The Jim Crow system of racial segregation held sway in the United States for roughly 90 years—from the mid-1870s until passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Intended to oppress and humiliate non-European-Americans, it has ironically come to be a source of shame for those who implemented and benefited from it, whereas its victims are now held in considerable esteem for having endured and overcome. Jim Crow had layer upon layer of hypocrisy, one of which I will focus on here. It pertains to baseball.
We often hear that when Jackie Robinson joined the Brooklyn Dodgers in April 1947, he became the first black man to play major league baseball. (This leaves aside guys such as Moses Fleetwood Walker who played before the color barrier was erected in 1889.) I surely do not wish to detract from what Robinson did and its significance. By walking onto Ebbets Field with Pee Wee Reese, Duke Snider, Gil Hodges, Carl Furillo and other members of the Brooklyn squad, he moved the USA forward on the path of progress. All hail Jackie, number 42!
Nevertheless, major league baseball was not as white as you would think. Integration was less an event than a process that took place gradually over several decades. Since early in the 20th century, European-American and black teams had been playing each other in the off-season, so these guys were not strangers. Even with Jim Crow, they were sizing each other up, sometimes fighting, sometimes forming friendships.
Complicating the issue is the island of Cuba, 90 miles off the tip of Florida. Baseball had been played there almost as early as it had been in the USA, and with equal gusto. Cuban society was not free of racism, but it was milder than what prevailed in “el norte,” and so its baseball teams were rather well blended while MLB staunchly resisted. Commissioner Kennesaw Landis knew best. American players went down to Cuba and played in the offseason, making money to supplement their meager salaries. And there was no shortage of Cubans doing the same in the USA. More than 50 players from so-called Latin America (in this case, Mexico, Puerto Rico and Venezuela in addition to Cuba) had major league careers of varying lengths between 1902 and 1947.
That excluded black Latinos, who either found jobs in the Negro Leagues or formed teams of their own. Those of European descent had some chance of latching on with an MLB club, but it was chancy; a measure of harassment from opponents and fans was the norm. A short list of these players would have to include Esteban Bellan, Armando Marsans, Rafael Almeida, Miguel Angel Gonzalez and the small-but-tough Dolf Luque. (I think Luque, a right-handed pitcher, deserves Hall of Fame consideration. He won nearly 200 games, was a member of three World Series championship teams [1914 Boston Braves, 1919 Cincinnati Reds and 1933 New York Giants] and coached in MLB for seven seasons. Luque also had 106 wins in the Cuban League.)
And thus we are brought to Bobby Estalella, an outfielder and third baseman with a muscular physique that caused teammates to nickname him “Tarzan.” Estalella hailed from Cardenas, Cuba. It so happened that the Washington Senators had a penny-pinching owner, Clark Griffith, and he was always looking for value—meaning good players who came cheap. Griffith was willing to ignore the fact that Estalella had unmistakable African features. In Cuban slang, he would have been called a “jabao” (mulatto).
At any rate, Griffith signed him. Estalella was with the Senators in 1935 and 1936 before spending two seasons with Charlotte in the Piedmont League. Here was a black man, albeit one with light skin, playing pro baseball in a southern town in the 1930s. Estalella was not the first person to “pass” as white during the Jim Crow days. He was given a dispensation, if you will, because he had not been born and raised in the United States. Since he came from Cuba, people, at least some of them, were willing to suspend their natural tendency to discriminate. He was allowed to pass also because he could contribute. Estalella was a .282 hitter with 44 home runs, 308 RBIs and a penchant for drawing walks in a career that lasted nine years; he also spent time with the St. Louis Browns and Philadelphia Athletics. You could say Estalella played America's game in more ways than one.
Jackie Robinson is rightfully honored for his contributions to baseball, but let’s not forget Bobby Estalella who must have put up with a lot of harsh treatment as a big league player. His grandson of the same name was a catcher with the Philadelphia Phillies, San Francisco Giants, New York Yankees, Colorado Rockies, Arizona Diamondbacks and Toronto Blue Jays from 1996 to 2004.
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