Ozzie Virgil Past Tiger was America's 1st Dominican Player

Last edited by GoGetEmTigers on Tue Jun 17, 2008 4:32 am; edited 1 time in total

Ozzie Virgil, who resides in his hometown of Monte Cristi, Dominican Republic, works as a part-time scout for the New York Mets. (Angel Peralta/Associated Press)

Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Virgil's legacy stronger than ever
Half century after breaking color barrier for Tigers, current team roster is full of players of Latin descent.
Lynn Henning / The Detroit News

On the night he turned baseball in Detroit from an all-Caucasian men's club to an integrated big league sport, Ozzie Virgil most remembers the ovation -- the standing ovation -- from 29,794 who turned out 50 years ago tonight at Briggs Stadium to see the Tigers beat the Senators, 9-2.

It happened in the seventh inning of a game between mediocre teams struggling to reach .500. Virgil had just slapped a single to left field, a fairly routine event except for one distinction:

It was Virgil's fifth hit -- he went 5-for-5 with a double and four singles.

He did it the same evening he had crashed the Tigers' home clubhouse color barrier, a major moment for an organization that, next to the Red Sox, was the last team in baseball to change its whites-only ways.

"It felt special," Virgil said, speaking from his hometown of Monte Cristi, Dominican Republic, where he was on assignment with the Mets, for whom he still works part time. "I loved Detroit. They were such good people. They treated me nice."

For all his status as a cultural pioneer in Detroit's 100-year-plus baseball history, Virgil, 75, rarely has been accurately portrayed or appreciated.

He has been regarded as the Tigers' "first black" player. It is a designation erroneous and reflective of a time in America when diversity was neither celebrated nor understood in any widespread, sophisticated fashion.

Virgil was Hispanic, the first player from the Dominican Republic to play in the majors. In the unrefined world of pro baseball in the 1950s, Latins and African-Americans tended to be considered with a kind of locker-room colloquialism as one common racial body. They were non-Caucasian. Thus, they were "colored."

It was a casual and acceptable label in the white community a half-century ago that was as disparaging as it was insulting to African-American and Latin cultures, neither of which received the racial or ethnic respect that began, at last, to evolve in the 1960s.

Great start

Into this frontier of a new America stepped a 25-year-old, 6-foot, 175-pound third baseman who was hardly new to the United States. He was a Marine Corps veteran who lived in the U.S. since he was 13, when his family moved from Monte Cristi to the Bronx.

Signed originally by the New York Giants and later acquired by the Kansas City Athletics, Virgil was traded to the Tigers on Jan. 28, 1958, in a deal sending infielder Jim Finigan and cash to Kansas City for Virgil and first baseman Gail Harris.

Virgil started in the minor leagues at Charleston, W.Va., but by June he was headed for Detroit.

"I was having a good year at Charleston," Virgil said. "(Then general manager) John McHale watched me play in a game, and that day I hit three home runs. He decided to call me up."

He made his debut for the Tigers on June 6 in Washington, D.C.

His arrival in Detroit was viewed by fans somewhat curiously, perhaps condescendingly, in an era when athletes of color tended to be feel-good stories among home-team worshipers 11 years after Jackie Robinson broke baseball's color barrier.

The response to Virgil's five hits was at least partially rooted in a crowd's desire to let its own version of Robinson know how much fans appreciated his distinction -- and his performance that night.

His teammates tended to view Virgil more matter-of-factly.

"It wasn't a big deal to us," said Al Kaline, the Tigers' Hall of Fame right fielder, who on the night Virgil arrived, was five years into his career. "He was a baseball player -- and a good one.

"That's all there was to it."

Not enough power

The problem with his career in Detroit, and elsewhere, as Virgil concedes, was he was not a power hitter at a position demanding more home runs and extra-base hits than he was likely to produce. In 49 games for the Tigers in 1958, he hit .244 with three home runs and 19 RBIs. They were numbers consistent with a big league player whose nine-year career numbers were a .231 average, 14 home runs and 73 RBIs.

"Unfortunately, I didn't perform too well the rest of the year," Virgil said of his 1958 season. "If you were going to play third base, you were required to hit about 20 home runs a season."

It wasn't only his hitting skills that were humble. Virgil was not much for the spotlight 50 years ago. On the night he had his magical 5-for-5 game against the Senators, reporters raced to the locker room, eager to speak with a man whose landmark presence had come wrapped in a superlative first-night performance.

When the writers got to the clubhouse, Virgil was gone.

"I was so happy that I just wanted to call my family back in New York," Virgil said. "So I got the hell out of there.

"I didn't expect to be that person everyone wanted to talk to. I didn't think it was such a big deal."

Virgil spent 1959 in Detroit's farm system and played parts of the 1960 and '61 seasons with the Tigers before being traded on July 31, 1961, back to Kansas City along with right-handed pitcher Bill Fischer for infielder and Windsor, Ontario, native Reno Bertoia, as well as right-hander Gerry Staley.

Virgil continued life as a utility man -- he played every position except center field and pitcher during his career -- with Kansas City, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, and San Francisco before retiring at the end of the 1969 season. He became a longtime big league coach, who coached third on Padres manager Dick Williams' staff when Detroit beat San Diego to win the 1984 World Series.

Paving the way

If he has an important place in Tigers history, Virgil's greatest legacy is celebrated, perhaps too quietly for some, in his homeland. Players from the Dominican Republic have become a mainstay on big league rosters in the decades since Virgil became the first from his county to reach the majors.

It would explain why the airport in his home province, tucked on the extreme northwest corner of the Dominican Republic, is named Osvaldo Virgil National Airport.

"Everybody in the Dominican Republic knows he was the guy who opened the door," said Ramon Santiago, the Tigers backup infielder and a Dominican native. "A very important man."

Santiago offered his thoughts Sunday in the clubhouse, where 10 of Detroit's 25 players were Latin. It is proof of how much has changed in Detroit in 50 years.

The man who helped end such a sad history of oversight and prejudice says he really had nothing to do with bringing about any sense of delayed justice in Detroit.

Virgil, he says, was merely the first beneficiary.

You can reach Lynn Henning at (313) 222-2472 lynn.henning@detnews.com .

Ozzie Virgil, left, pictured with Herb Moford, right, and former Tigers
manager Jack Tighe, went 5-for-5 in his debut more than 50 years ago.

Ozzie Virgil was with the Tigers organization from 1958-1961 before
being traded to Kansas City. He retired in 1969 and became a longtime
coach. He was third-base coach on the 1984 San Diego Padres, who lost
the World Series to the Tigers.