Lou Hernández

Baseball's great Hispanic pitchers is different from other McFarland titles that I have read. Instead of one player, it covers 17 pitchers, some well known, others less so. It is not written by an academic scholar but by an independent writer, baseball fan and member of SABR (the Society for American Baseball Research). This being said, it is simply a remarkable book. I thoroughly enjoyed the sections on the Negro and Latin American leagues, a subject I know little about, as well as pre-60's payers Adolfo Luque and Camilo Pascual. Author Lou Hernández also covers great such as Luis Tiant, Juan Marichal and Mariano Rivera.

The style of writing is typical scholarly language and the text is heavily footnoted with the chapter notes in the back of the book. The index is excellent - I found all the items I wanted to recheck easily. There are plenty of statistics for each player and as well as photos.

If you want to find out more about the Hispanic influence on baseball today, this is a must read.… (meer)

I found this book to be an exceedingly dry read--the number of game-by-game statistics thrown at the reader is overwhelming. That said, Lou Hernández's Baseball's Great Hispanic Pitchers is an important addition to baseball history. While I knew a little about the pitchers that have been active in my lifetime (1960s on up), I knew nothing about the older ones. It was cool to read about them all as well as see the photos included. As with books on the Negro Leagues, more needs to be known about everyone who contributed to the game. I would have liked to have seen more history in Hernández's book, more about the various Latin Leagues in Cuba, Mexico, and elsewhere, and their relationships to the Major and Negro Leagues in the U.S. This would have added more context to the reams of statistical data the reader is given (as well as diluted it to a more approachable level, perhaps).… (meer)

This book should have been one of the most enjoyable reads of the late winter for me, but it needed better editing and proofing: lots of poorly edited sentences, dropped words and repetition. Hernandez's reliance on a kind of baseball jargon that I rarely see anymore, e.g., whitewash for shutout, also wore on me. Lastly, I most enjoyed the chapters on the retired pitchers; the inclusion of Johan Santana and Felix Hernandez, their excellence notwithstanding, seemed like filler. The book may be closed on Santana's career, or it may not, but F. Hernandez will by pitching for years to come and so it is hard to assess his impact despite his decade with the Mariners. I most enjoyed the sections on the pitchers I remember from my youth, Juan Marichal and Luis Tiant, and those on the Negro League and Latin American League pitchers, because, of course, I didn't know much about them. This is an important book but I wish everyone involved had taken a little more time to make it a better read.… (meer)

Juan Marchial, Pedro Martinez... some of baseball’s greatest, and most recognizable, pitchers have been Hispanic. Hernandez takes on the task of selecting seventeen of the very best among these players. Some, like Pedro, Marchial, Martin Dihigo, and King Felix, are obvious choices. Some, like Ramon Arano and Ruben Gomez, never made a Major League impact, but starred int eh Latin American leagues; Adolfo Luque and Camila Pascual played long enough ago to have been largely forgotten. The rest are familiar names and all recognizable as very good; Hernandez’s efforts shine a light on how very good they were relative to all pitchers -- Luis Tiant and Dennis Martinez were near Hall of Fame talents -- and gives us biographies of a group that has, largely, been overlooked in the baseball book business. Argue his choices if you will, that’s what best-of lists are for. But each of these men is worth knowing more about, making this a welcome addition to the literature.… (meer)