Bobby Estalella
Outfielder
Born: (1911-04-25)April 25, 1911
Cárdenas, Cuba
Died: January 6, 1991(1991-01-06) (aged 79)
Hialeah, Florida, U.S.
Batted: Right
Threw: Right
MLB debut
September 7, 1935, for the Washington Senators
Last MLB appearance
September 16, 1949, for the Philadelphia Athletics
MLB statistics
Batting average.282
Home runs44
Runs batted in308
Teams

Roberto Estalella Ventoza [es-tah-LAY-yah] (April 25, 1911 – January 6, 1991) was a Cuban professional baseball outfielder and third baseman, who played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Washington Senators (1935–1936, 1939 and 1942), St. Louis Browns (1941), and Philadelphia Athletics (1943–1945 and 1949). He was selected to represent the American League (AL) in the ill-fated 1945 Major League Baseball All-Star Game, which was scheduled for July 10 at Fenway Park but never played because of World War II restrictions on civilian domestic travel.

Early life

Born in Cárdenas, Matanzas, Cuba,[1][2][3] Estalella earned the nickname "Tarzan"[4][5] by his medium-frame, stocky and compact body. Standing 5 feet 8 inches (1.73 m) tall and weighing 180 pounds (82 kg), he threw and batted right-handed.

Professional career

Estalella's organized baseball career began in the minor leagues in 1934. After two brief trials with the 1935–1936 Senators, Estalella led the Class B Piedmont League in home runs (33) and batting average (.349) in 1937, and in 1938 he won the circuit's Triple Crown, pacing the Piedmont League in batting (.378), homers (38) and runs batted in (123), as well as in hits (180) and runs scored (134). After that, he returned to the American League to spend full or partial seasons with the Senators (1939 and 1942) and Browns (1941). He was sent to the Athletics in 1943 in the same trade that brought All-Star outfielder "Indian Bob" Johnson to Washington.

With Philadelphia, Estalella hit .298 in 1944 and .299 in 1945 (fourth in the league). He would have played many more years, but he was one of the players suspended by Commissioner Happy Chandler in 1946 for jumping to the outlaw Mexican League.[5] Chandler mentioned a lifetime suspension for them, but when the penalty was reduced in 1949, Estalella came back to the majors.

Although Estalella vigorously denied it during his life,[6] several current baseball writers now consider him to have been the first player of some African ancestry to have played in the Major Leagues in the 20th century.[6][7][8]

Career stats

In the major leagues, Estalella was a career .282 hitter with 44 home runs and 308 RBI in 680 games played. His 620 MLB hits included 106 doubles and 33 triples. He also compiled a respectable 1.423 walk-to-strikeout ratio (350-to-246) and a .383 on-base percentage. He led AL centerfielders in fielding percentage in both 1944 (.993) and 1945 (.990).

Personal

His grandson, also named Bobby Estalella, was a catcher who also played in Major League Baseball between 1996 and 2004.[6]

Bobby Estalella died in Hialeah, Florida at the age of 79.

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Roberto "Tarzán" Estalella". www.juanperez.com. Retrieved June 22, 2020.
  2. ↑ Alvarez, Alfredo (April 19, 2018). "Roberto Estalella, hombre de dinamita en sus muñecas". Con Las Bases Llenas (in Spanish). Retrieved June 22, 2020.
  3. ↑ "Bobby Estalella Stats, Fantasy & News". MLB.com. Retrieved June 22, 2020.
  4. ↑ "ROBERTO ESTALELLA: EL TARZÁN DE LA PELOTA CUBANA". Pelota Cubana. March 19, 2018. Retrieved June 22, 2020.
  5. 1 2 "Bobby Estalella – Society for American Baseball Research". Archived from the original on June 25, 2020. Retrieved June 22, 2020.
  6. 1 2 3 Heuer, Robert. "The Cuban Slide". Chicago Reader. Retrieved June 22, 2020.
  7. ↑ Kohn, Asher (March 25, 2016). "How we can learn about race relations from Cuban baseball". Medium. Retrieved June 22, 2020.
  8. ↑ "Latinos in Baseball-Notes". University of Michigan. Archived from the original on January 18, 2009. Retrieved June 22, 2020.
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