Boricuas in sports have had a major growth over the past sev­eral decades. This growth spans across the var­i­ous sports i.e. base­ball, soc­cer, and box­ing, but there has not been such a big growth and influ­ence to any sport as that which base­ball has had. The pres­ence of Lati­nos (Boricuas ) in base­ball has grown into all lev­els of the sport from play­ers to Coaches, Man­agers and even to Gen­eral Man­agers. I will be writ­ing about the sport stars of the past and present which have made a major con­tri­bu­tions and sac­ri­fice to their sport.

ROBERTO CLEMENTE

Roberto Clemente left his mark on base­ball with a style of play rarely seen in mod­ern base­ball.  Clemente came to a club that had suf­fered through three straight 100-loss sea­sons.  He was not an imme­di­ate super­star, although his bril­liant field­ing abil­ity and rifle arm were appar­ent from the begin­ning.  He would even­tu­ally earn 12 Gold Gloves as a right fielder and set a ML record by lead­ing the NL in assists five times.  In 1960 Roberto Clemente began a streak of eight con­sec­u­tive sea­sons in which he bat­ted no less than .312.  He made the first of his 14 All-Star appear­ances in the two 1960 games.  That year, He hit safely in every game of the World Series against the Yan­kees, bat­ting .310.  In Game  Seven,  he kept an eighth-inning rally alive with a hus­tling infield sin­gle, set­ting up a go-ahead homer by Hal Smith.  But Clemente never wore his 1960 Cham­pi­onship ring. He fin­ished eighth in the NL MVP vot­ing, though he’d led the Pirates with 94 RBI; he wore his 1961 All-Star ring instead.  Clemente won the first of four NL bat­ting titles with a .351 mark in 1961. For the next sev­eral years, he was con­sis­tently bril­liant.  In the out­field, he would track down every ball in range, often mak­ing spec­tac­u­lar div­ing or leap­ing catches,  he used the bas­ket catch made famous by Willie Mays. At bat, Clemente seemed for­ever uncom­fort­able, always rolling his neck and stretch­ing his back. Stand­ing deep in the box.  His base run­ning  style was marked by effort and deter­mi­na­tion,  with arms and legs pump­ing and hel­met often fly­ing off.  Clemente won two more bat­ting titles in 1964 (.339) and 1965 (.329). his career-high 29 HR and 119 RBI helped him win the MVP award. In 1967 he cap­tured his fourth bat­ting crown with a .357 aver­age, his best year ever.  When Pitts­burgh met Bal­ti­more in the 1971 World Series. Clemente played like a man pos­sessed,  chas­ing down fly balls, bat­ting .414 with 12 hits and two home runs, one in Pittsburgh’s Game Seven vic­tory, and win­ning the Series MVP award. On Sep­tem­ber 30, 1972, Roberto Clemente drove a dou­ble off Met pitcher Jon Mat­lack at Three Rivers Sta­dium for his 3,000^th career hit.  His .312 aver­age that year marked his 13^th .300 sea­son and he was at or near the top of every bat­ting cat­e­gory in Pirate his­tory. On New Year’s Eve of 1972,  Clemente boarded a DC-7 loaded with relief sup­plies for earth­quake vic­tims in Man­agua, Nicaragua. Shortly after take­off, the plane crashed into the Atlantic Ocean, a mile off the Puerto Rican coast.  There were no sur­vivors. The five-year manda­tory wait­ing period for Hall of Fame eli­gi­bil­ity was waived and Clemente was inducted in 1973.  The Pirates retired his uni­form,  num­ber 21.

JAVIER VAZQUEZ

Javier Vazquez was born on Sun­day, July 25, 1976, in Ponce, Puerto Rico. Vazquez was 21 years old when he broke into the big leagues on April 3, 1998, with the Mon­tréal Expos and played on the team until 2003, dur­ing this time he became an ace for the Expos. On Decem­ber 16,  Javier was traded to the New York Yan­kees in a four year deal in exchange for three play­ers.  After only one sea­son with the Yan­kees,  he was once again traded this time to the Ari­zona Dia­mond­backs for Randy John­son.  But after only two sea­sons,  he requested to be traded to be closer to his fam­ily in Puerto Rico.  He got his wish because on Decem­ber 2005,  he was traded to the Chicago White Sox for Orlando Her­nan­dez.  While pitch­ing  for the White Sox,  Vazquez agreed to play for the Puerto Rico team in the 2006 World Base­ball Clas­sic,  where he joined other Puerto Rican play­ers, Car­los Del­gado, Car­los Bel­tran and  Bernie Williams on a team Man­aged by Jose Oquendo.  On Decem­ber 4, 2008 Vazquez was traded to the Atlanta Braves in a five player deal.  Javier is mar­ried to Kamille Vazquez and they have two chil­dren Kamilla and Javier Josue. I started col­lect­ing  Javier Vazquez base­ball cards in 2000 after I found out that he shared my last name and was born in Ponce, Puerto Rico.

