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Play Ball How Tony Oliva rose from humble Cuban roots to become a Minnesota baseball legend. | BY JOHN ROSENGREN
M
152 Artful Living
| Magazine of the North
balls last, and after the covers had worn off, they would wrap them with tape. Oliva’s talents stood out. He could hit farther, throw harder and run faster than the others. Soon he was playing for the local team. Shortly thereafter, he was invited to play for a better team in the bigger town of Entronque de Herradura, five miles away. That led to a spot on the Los Palacios nine, another jump up in the level of competition, when he was 17. The talented youngster wasn’t thinking about playing Major League Baseball in the United States. His dream was to play professional baseball in Havana for his favorite team, the Cienfuegos Camaroneros. He worked to improve his natural talents. “I dedicated myself to play more, to practice to be good,” he says. “It’s like school; if you don’t study, you don’t get smarter.” That paid off. His Los Palacios teammate, Roberto Fernandez Tapanes, who had played minor league baseball in the United States, recommended him to Joe Cambria, the Washington Senators/Minnesota Twins scout who had signed more than 400 Cuban players to contracts. Oliva impressed Cambria at a Havana tryout, and the Twins offered him a contract for $250 a month — more money than some Cuban families made in a year. That excited him, but he was unsure what his parents would think of their eldest son leaving the island. He asked Fernandez Tapanes to broach the idea with them. “They were happy,” says Oliva. “They said, ‘We want the best for our son.’” So in April 1961, the 22-year-old left home, figuring he would return after the season’s end. He and 21 other prospects got delayed for
PHOTOGRAPHY BY STEVE HENKE
aybe you’ve seen him pitching Wiffle balls in a makeshift ballpark at the State Fair or talking to Twins players behind the batting cage at Target Field or at Tony O’s Cuban sandwich stand on the concourse. You may have bumped into him around town. If you’re lucky enough to be of a certain age, you saw him bat at Met Stadium, driving balls across the outfield with the powerful swing that tormented American League pitchers. Over the past half century, Tony Oliva has become a fixture of the Twin Cities community. The eight-time All-Star’s official title with the Twins these days is Minor League Hitting Instructor, but his unofficial role is team ambassador. Sitting in the Twins’ clubhouse before a game last summer, the 77-year-old, clad in a blue TC windbreaker, white baseball pants and black running shoes, reflected on the unlikely path from his humble Cuban roots to his rightful place as a Minnesota legend. Born July 20, 1938, the third of 10 children, Oliva grew up on a square-acre farm in the Pinar del Río province, where his family raised cows, pigs, chickens, oranges, mangoes, corn and tobacco. He milked cows, planted crops and developed a strong work ethic. The family of 12 lived in a three-bedroom house without electricity and plumbing. “It was crowded,” he recalls. “But you get used to it.” His father, a former baseball player, carved a diamond into their land and introduced his sons to the island nation’s favorite sport. They whittled bats from the branches of majagua trees. Sometimes their father returned from Havana with gloves and balls. They had to make those