Red Black Green Baseball – Roger García is the featured guest of the third episode of the Red Black Green Baseball Podcast, and the first Afro-Latino individual to make an appearance on the show. He is the great-grandson of Silvio García, one of the greatest Afro-Cuban shortstops in the history of professional baseball. He had an illustrious career that spanned over twenty years, playing in the Negro Leagues, Mexican League, Cuban Winter League, and all the other top professional baseball leagues that allowed Black baseball players from throughout the African Diaspora to play.
The shortstop was one of the candidates considered to break MLB’s color line, although Branch Rickey deemed him unfit after García told him that he would kill a man in America if he disrespected him just for being Black. Roger and I talked about a list of topics, many of them revolving around his relationship with the game of baseball and how it intersects with his identity as an Afro-Cuban and his family history.
0:00 – Intro
0:45 – Background + Viral Tweet
2:55 – His great-grandfather’s complex relationship with Cuba
8:50 – Being Afro-Latino in baseball
10:00 – The new wave of young Black players in professional baseball
13:00 – Talking about the game within the game
19:00 – Baseball in Nashville
25:00 – Favorite Afro-Cuban players
26:30 – Travel ball story
30:00 Losing a family heirloom
32:00 Learning Spanish from Grandma
34:20 – Another discussion about the new wave of young Black talent in professional baseball
37:00 – Being a Black catcher
40:45 – Impromptu Michael Irvin praise
42:00 – Uptick in Black catchers in MiLB
44:15 getting Black people more engaged with baseball