November 2015 John M

California State University, San Bernardino CSUSB ScholarWorks Latino Baseball History Project Newsletter John M. Pfau Library 11-2015 November 2015 John M. Pfau Library Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/lbhp Part of the Sports Studies Commons Recommended Citation John M. Pfau Library, "November 2015" (2015). Latino Baseball History Project Newsletter. Paper 11. http://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/lbhp/11 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the John M. Pfau Library at CSUSB ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Latino Baseball History Project Newsletter by an authorized administrator of CSUSB ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. NOV. 2015 VOLUME 5 / ISSUE 1 LATINO BASEBALL HISTORY PROJECT: N E W S L E T T E R THE LATINO BASEBALL HISTORY PROJECT ANNOUNCES THE RELEASE OF ITS 7TH BOOK: MEXICAN AMERICAN BASEBALL IN THE SAN FERNANDO VALLEY The Latino Baseball History Project ringing their cars around the fi eld of play to form a makeshift is proud to announce the release outfi eld barrier or packed the grandstands of professional of its seventh book, Mexican quality baseball fi elds. Furthermore, Mexican Americans American Baseball in the San played alongside white, black and Japanese Americans. Fernando Valley on Oct. 19, 2015. The San Fernando Extensive travel to central California and into Mexico allowed Valley is located north of players to network with other regions. Games between the Los Angeles Basin, San Fernando Valley and visiting Mexican teams acted surrounded by the Santa as important diplomatic events, at times bringing together Susana, Santa Monica, San politicians such as the Los Angeles Mexican consul and Gabriel, and Verdugo California governor. mountain ranges. The region began as a handful of sleepy Baseball and softball agricultural towns that has exploded into one were central to numerous of the most famous suburbs in America, containing over Mexican American families. 1.8 million residents. Mexicans hold a storied presence in It was not unusual for all the area dating long before statehood in 1850, when they members of a family to owned vast ranchlands across the valley. By the early participate on teams. These 20th century, thousands of Mexicans from the southwest athletic families promoted and Mexico joined longtime Mexican Californians to form female participation in vibrant neighborhoods in the few valley towns. Many sports that transcended Pitch’m Fast Pauly.......Pg 2 worked on the citrus orchards, packinghouses, ranches, and gender norms of the time railroads, while others started companies in the construction, and established baseball More On The Art...........Pg 4 transportation, produce, and disposal industries. The and softball traditions Mexican American population was vital to the early that have lasted multiple Latino Baseball History agricultural and industrial growth of the San Fernando Valley. generations. Their Project Goes National..Pg 5 descendants continue their Mexican American communities in the valley were linked legacy today, competing in A Young Man’s Baseball through family ties, occupations, and social activities such youth, high school, college Journey.........................Pg 6 as jamaicas and sports. They lived in an incredibly tight-knit and professional leagues. environment where everybody knew everybody. Mexican Project News.................Pg7 Americans played baseball in the San Fernando Valley since the late 19th century. Through baseball and softball games, Mexican American Baseball different barrios maintained connections with each other. in the San Fernando On weekends, both men’s and women’s games attracted Valley explores the teams hundreds of spectators. They gathered at vacant lots, Continued on Page 5 Latino Baseball History Project • 5500 University Parkway, San Bernardino 92407 • www.lib.csusb.edu/SpecialCollections Page 1 NOV. 2015 VOLUME 5 / ISSUE 1 “Pitch’m Fast Pauly” …. The Mexican American Fast-pitch Softball Leagues By Genovevo Teodoro (Gene T.) Chávez Ortíz, Ed.D. teams, but the segregation of public accommodations e passion and enthusiasm for baseball in Mexico runs was a strong deterrent to integrated team play. Mexican deep and reaches back to the late 1800s. e Mexican Americans began to form their own baseball leagues. After the war, many Mexican American GIs were attracted to fast pitch softball. It was very competitive, but easier to play and t into their community lives as they endeavored to reintegrate into the American mainstream while still maintaining their Latino identity. Wherever Mexican immigrants were recruited into labor intensive jobs in the 1920s, 30s, and 40s, (agricultural work, railroad track building and maintenance, mining, smelter