Silvio García Could Have Broken the Racial Barrier in MLB
That the Matanzas-born player (originally from Limonar), Silvio García, had quality in abundance to play baseball is corroborated by the offer from Branch Rickey, owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers, to be included among the possible players called to break the racial barrier in Major League Baseball (MLB).
That possibility vanished when he was told that in order for Black players to play in that baseball, he would have to tolerate even insults. Silvio’s temperament did not allow for such dishonor, so the selection then fell in 1947 on Jackie Robinson.
Regarding this topic, some historians accept it while others doubt it due to the few existing documents that confirm it, since that proposal was handled with great caution.
One of the great baseball players of the province in those years, Ramón Napoleón Heredia (1913-1979), a contemporary of Silvio (1914-1977), played with him on several teams and leagues together: in Matanzas, in the Winter League (Habana–Almendares–Cienfuegos–Marianao); in Mexico and in the Independent (Negro) League in the USA with the New York Cubans, owned by Alex Pompez.
According to what Ponce, Napoleón’s son, told me a few years ago, his father was aware of the fact: «Dad knew the Rickeys, both the old promoter of Jackie Robinson and the son. He told me that both had an incredible nose and eye for discovering talent, but when trying to promote Silvio, they were not going to take a risk after what the Matanzas player had said about the endeavor to break the racial barrier.»
«He promoted Robinson, who, with a brilliant performance with the Dodgers, ended up in Cooperstown. Rickey Jr. was Director of Scouting Staff for the Pittsburgh Pirates, where the father was a scout from the mid-50s until ’61.»
«I remember an anecdote he told me: he was at a dinner with Rickey, Rickey Jr., and others, talking about Cuban baseball and its players (Silvio’s figure and the proposal from years ago rejected by the Cuban were recalled). Praises toward Silvio rained down.»
«The lively conversation continued, and dad mentioned Martín Dihigo; Mr. Rickey stood up, took his hat, and made a gesture like the feint bullfighters make to the beasts — not of mockery or deception, but of reverence, as if saying ‘after you,’ and said: ‘That is the best player, white or Black, I have ever seen; he did everything well.'»
«My father had the advantage of going to the United States knowing English; he read, wrote, and spoke it fluently.»
Silvio could not break the racial barrier in the Major Leagues in 1947. However, he achieved that merit in South Florida in 1952, when playing with the Havana Cubans, Class C, alongside fellow Matanzas player Ángel Scull and American George Handy from Miami Beach, they accomplished it.
Silvio García, for his innumerable virtues, was enshrined in the Palmar de Junco Hall of Fame in the city of Matanzas in 2016.
