Martin Dihigo’s son overcome by emotion at Hall of Fame

With his beaming family by his side, Gilberto Dihigo’s emotional journey to Cooperstown was complete. He had for the first time laid eyes on his father’s bronze image.

The scene took place at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum’s Plaque Gallery. Tears of joy were soon evident rolling down Dihigo’s cheeks, followed by the removal of his glasses and the wiping of his eyes. He would then reach out and touch his dad’s plaque, then tap his heart with the same hand.

On the morning of Friday, June 29, Gilberto Dihigo, accompanied by his wife Marisol and sons Gilbert (11) and Gregory (9), visited the Hall of Fame for the first time since his father, the acclaimed Cuban-born ballplayer Martin Dihigo, was elected to the baseball shrine in 1977. He was the first Cuban elected to the Hall of Fame.

“There are so many emotions running through my heart right now,” said Dihigo through a Spanish language translator when asked how he was feeling after a tour of the Hall of Fame’s collections storage. “And my heart has been beating since the moment I walked into the Hall of Fame. If I continue to talk, pardon me, because I’m going to start crying.”

Martin Dihigo, the only person to be enshrined in the national baseball Halls of Fame of Cuba, Mexico, and the United States, could actually do it all on a ballfield. The right-handed pitcher and hitter, nicknamed “El Maestro,” was perhaps the most versatile player in the game’s history. In a career that lasted from the early 1920s until the late 1940s, he starred at almost every position on the diamond in the Negro, Cuban and Mexican leagues. Only the color of his skin precluded him from showing off his vast talents in the big leagues.

“Dihigo was one of the greatest I ever saw,” said fellow Hall of Famer Roy Campanella in 1977. “He was a tremendous hitter, had great power, could hit for an average, everything. I played against him in the Cuban winter league, in Mexico and in the Negro National League when he was with the New York Cubans.

“He was older than I was, but I batted against him a lot. He was a very good pitcher, a center fielder and a first baseman.”

Hall of Famer Monte Irvin added, “He was just a great natural athlete. He could run like a deer and had a great arm. He played the infield and the outfield, and he was a great pitcher.”

Dihigo, who died in 1971 five days shy of his 66th birthday, never made it to Cooperstown to celebrate his 1977 election to the Hall of Fame by the Committee on Negro League Veterans.

“I’ve seen a replica of his plaque, but it’s not the same as being present and seeing it up close,” said Dihigo’s son Gilberto, a television journalist who lives with his family in Orlando, Fla.