he could not stop his legs from shaking. He batted four times and failed to get a single hit; he even made an error at third base. This was the official debut of Dominican Major League Baseball.
There was not a great public reaction to the first Dominican—at least not to his nationality. Everyone was too preoccupied with his skin color—especially in 1958, when Virgil was traded to the Detroit Tigers. The Detroit Free Press reported the trade with the headline “Tigers Call Up First Negro,” and on the day of his first game another page-one headline announced, “Tigers’ First Negro to Play 3rd Tonight.” The Detroit News front-page story ran with the headline “Tigers’ Decision to Play Negro Hailed by Race.” Suddenly a man too light to be considered black in his native land was a symbol of racial integration in America. His historic significance as the first Dominican player was almost completely forgotten, despite the fact that at the time the major leagues had forty-six black players and no Dominicans but him. At that point the Tigers were the only major-league club other than the Red Sox that had not integrated, and so his race was the single most important fact about him. A June 9, 1958, editorial in the Free Press began “The Tigers now includes a Negro” and misspelled his name. The same paper thirty-nine years later ran a profile that revealed, “Ozzie Virgil doesn’t think of himself in terms of black and white.”
But even though Virgil was willing to accept his role in Detroit as a black icon, American blacks did not see him as one of their own. “They thought of me more as a Dominican Republic player instead of a Negro,” he once complained to the Detroit Free Press .
The same year that Virgil started, the next Dominican, Felipe Alou, came to the U.S. to play minor-league baseball. His name was actually Felipe Rojas Alou. He went by the surname of Rojas Alou, with the traditional use of the father’s name first, but the scout who recruited him did not understand the Spanish custom with names and assumed that Alou, his mother’s name, was his last name and Rojas was simply a middle name. All the Rojas boys—Felipe, his brothers Matty and Jesús, and Felipe’s son, Moisés, all major leaguers—changed their name rather than contradict the Americans. In 1992, Felipe Alou became manager of the Montreal Expos, the first Latino manager in Major League Baseball.
But it was Ozzie Virgil who had led the way. Juan Marichal, one of the first five Dominican major leaguers and the only Dominican in the Hall of Fame as of 2009, has said that in the Dominican Republic he never thought about playing in the major leagues until Ozzie Virgil started playing for the Giants.
In 2006, when ten percent of major-league players were Dominican, a reporter from The Miami Herald asked José Reyes, the young Dominican shortstop for the Mets, about Ozzie Virgil, the first Dominican to play in the majors. Reyes did not know who Virgil was.
D ominicans only very slowly started being signed with Major League Baseball. After Virgil in 1956 came Felipe Alou in 1958, then his brother Matty in 1960. Julián Javier, a sure-handed infielder and swift baserunner, debuted with the St. Louis Cardinals in 1960. Also in 1960, Diomedes Olivo started pitching for the Pittsburgh Pirates at the age of fourteen. In 1961 his brother Chi-Chi started pitching for the Braves. Rudy Hernández, a pitcher who spent most of his career in the minors, was called up and pitched twenty-one games for the Washington Senators, also in 1960. The first Dominicans—Virgil, the Alous, the Olivos, Marichal—were all from small towns. The only exception was Hernández, who was from Santiago. Four out of the first seven were pitchers. None of the seven were from San Pedro. The first were found in places where the first Dominican scouts knew to look, such as the Pan American Games and the military teams built up by the Trujillo regime. Virgil was
There was not a great public reaction to the first Dominican—at least not to his nationality. Everyone was too preoccupied with his skin color—especially in 1958, when Virgil was traded to the Detroit Tigers. The Detroit Free Press reported the trade with the headline “Tigers Call Up First Negro,” and on the day of his first game another page-one headline announced, “Tigers’ First Negro to Play 3rd Tonight.” The Detroit News front-page story ran with the headline “Tigers’ Decision to Play Negro Hailed by Race.” Suddenly a man too light to be considered black in his native land was a symbol of racial integration in America. His historic significance as the first Dominican player was almost completely forgotten, despite the fact that at the time the major leagues had forty-six black players and no Dominicans but him. At that point the Tigers were the only major-league club other than the Red Sox that had not integrated, and so his race was the single most important fact about him. A June 9, 1958, editorial in the Free Press began “The Tigers now includes a Negro” and misspelled his name. The same paper thirty-nine years later ran a profile that revealed, “Ozzie Virgil doesn’t think of himself in terms of black and white.”
But even though Virgil was willing to accept his role in Detroit as a black icon, American blacks did not see him as one of their own. “They thought of me more as a Dominican Republic player instead of a Negro,” he once complained to the Detroit Free Press .
The same year that Virgil started, the next Dominican, Felipe Alou, came to the U.S. to play minor-league baseball. His name was actually Felipe Rojas Alou. He went by the surname of Rojas Alou, with the traditional use of the father’s name first, but the scout who recruited him did not understand the Spanish custom with names and assumed that Alou, his mother’s name, was his last name and Rojas was simply a middle name. All the Rojas boys—Felipe, his brothers Matty and Jesús, and Felipe’s son, Moisés, all major leaguers—changed their name rather than contradict the Americans. In 1992, Felipe Alou became manager of the Montreal Expos, the first Latino manager in Major League Baseball.
But it was Ozzie Virgil who had led the way. Juan Marichal, one of the first five Dominican major leaguers and the only Dominican in the Hall of Fame as of 2009, has said that in the Dominican Republic he never thought about playing in the major leagues until Ozzie Virgil started playing for the Giants.
In 2006, when ten percent of major-league players were Dominican, a reporter from The Miami Herald asked José Reyes, the young Dominican shortstop for the Mets, about Ozzie Virgil, the first Dominican to play in the majors. Reyes did not know who Virgil was.
D ominicans only very slowly started being signed with Major League Baseball. After Virgil in 1956 came Felipe Alou in 1958, then his brother Matty in 1960. Julián Javier, a sure-handed infielder and swift baserunner, debuted with the St. Louis Cardinals in 1960. Also in 1960, Diomedes Olivo started pitching for the Pittsburgh Pirates at the age of fourteen. In 1961 his brother Chi-Chi started pitching for the Braves. Rudy Hernández, a pitcher who spent most of his career in the minors, was called up and pitched twenty-one games for the Washington Senators, also in 1960. The first Dominicans—Virgil, the Alous, the Olivos, Marichal—were all from small towns. The only exception was Hernández, who was from Santiago. Four out of the first seven were pitchers. None of the seven were from San Pedro. The first were found in places where the first Dominican scouts knew to look, such as the Pan American Games and the military teams built up by the Trujillo regime. Virgil was
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