work, steel milling, and meat packing, to name a few), families permanently settled in communities where housing was provided by the employer. Later, they either rented or built homes in areas near their Railways Ice Company Mexican American jobs. ese communities maintained a strong sense of Baseball Team, Argentine, Kansas, 1940 ethnic identity and pride. Since there were still remnants of discrimination after the war, the Mexican American Baseball League (MBL) was formed in 1925 and is classi ed as AAA Baseball. e MBL however is not a part of the USA Major League farm club system. Given the persistent stereotyping and discrimination often encountered by Mexican immigrants, alternative and parallel leagues were formed by Mexicans immigrants and their United States born children to pursue America’s favorite sport. e United States has had and continues to have a love/hate relationship with Mexico. at relationship is re ected in the development of Mexican American baseball and fast-pitch softball leagues. Richard Santillan wrote, “Sports have been a major presence Kansas City, Kansas Stateline Locos, 1948 in the lives of Mexican Americans since the early 20th century. is has been particularly true of Mexican Americans in the Midwest, where sports such as baseball fast pitch softball leagues gave these communities and took on a special signi cance. More than merely games opportunity to unite around a favorite pastime and build for boys and girls, the teams and contests involved a strong sense of unity. nearly the entire community, and often had political and e communities of Argentine, Amourdale, Rosedale, cultural objectives...” (Feb. 16, 2001, an article published and the Bottoms, all in Wyandotte County, Kansas, in Vol. 7 of Perspectives in Mexican American Studies). were places that drew Mexican workers and their ose political and cultural objectives evolved to provide families. Kansas, like many other states in the Midwest, a sense of community solidarity, develop leadership, experienced a great in ux of Mexican families largely due and strengthen ethnic identity. In pre-World War II to the Mexican Revolution that raged in Mexico from America, large numbers of baseball teams were formed 1910 to 1921. By 1910, 500,000 Mexican had crossed and facilitated by companies to promote company name the international border to work mostly in Southwestern recognition and to build rapport among their employees. states primarily in agriculture and mining. By 1930, Many companies lent support to Mexican American the number of Mexican workers had grown to over 1.5 Latino Baseball History Project • 5500 University Parkway, San Bernardino 92407 • www.lib.csusb.edu/SpecialCollections Page 2 NOV. 2015 VOLUME 5 / ISSUE 1 million. Many of those workers were recruited by railroad companies, and the meat packing industries in Midwestern states. In Kansas, Union Paci c, Santa Fe, and Burlington Northern employed Mexicans to build and maintain the tracks, work as mechanics, and work in the ice plants for iced boxcars. ese workers settled in town and cities all along the railroad lines. Some of those cities were included Wichita, Chanute, Emporia, Newton, Hutchinson, Florence and westward to Dodge City, Garden City, and Ulysses. Mexican workers across the state obtained work in the slaughter houses and meatpacking plants of Wilson, Swift, Cudahy, and the Armour Meat Packing Company. ese workers established residence around the meatpacking companies and raised their families in communities like the Argentine district and Armourdale, both in Kansas City, Kansas. It was in these communities that Mexican families engaged in hard labor, but found time for family, friends, and entertainment. One form of entertainment is highlighted in a KCUR- FM Radio 89.3 program titled, “How Mexican-Americans In Kansas Built A Community Around Softball” by Zack Lewandowski. In the broadcast, Lewandowski asserts that “During the early 20th century, Mexican Americans began migrating heavily into the Midwest, especially Kansas and parts of Missouri because of work on railroads like the Santa Fe. Projects were created to assimilate Mexican Americans to the United States’ culture, and a key component was baseball.” Lewandowski continues,“It was a process that intrigued Kansas University professor Ben Chappell. He says the projects were intended to strip Mexican Americans of their ‘distinctive ethnic identities’, but that’s not what happened. e sport became a community institution that people could invest with their own local identities, says Chappell. ey were playing for the neighborhoods sometimes. So it really became their own institution. Even though Mexican Americans taught baseball, they often weren’t allowed to play with

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