirmed the country as oil rich and soon thereafter the largest oil companies (Shell, Standard of NJ, Mobil and Gulf) started exploration activities all over the country, from the west on the Maracaibo Basin to the eastern states Monagas and Anzoátegui. Standard was active in both fronts, with its subsidiaries Lago Petroleum in Maracaibo and SOV that later became Creole in the east. As soon as a field was discovered and reserves proven, camps were built in the nearby areas to locate workers to accommodate with their families, houses were built and also clinics, schools, grocery stores. clubs and sports parks. Most oil field camps had two camps, one for the staff personnel, foreign and local and the other one for the nonstaff workers. In the East there were several oil seeps that attracted 1 the oil companies and the presence of a huge asphalt lake (Guanoco, Sucre State) that had been in operation by an American company since 1910. Standard drilled several exploratory wells in places where the geologists had selected down dip from the seeps and following surface anticlines. In the Quiriquire Area, 25 miles south of the asphalt lake, drilling exploration started in 1922 with little success and finally on June 1, 1928 oil was found, QQ-1, in the Pliocene rocks , apparently from truncated shales of Miocene, Oligocene and Cretaceous ages. The estimated oil in place was 4-5 billion barrels of 16 API gravity and by 1962 more than one billion barrels were recovered from 533 wells. In 1944 Standard merged the two oil companies in Venezuela into one, named Creole Petroleum Corporation (Creole, for short). In 1963 this writer was hired to work for Creole as petroleum engineer and live in the Quiriquire compound, where offices and camp were located. Baseball was one of the sports activities for workers and their children and this activity was directed by a physical education teacher named Romulo Ortiz and a Junior League that served as liaison between him and management. The league was presided by the Creole medical director Dr Amilkar Torrealba. Ortiz was a good physical education instructor and his passion was baseball, he was totally dedicated to his team and worked seven days a week, taught them the baseball basics and also disciplined, if a boy was lazy he did not want him on his team. Personally as a good baseball fan I used to watch their training accompanying Dr Torrealba who invited me to join him on the board of the league. In 1967 Torrealba earned a scholarship for a Master degree and selected me to replace him as president of the league. That year, 1967, the Junior Quiriquire baseball league was filled with stars, good pitchers, infielders and outfielders and a great catcher, 16 years old, named, Jesus Marcano Trillo, the son of a worker Ismael Marcano and a nurse Trina Trillo and who was born at the Creole local hospital. Ortiz, the coach, told me more than once “all those boys are good, but, el indio Trillo (his nickname), is the best, great arm, intelligent, good hitter and very discipline). He will go very far”. He died in the late 60`s and did not live to see how right he was. In December 1967, a scout for the Philadelphia Phillips came to Quiriquire looking for prospects and he wanted to sign Jesus. Since the boy was underage, he talked to his mother, since according to the rules she had to sign the contract and it was written in English and then she called me in order to translate and advise her. It was the only baseball contract I ever read. It indicated started salary of 400 USD a month and bonus clauses if move up to the different leagues, plus a bigger bonus if he made it to the Major League. Next day the mother came to my office and by chance I asked her how he was doing in his studies and she said not very well, and that is when I told her “look Trina, the best thing for Jesus and you is that you sign that contract”, she accepted and signed it. And that is how Jesús Marcano Trillo, later known as Manny Trillo, started his brilliant baseball career. In 1968, at age 17, he went to the Phillies minor league camp, battling for a spot in any league with another barrier to learn English. Soon thereafter, and spite of his strong arm, he was considered too thin to be a catcher and was switched to third base. He was 6 ft tall and weighed 155 lb. The Phillies later traded him to Oakland where in 1973 he was at the Oakland AAA team 2 and in June was promoted to the Oakland MLB, whose third baseman was a star named Sal Bando, then they moved Manny to second base where he showed his strong arm and soon he came the best arm in both leagues. In 1976 he was traded to the Chicago Cubs where he became not only the regular second baseman, but a big star. In 1977 he played in the first of three All Star Games and he also won two silver bats, in 1980 and 1981 with the Phillies. In 1968, I was transferred from the Eastern Division where I was already a Senior Engineer to the Western Division where I developed a brilliant career into executive positions and in 1980 was promoted to Eastern Division General Manager based in Quiriquire. Therefore, Manny and I had parallel successful careers. In 1976 the oil industry was nationalized and all Creole assets were transferred to a new company called Lagoven. Going back to Trillo, in 1980, he won the MVP award in the National League Championship series where the Phillies beat the Houston Astros, he hit 381 and four RBI´s and his brilliant fielding was key for their triumph. Ortiz was right when in 1967 he said this kid will go very far, Manny left the Majors with these numbers: played 1780 games, 1600 as second base, hit over 290 for three years, he retired at the end of 1989 season to become coach and instructor in the minor leagues with several teams. In Venezuela he is considered to date the best second base player. After his great 1980 year he came to Quiriquire to visit his mom and this former president of the Junior League was the Lagoven Division manager and had the pleasure and honor to award him a plaque for his achievements in the Majors, he was the same nice kid, humble and proud of his origins. He is now a youthful, 68, his hair is almost all black, he is a good golf player and shares his time between Maracaibo and Florida. One last comment about Manny. He also played in the Venezuela Summer League, starting with the Caracas Lions as a catcher. Afterwards as a second baseman was traded to Aguilas del Zulia based in Maracaibo, where he became a local star and hero, made it his second home, off the field married a local lady, had two children that later were educated in the USA. Manny has two homes Orlando and Maracaibo and visits his family in Maturin. A good father and brother as he also was a good son. Quiriquire, Maturin, Maracaibo and Venezuela are proud of him as well as Latin America who enshrined him to the Caribbean Hall of Fame. An excellent citizen on and off the baseball field. Great example for the youth everywhere 3 Caracas, 8 de enero de 2019 Arnaldo Salazar R. 4 .