The Forgotten All Latino All-Star Game: Hispanic Baseball Legends Gathered 50 Years Ago

Remembering The Forgotten Latino All-Star Game
MLB Baseball - An undated photo of Pittsburgh Pirates Roberto Clemente. (Photo by Janis E. Rettaliata/Sporting News via Getty Images)
MLB Baseball - An undated photo of Pittsburgh Pirates Roberto Clemente. (Photo by Janis E. Rettaliata/Sporting News via Getty Images)

It was the all-star game few baseball fans witnessed, and fewer today know it was ever played at all.

Fifty years ago, on a warm and sunny autumn afternoon in New York, two teams comprised of Latino players from the Major Leagues squared off at the Polo Grounds for an exhibition game billed as a charity event to benefit a new Latin American Hall of Fame.

Held on Oct. 12, 1963 - a week after the Los Angeles Dodgers swept the New York Yankees in the World Series - it would be the last baseball game ever played at the ramshackle Polo Grounds, which had housed the expansion Mets in their first two seasons while Shea Stadium was being built in Queens.

Before You Go

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