Luque died in 1957, after playing in the Majors from 1914-1935. After his playing career ended, he returned and began coaching in 1941 in the US Major Leagues and also managed several teams in the Cuban League (he even pitched in a game in 1946, when he was pushing 55) as well as many other teams in Latin America.
Adolfo Luque's overall impact upon the world of professional baseball certainly merits his inclusion in the Baseball Hall of Fame, where many lesser players of his era are included. As his New York Times obituary testifies to, Luque was a respected coach in the Major Leagues, and like Gonzalez, had a significant part in helping to establish Latin American players as part of the national game. Because of his temper, Luque also commanded a respect, sometimes out of fear, that also played a key part in the acceptance of Latin American players, and helped immeasurably in paving the road for Robinson and all the others who followed in his steps. As Hemingway wrote in The Old Man and the Sea: "Who is the greatest manager, really, Luque or Mike Gonzalez? — I think they are equal."
Between 1911 and 1929, seventeen Cuban-born Caucasian players played in the Major Leagues and many more, both black and white, in the Negro Leagues. Somehow, along the line, and probably helped by the full acceptance by MLB of players and coaches like Gonzalez and Luque, and clearly assisted by the exposure of American owners, white players and managers to Cuban baseball players, the pedigree requirement for obvious "whiteness" was discarded. As a result, in 1935, a Cuban of clearly defined African features makes his debut with the Washington Senators.
There exists a fairy tale perception in the United States of a Cuban society that is a fully integrated, equal society where race doesn't matter, and everyone lives in a happy melting pot where the races mix and blend and racism is not a problem. Nothing could be further from the truth, even today (especially with the revival of tourism), and while many advances have been made for racial equality in Cuba, this perception diminishes the suffering and pain that Afro-Cubans, like African-Americans, have had to endure for centuries. Cuba even had a race war in 1912, in which thousands of Afro-Cuban militants, demanding equal rights, were massacred in a matter of weeks by the Cuban Army. This genocide was the most dramatic example of how white Cuban rulers responded to demands for racial equality at the same time that Marsans and Almeida were playing in the Major Leagues.
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1 - danielle
hi ny name is danielle aka dani