The Winter Leagues

Big-league baseball used to be a seasonal occupation. Come fall, a player could clean up his shotgun, untangle his fishing tackle, or just loaf on the front porch waiting for spring. If he needed spare cash, he could act like a businessman. Then eager-beaver bushers discovered a gold mine: the winter leagues. Across the Caribbean, from Cuba to Colombia, hotheaded Latins were paying good money to watch the Great American Game. A man could keep solvent, keep warm, and keep in practice all winter. Best of all, he could keep on playing baseball.

As a minor-league monopoly, Caribbean baseball was too good to last. Major leaguers looked enviously toward the south. And major-league managers quickly recognized that the off-season workouts would do their players no harm. For the last seven years Caribbean Confederation teams have been allowed to recruit big-league players. To give the bushers a break, each big-league club is permitted to send only three players who have been on the roster more than 45 days.

Despite such restrictions, the winter leagues manage to comb the majors for all the talent they can get. This month, as the southern season got under way, a traveling ball fan could recognize familiar names. The Yankees' Willie Miranda and the Senators' Con Marrero were playing for Cuba's Almendares. The White Sox's Chico Carrasquel was in Caracas. In Santurce, P.R., fans were being treated to the antics of the Giants' incomparable Willie Mays.

In his first game, Willie started slowly: he struck out twice before he got a scratch single. In the field, he was the same old picture of graceful perfection. If Willie and his teammate Ruben Gomez (who pitches for Santurce) found anything different about Caribbean baseball, it was the ball itself. Much more lively than the ball big leaguers are used to, the Puerto Rican special is a real rabbit ball. Batters can clobber it; pitchers learn how to throw and duck if they want to hang onto their heads.

The fans are more lively, too; not even in enemy Ebbets Field is the razzberry rendered with such enthusiasm. Nor do U.S. bleacher jockeys often get involved in the free-for-alls that brighten the Puerto Rican afternoon. Not long ago, a cop caught a razor-blade salesman handing out free samples in the San Juan stands. Puerto Rican fans have never been known to shave between innings, but they are apt to find other uses for razors.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.