Please indulge us a for a few minutes, since we have some exciting news to share. This weekend, our show will be all about béisbol (or pelota, if you’re old-school caribeño like me). Our producer Michael Simon Johnson was featured in Sunday’s Daily News, where he gave listeners just a taste of why he and the team decided to dedicate an entire hour to the national pastime and the sport’s Latino influences. As I write this, I can barely contain my giddiness in what we will be sharing with you in a few days. That’s the reason why I took to Twitter earlier today and made this very simple request:
So this weekend @LatinoUSA is doing a show about BÉISBOL. To get the convo started, tweet me your top 5 Latino ballplayers ever.
— Julio Ricardo Varela (@julito77) July 7, 2015
The responses so far have made me smile. A lot. So many of you chiming in. Not surprisingly, the debate is getting heated (Pedro? Clemente? Fernando? Mariano?). And then there is this, perhaps one of the greatest publicity photos ever taken in the history of the modern world (name the five players here and I will be impressed):
@julito77 he's the Cuban missile. Part of iconic mets line up and only person aware of how ridiculous this photo is. pic.twitter.com/NGU0rRY9mv
— Orlando (@RandomOrlando) July 7, 2015
Based on the responses we have gotten so far from my tweet, we thought it would be interesting to create an actual survey for our listeners. It takes a minute or two to complete. Here it is (link):
Create your own user feedback survey
Check back later this week before the show and we will share the final results! Meanwhile, I leave you with this gem from 2002:
While driving last night I heard a promo for the show and my ears perked when I heard “The baseball I remember goes back to San Pedro de Marcoris. That is the baseball I remember growing up in the Dominican Republic” (or something like that).
My mother used to tell me the story of her grand father, Pedro Mallen, seeing lots of children running the streets with little to do so on one of his business trips to New York he purchase a duffle bag full of bats balls, and gloves, then taught some of the children how to play the game and turned them loose with the equipment.
The Mallen family had a sugar cane plantation in San Pedro de Marcoris and was involved in bringing the pharmaceutical industry to the island.