Martin Dihigo’s son overcome by emotion at Hall of Fame
“This is coming from someone who is here for the first time since my dad was inducted in 1977, so you can only imagine what I’m thinking seeing his plaque for the first time. It’s the culmination.”
Looking back, Gilberto Dihigo, sporting a cap from his father’s favorite team, the 1942 Mexican League Torreon Algodoneros, said of his famous father that “he was just a very loving man with a lot of sentiments towards a son.”
“I wanted my father to see me in a swimming competition,” Gilberto recalled. “I was wearing my dad’s pants, cut, and I dive in, but I wasn’t a good swimmer. Wearing those pants was pulling me down and I started to drown. I was going down and someone pulled me out. My dad was laughing while I was drowning. They took me out and my dad says, ‘You have to know how to do things. And if you don’t know how to do it, then why are you doing it?’ He was always like that. Direct and to the point.”
Expressing the pride he felt near the end of this special Cooperstown excursion, a smiling and overcome Gilberto Dihigo paused, then said, “This has been the best gift a son can have and a husband can have. It’s been a magical day.”
Bill Francis is the senior research and writing specialist at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum
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