Baseball helping integrate Latinos into U.S. society, says author

Published: 2003-10-06

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Baseball is ahead of U.S. society in integrating Latinos, said Tim Wendel, author of a book on the boom in the number of Latinos among U.S. players. U.S. businesses are looking to baseball for lessons on how to provide support systems for Latinos given baseball's success in providing an environment which allows their Latinos to perform well, he added. In a wide-ranging telephone interview with Catholic News Service, Wendel said that many famous Latino players cite their Catholic faith and family ties as being important to their playing success in a country where the language and culture are strange to them. Wendel, a free-lance sports writer and a founder of USA Today's Baseball Weekly, interviewed scores of Latino players for his book, "The New Face of Baseball: The One-Hundred-Year Rise and Triumph of Latinos in America's Favorite Sport," published in June by HarperCollins. About 25 percent of today's major league players were born in Latin America or are U.S.-born Latinos, he said, and Latinos accounted for one-third of the 2003 All-Star game rosters.

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