Latino USA Listeners Name Best Latino Ballplayers

As expected, when we decided to promote this week’s upcoming Béisbol show by asking our listeners to name the five best (or favorite) Latino baseball players ever, the responses were as diverse as the 75 players named. Our listeners do know their béisbol.

By far, the top four players named were not a surprise. Mostly EVERYONE who filled out the survey included at least one (or all) of these legends:

Roberto Clemente

Fernando Valenzuela

Pedro Martínez

Mariano Rivera

After those top four names, this was the next tier of mentions. Watch and enjoy.

Martín Dihigo

“He was the best ballplayer of all time, black or white.”—Buck Leonard

Juan Marichal

Orlando Cepeda

Miguel Cabrera

Luis Tiant

Edgar Martínez

Albert Pujols

Big Papi

King Felix

This list could go on and on and on. If you want to read what others are saying, you can catch the conversation on Twitter. You can also tweet to @LatinoUSA, since I am sure you will begin to say that our listeners missed some big names, right? Seriously, we could have added 80 more names to this list, but I had only about two hours to find YouTube videos. It’s a good thing MLB did a pretty exhaustive list in 2012. You can check that one out and tell us what you think.

A few other things. Some of you asked that we let people know that the great Ted Williams is of Mexican descent from his mother’s side. A 2005 New York Times article discussed how Williams tried to play down his Mexcian heritage. Nonentheless, in 2012, MLB added Williams to the All-Time Latino Team.

In addition, my good friend Luis Marentes wanted to make sure I shout out Alex Cora because the survey also asked listeners for their favorite players, and not just the best. Luis wins on a technicality, so here’s an Alex Cora video (with a Vin Scully appearance):