Published: August 08, 2008 12:52 pm      

BOOK REVIEW: Latino players’ tales are told

Lockport native Tim Wendel again travels south of the border with “Far from Home,” a magnificently illustrated commentary on the influence of Latin American ballplayers on the national pastime and vice versa.

Wendel, a university instructor and freelance writer now living in northern Virginia, first hit this trail eight years ago with the intriguing “Castro’s Curveball,” surely the only baseball novel ever to reference Slayton Settlement Road.

In 2003 came the “New Face of Baseball,” tracing Latins and “The Show” to the 19th century. It sold fairly well and drew praise for its unique segues, making a continuity of disparate players and careers.

Nonetheless, Wendel believes that “New Face” was ahead of its time, that America wasn’t ready then for a play-by-play of how Latinos from Cuba to Caracas came to appear to remake the game.

But the immigration issue is even hotter today, and old-timers (as Wendel calls them) may be put off more now than before. Fearlessly, Wendel steps in and takes his cuts. He scores with some well-researched revelations of how Latin American politicians — including Castro and Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez — have bent the game to THEIR ends.

There are stories of struggle and prejudice — Roberto Clemente was at first dismissed as a “hot dog” — and affirmations of the pain of failure on foreign soil.

Wendel partnered with National Geographic, which assigned Jose Luis Villegas to the artwork, from huge ballpark celebrations to Cuban youngsters playing streetball with a two-by-four.

Hall of Famer Juan Marichal’s introduction soulfully reflects on the experiences of a stranger in a strange land (no reference, though, to the incident in which Dodger catcher John Roseboro came after him with a bat). Wendel casts a wide net that includes Ted Williams (Mexican mother and a place in a Latino Hall of Fame). One yarn traces Niagara Falls’ Sal Maglie’s “close shaves” — he learned the art of “lathering up” in the Mexican League.

“Far from Home” handles a lot of chances on a bumpy surface, and a few slip through its glove. Vic Power wasn’t traded from Philadelphia to Kansas City; rather the whole franchise moved. Contradictions muddle the matter of whether Castro was actually scouted by major leaguers. Wendel later said maybe “disproved” was too strong a term, but cites this as illustrating two issues: Truth is elusive in the uncharted waters of the Caribbean, and power seekers knew how to play the game in many ways.

“Far from Home” is nearly unique in its humanitarian blend of baseball and politics, a double-header of words and pictures, either worth the price of admission.



IF YOU READ

• WHAT: “Far from Home”

• BY: Tim Wendel and Jose Luis Villegas

• DETAILS: Published by National Geographic, 178 pages

• GRADE: B+