JOSE (CHEGUI) TORRES

Trained and man­aged by the savvy Cus D’amato, Chegui, being a good and solid boxer/puncher, won 41 out of his 45 bouts, 12 of which were by deci­sion and 29 by knock­out. He became the first Latino ever to win the light-heavyweight cham­pi­onship in 1965 when he beat Willie Pas­trano in nine rounds at Madi­son Square Gar­den. D’Amato kept an eye on Tor­res when he saw him win a sil­ver medal in the 1956 Olympics. He said “This kid will be a cham­pion, and it won’t take that long”.  Tor­res turned pro in 1956 and his box­ing style was D’Amato’s peek­a­boo tech­nique. It seemed awk­ward, but it worked, even for Pat­ter­son who gained the heavy­weight cham­pi­onship title. Of his first 28 fights, only one was a draw, but the rest he won.  In 1963 Chegui fought Flo­rentino Fer­nan­dez, but he lost by knock­out. He wasn’t in the least dis­cour­aged from that loss. He came back and won a deci­sion against Don Fullmer and he knocked out Carl (Bobo) Olson in the first round.  Way before Tor­res thought about hang­ing up his gloves, he wanted one big score, so he decided to chal­lenge Muhammed Ali, of all peo­ple.  At a big box­ing lun­cheon and Chegui’s long time friend and reporter, Bill Gallo, was there. Gallo and other reporters watched as Chegui who was 5’10″ go up to Muhammed Ali who was 6’10″ say­ing, “C’mon man, you and me, I need a good pay­day. We’ll pack them in.” Ali never answered him, but he did turn to his wife Ramonita, and say, “Okay, but you have to feed him a lot of rice and beans, only then can I make money for your man.” Tor­res and Ali never fought.  Tor­res became a writer after his box­ing days and was the first His­panic colum­nist to write for The Post. His arti­cles weren’t about sports, but about life in El Bar­rio. He also became the first His­panic ever to chair the New York State Ath­letic Com­mis­sion.  Jose Tor­res died of a heart attack at his home in Ponce, Puerto Rico at the age of 72. He was revered both in Span­ish Harlem and in Puerto Rico, which has declared three days of mourn­ing for him.

MIGUEL COTTO

Miguel Ãngel Cotto (born Octo­ber 29, 1980 in Caguas, Puerto Rico is a Puerto Rican pro­fes­sional boxer.  As an ama­teur, Cotto rep­re­sented Puerto Rico in the light­weight and light wel­ter­weight divi­sions at var­i­ous inter­na­tional events includ­ing the 1999 Pan Amer­i­can Games, the 2000 Sum­mer Olympics and the 1998 Junior World Cham­pi­onships where he won a sil­ver medal. Cotto began his pro­fes­sional career in 2001, and on Sep­tem­ber 11, 2004, he defeated Kel­son Pinto for the WBO junior wel­ter­weight cham­pi­onship. He defended the title suc­cess­fully a total of six times, before vacat­ing it when he ascended to the wel­ter­weight divi­sion. On his first match on this divi­sion he defeated Car­los Quin­tana for the vacant WBA wel­ter­weight cham­pi­onship. Cotto suc­cess­fully defended this title against Oktay Urkal, Zab Judah, Shane Mosley and Alfonso Gomez, before los­ing it Anto­nio Mar­gar­ito.  On Feb­ru­ary 21, 2009, he defeated Michael Jen­nings to win the vacant WBO wel­ter­weight championship.

FELIX (TITO) TRINIDAD

Félix ‘Tito’ Trinidad, Jr. (born Jan­u­ary 10, 1973) is a Puerto Rican pro­fes­sional boxer, con­sid­ered as one of the best box­ers in that archipelago’s his­tory. When he was an ama­teur Trinidad won five National Ama­teur Cham­pi­onships in Puerto Rico. He debuted as a pro­fes­sional when he was 17 years old and won the first world cham­pi­onship in his career when he defeated Mau­rice Blocker for the Inter­na­tional Box­ing Federation’s wel­ter­weight cham­pi­onship. Dur­ing his career he fought Oscar De La Hoya win­ning the World Box­ing Council’s wel­ter­weight championship,Fernando Var­gas in a uni­fi­ca­tion fight where he won the Inter­na­tional Box­ing Federation’s light mid­dleweight title, and William Joppy for the World Box­ing Association’s mid­dleweight cham­pi­onship. He lost to Bernard Hop­kins , by tech­ni­cal knock­out and retired for the first time. Trinidad returned to action in a fight against Ricardo May­orga and fol­low­ing a fight against Winky Wright retired a sec­ond time. In 2008, he returned to the ring to fight Roy Jones , los­ing the con­test by unan­i­mous decision.

Félix Trinidad was born in Fajardo, Puerto Rico, to Irma Gar­cía and Félix Trinidad Senior. Dur­ing his child­hood the fam­ily moved to Cupey Alto, a sub­di­vi­sion of San Juan, Puerto Rico, where he grew up Trinidad began box­ing at the age of 12 after receiv­ing train­ing by his father, who was a for­mer national cham­pion in the feath­er­weight divi­sion. Over the course of his ama­teur career, Trinidad com­piled a record of 51 wins and six losses with 12 knock­out vic­to­ries. Dur­ing this period he won five Puerto Rican National Ama­teur Cham­pi­onships, in five dif­fer­ent weight divi­sions (100, 112, 119, 126 and 132 pounds)

WILFREDO BENITEZ

ORLANDO MELENDEZ