Minnie Minoso, RIP

[GA Russell]

Minnie Minoso has died at 92. RIP.

I think that as long as Bill Veeck was in baseball, Minnie could count on having a job.

http://www.foxnews.com/sports/2015/03/01/chicago-1st-black-major-league-baseball-player-minnie-minoso-dies/

[JSngry]

[Jazzmoose]

I don't know if this is appropriate or not, but every time I hear his name, I think of Robert Klein's routine concerning Minoso's hit-by-pitch stats.

[AllenLowe]

there was a story where, down south, he was denied service by a waitress who said "we don't serve Negroes," to which he replied: "that's ok I don't eat them."

[ValerieB]

I remember when he first came up and I would see him when he would play in Boston in the '50s. I don't think he even spoke much English at that time. glad that he lived a long life.

[Matthew]

I always thought that Minoso & Buck O'Neil not being in the Hall of Fame was wrong on a cosmic level. So many of those players of that generation blazed a trail and received no support or appreciation from MLB.

[johnblitweiler]

I always thought that Minoso & Buck O'Neil not being in the Hall of Fame was wrong on a cosmic level. So many of those players of that generation blazed a trail and received no support or appreciation from MLB.

You are so right. The Hall of Fame is diminished without him. It bugged me that Ron Santo, with somewhat inferior numbers, got in while Minoso didn't. Of course the 1940s-50s restriction, then quota on black players set Minoso back.

Al Lopez apparently hated the Go-Go Sox. Minoso, who got along with everybody except racists, said in his autobiography that Lopez had him traded twice, once from Cleveland and once from Chicago (and Veeck overruled Lopez, brought him home in 1960). Pierce and Fox both had comparatively poor seasons the year Lopez's White Sox won the pennant. Somewhere I read that when Lopez was on the Hall of Fame selection committee, he rejected Fox several times. After Lopez was off that committee, Fox got in the Hall.