Honoring the Achievements of Minnie Minoso

Floor Speech

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Mr. COHEN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor a great baseball player and a baseball player who befriended me and was a great human being who passed away on Sunday, Saturnino Orestes Arrieta Armas, Minnie Minoso, the Cuban Comet, Mr. White Sox.

Minnie Minoso was born in 1925 on November 29 in Cuba. He played baseball in Cuba, had the opportunity to come to America and play in the Negro Leagues for, being a Black Cuban, he wasn't allowed to play in the Major Leagues.

He played 3 years with the New York Cubans, and then, Bill Veeck, who was one of the leaders, I guess, the American League's Branch Rickey, gave him an opportunity to play baseball in the Major Leagues. After playing in the Minors in San Diego, he came up with the Cleveland Indians, but was quickly traded to the Chicago White Sox, where he started his career in 1951, and became known as Mr. White Sox.

He was a great White Sox baseball player, one of the greatest players of the 1950s, and a great emissary of Latin American baseballers. He was the first Black Latin American baseball player, he was the first Black White Sox player, and the second African American in the American League after Larry Doby.

Minnie Minoso had a great career. He did everything in baseball. He hit for average, he hit for power, he had speed, he was a great fielder, a great competitor, and he was a great human being.

In 1955, I was recovering from polio and I lived in Memphis, Tennessee. I went to an exhibition baseball game at Russwood Park, where the White Sox were playing the Cardinals. I had a White Sox cap, kind of like this one--this is a Minnie Minoso cap--and a White Sox T-shirt, and I was on crutches, getting autographs.

A player came and gave me a baseball, and I thanked him and I went to my dad and told my dad about it. We went down to thank the player. He was White, a pitcher named Tom Poholsky. He said: Don't thank me. Thank that player over there.

That was number 9 for the White Sox, Minnie Minoso. In the entire baseball field of 50 players or more, one cared about a young boy with polio who was a White Sox fan and wanted to do something for him.

But in segregated Memphis, a Black player didn't feel comfortable doing that, and he did it through a White player. It taught me, at a very early age, about the horrors of discrimination and prejudice and racism.

Minnie became my friend. I visited him in Chicago and went into the White Sox locker room. He gave me his bat. When he came to Memphis, I visited him at the Lorraine Motel, which is where the Black players stayed, while the White players were at the Peabody.

The Lorraine is where Dr. King was killed and now is a great civil rights museum in Memphis. This was another lesson in discrimination for me that taught me well and has taught me, to this day, to be vigilant against all forms of racism and discrimination.

I followed Minnie my whole life. He was like part of my family. When we moved to Los Angeles, we went and visited him at Chavez Ravine. He came up to my dad and he said: Doc, how is the kid's leg? How is he doing?

He always was concerned. He was a great human being and a great baseball player.

He was denied one of his life's goals of being voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. I tried to help him with that.

Baseball made a mistake. They should have put Minnie in the Hall of Fame for being a great emissary of baseball and the first Latin American Black player, the first Latin American player, really, in the Big Leagues.

He died Sunday. Visitation is Friday at Holy Family Church in Chicago. The funeral is Saturday.

I will miss Minnie Minoso. He is a lesson in why sport are bigger than runs, hits, and errors. It is about human beings and humanity and young kids.

Thank you, Minnie.

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