Minnie Miñoso was a mentor for generations of Chicago White Sox players. He served many years as a player and a coach, lived year-round in the city and upheld the team’s tradition as a welcoming place for Cuban stars. He liked to offer this advice:

“Be in love with the game,” Miñoso said by phone in 2014. “Do everything beautiful for the game and the people and the country you represent. That’s what I want everyone to do.”

When Miñoso died the next year, he was as young as 89 or as old as 92 — depending on your source — and his place in baseball history was just as confusing. Was he mostly a solid hitter with speed in the 1950s? Was he mainly a carnival act for Bill Veeck, the maverick White Sox owner, who briefly activated him in 1976 and 1980?

Or was Miñoso one of the best and most important players in baseball history?

“To me, Minnie is a legend,” the former pitcher Jose Contreras, who came to the majors from Cuba in 2003, said through an interpreter on Monday. “He was one of the reasons I started playing baseball when I was a kid. I wanted to be like him. He was one of our best representatives, our Jackie Robinson.”

Source: New York Times

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