page_title: Minnie Miñoso
section_title: Move to the Chicago White Sox
hierarchical_section_title: Minnie Miñoso / Baseball playing career / Move to the Chicago White Sox
caption_attribution_description: English: Chicago White Sox left fielder en:Minnie Miñoso (pictured as Orestes Minoso) in a 1953 issue of Baseball Digest.
context_page_description: Orestes "Minnie" Miñoso, nicknamed "The Cuban Comet" and "Mr. White Sox", was a Cuban professional baseball player. He began his baseball career in the Negro leagues in 1946 and became an All-Star third baseman with the New York Cubans. He was signed by the Cleveland Indians of Major League Baseball after the 1948 season as baseball's color line fell. Miñoso went on to become an All-Star left fielder with the Indians and Chicago White Sox. The first Black Cuban in the major leagues and the first black player in White Sox history, as a 1951 rookie he was the one of the first Latin Americans to play in an MLB All-Star Game.
  Miñoso was an American League All-Star for seven seasons and a Gold Glove winner for three seasons when he was in his 30s. He batted over .300 for eight seasons. He was the AL leader in triples and stolen bases three times each and in hits, doubles, and total bases once each. Willie Mays and Miñoso have been widely credited with leading the resurgence of speed as an offensive weapon in the 1950s.
context_section_description: On April 30, 1951, the Indians sent Miñoso to the White Sox in a three-team trade involving the Athletics, getting relief pitcher Lou Brissie from the Athletics in exchange. On May 1, Miñoso became the first black player on the White Sox, hitting a 415-foot (126 m) home run in Comiskey Park on the first pitch of his first at bat against the New York Yankees. He was an instant star, maintaining a batting average over .350 through most of the first half of the season, and finished the season hitting .324 – second in the AL behind the .344 mark of the Athletics' Ferris Fain. Miñoso was named for the first time to the AL All-Star roster (reserve player) becoming – along with White Sox teammate Chico Carrasquel and Washington Senators pitcher Connie Marrero – one of the first Latin Americans ever named to an All-Star team. That year, he scored 112 runs (one short of Dom DiMaggio's league leading total) in 138 games played, topping the league with 14 triples and 31 stolen bases as well as 16 times being hit by pitches, and became known as "Mr. White Sox". Following the 1951 season, he finished second in the AL's Rookie of the Year voting behind the Yankees' Gil McDougald, drawing a protest by the White Sox due to Miñoso having better statistics in nearly every category. Miñoso also finished fourth in the year's Most Valuable Player voting. Miñoso was regarded as such an outstanding all-around player that Yankees outfielder Mickey Mantle acquired the nickname "The Commerce Comet" because he reminded observers of "The Cuban Comet". When batting, Miñoso had a tendency to crowd the plate, which made him particularly susceptible to "beanball" pitches.
  Miñoso followed up with several years of outstanding play for Chicago. He led the AL in steals in both 1952 (22) and 1953 (25), and topped the league with 18 triples and 304 total bases in 1954, appearing in the All-Star Game all three years and starting in 1954. On April 14, 1953, Opening Day, he provided the only hit for the Sox in a 4–0 loss to the Indians' Bob Lemon, and on July 4, 1954, he broke up a combined no-hitter by three Indians pitchers with two out in the ninth inning of a 2–1 loss. He led AL left fielders with three double plays in 1953, and the following year led all major league left fielders with 13 assists and three double plays. In the first game of a doubleheader on May 16, 1954, he drove in six runs in a 10–5 win over the Senators, and on April 23, 1955 he scored a career-high five runs in the White Sox' record-setting 29–6 road win over the Kansas City Athletics. Miñoso again finished second in the batting race in 1954 with a .320 mark, trailing the .341 average by the Indians' Bobby Ávila (Ted Williams, who did not have enough plate appearances to qualify, would have finished second given the needed at bats). On May 18, 1955, Miñoso suffered a skull fracture from being hit in the head by a pitch from the Yankees' Bob Grim in the first inning of an 11–6 loss. He finished the season with a .288 average, his lowest from 1953 through 1960; however, he had the longest hitting streak in the AL that year and the longest of his career, a 23-game string from August 9 to 30 during which he batted .421. In addition, his 18 assists that season were not only twice as many as any other left fielder in the major leagues, but also matched the highest mark by any AL left fielder from 1945 through 1983. He also led AL left fielders in putouts for the first time with 267.
  Miñoso also represented a rare power threat for the Sox; due to the dimensions of Comiskey Park, the White Sox were the only major league team who did not have a player hit 100 home runs for them prior to World War II. On September 2, 1956, he hit his 80th home run with the Sox, off Hank Aguirre, in a 4–3 win over the Indians, breaking Zeke Bonura's team record. On September 23, 1957, in a 6–5 road loss to the Athletics, he became the first player to hit 100 home runs with the White Sox, connecting in the fourth inning off Alex Kellner. Miñoso topped AL left fielders again with 282 putouts and 10 assists in 1956
caption: Miñoso with the White Sox in 1953
exif: {}