Casa de Campo has a new attraction – the Latino Baseball Hall of Fame. It was founded thanks to the joint efforts of Roberto Weill, a Cuban-born international entrepreneur and Rafael Avila, the Dodgers’ Latin American scout who founded the first MLB Academy in the DR. The Latino Baseball Hall seeks to honor the best Latinos in baseball and house their evidence and mementos of their accomplishments. It is located at Altos de Chavon.
The hall has the support of Major League Baseball.
“We have so many Latin players [in the Majors] that this makes sense,” said Yankees executive vice president and chief international officer Felix Lopez. “Anything we can do to actually make our players feel at home, it’s something that just makes sense. And we need to do as much as we can to actually make all our players feel that this is a family environment, that we actually are embracing them.”
Last year, the Hall of Fame, whose director and goodwill ambassador is Tommy Lasorda, used five international channels to induct its inaugural class.
Making up the “Contemporaries” group were pitchers Luis Tiant (born in Cuba), Fernando Valenzuela (Mexico) and Dennis Martinez (Nicaragua), catcher Manny Sanguillen (Panama), designated hitter Edgar Martinez (Puerto Rico), outfielder Rico Carty (Dominican Republic) and first baseman Andres Galarraga (Venezuela).
The “Veterans Committee” honorees were Adolfo Luque (Cuba), Chile Gomez (Mexico), Hector Lopez (Panama), Horacio Martinez (Dominican Republic) and Vidal Lopez (Venezuela).
Late Yankees owner George Steinbrenner won the Tommy Lasorda Award, given to a non-Latin figure who helps enhance Latin America’s presence in the Majors, and Alex Rodriguez, who hit his 600th home run this season, took the LBHF Excellence Award.
“We have something here that is historically very important,” LBHP President Roberto Weill said.
The Latino Baseball Hall of Fame was founded, thanks to the joint efforts of Weill, a Cuban-born international entrepreneur, and Rafael Avila, the Dodgers’ Latin American scout who founded the first MLB Academy in the Dominican Republic, to honor the best Latinos in baseball and house their evidence and mementos of their accomplishments.
The Hall is headquartered in the Dominican Republic, at the Altos de Chavon at Casa de Campo in La Romana.
In 2010, 28.3 percent of the players on Opening Day Major League rosters were of Latin American descent, according to the University of Central Florida’s Racial and Gender Report Card. That number stood at 13 percent in 1990 and has been on an upward trend ever since.
As for the Dominican Republic, the island nation, which boasts more players in the Majors than other Latin American country, holds 30 Major League training camps and has won a record 18 Caribbean Series trophies.
“Playing against the Dominican Republic,” Weill said, “is like playing against the Yankees [for Caribbean teams].”
More information can be found at latinobaseballhall.com.
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