Ted Williams was half Mexican.
In the 1950s, growing up in Laredo’s Barrio del Azteca, I lived for baseball. My grandfather, a former umpire in the Mexican League, took me to see the Laredo Apaches play at Washington Park. The team was entirely Latino—players from Laredo, Mexico, and Cuba. One of them, Ismael “El Oso” Montalvo, stood out. Years later, he hired me as a bartender at the American Legion Post 59. I had no idea then that he’d once pitched for top teams in Mexico and would be honored in a book about border baseball history.
But as a boy, I wanted to see Latinos in the major leagues. That is why I started collecting baseball cards in 1952. For a penny, I would get a slab of gum and a pack of dreams. My collection included legends like Mantle, Mays, and Robinson —but it was the 29 Latino players who made my heart race: Roberto Clemente, Minnie Miñoso, Luis Aparicio, and others whose names sounded like mine. They weren’t just athletes—they were proof that we belonged.
One of my favorite players was Ted Williams. I admired his swing, his stats, his swagger. But it wasn’t until decades later, reading The Kid by Ben Bradlee Jr., that I learned something that would have changed everything: Ted Williams was half Mexican. His mother, May Venzor, emigrated from Chihuahua in 1907. If I had known that as a boy, he would have been my ultimate hero.
Those cards weren’t just collectibles. They were mirrors. And in them, I found pride, identity, and the quiet power of representation.
__________________________________________________________________________________
Copyright 2025 by Gilberto Quezada. Ted Williams image used under “fair use” proviso of he copyright law.