GENESIS OF THE COLOMBIAN PROFESSIONAL BASEBALL

JOSÉ NIETO, Colombian Historian

JOSÉ NIETO Historian (Barranquilla, Colombia)

There for the year 1998, the sport journalist, already missing, Humberto Acosta Núñez, being in the booth of the radio station “New Wave” of the also journalist, Jaime Jiménez Vines, transmitting a baseball party in the stadium Tomás Arrieta; during a pause, between inining and inning, it threw me the following question:

. - He hears known Pepe…that you are investigating in the File Microfilm of The Herald.

. - Yes. why I answered pregunta?-him to it.

. - Because the next one June 6 50 years of the first championship of Colombian professional baseball they are commemorated, and I would like you got me material to comment that anniversary.

. - With a lot I told gusto!-him…

To the few days I took the information to the radio station and I proposed him us to write something; perhaps a magazine; or why not, a book.

. - No. Forget it! I don't have time for that. If you want you write it and I advise you in what can.
The truth is that I got excited with the idea and I eat for then I met every Saturday with the journalist, gift Chelo de Castro, I decided to bet to that was capable; but with the consultantship and advice of this last one who he/she showed willing to collaborate me.

The following year, he was born “Genesis of the Colombian Professional Baseball” with the patronage of the University of the Atlantic, entity that for then it was directed by the professional, Ubaldo Enrique Mesa; and who didn't doubt in supporting this bibliographical project.

“Genesis of the Colombian Professional Baseball” it consists of:

. - Presentation.
. - Introduction.
. - Like Foreword.
. - Chapter I: Brushstrokes of the Baseball of the Grandparents.
. - Chapter II: The World Series.
. - Chapter: III The Column of Pepe “Grandson” (1946).
. - Chapter IV The Column of Pepe “Grandson” (1947).
. - Chapter V: National events.
. - Chapter VI: In the Beginnings of the Professionalism.
. - Chapter VII: In Dialogue with Witness.
. - Chapter VIII: The Championship.
. - Chapter IX: In The Final Straight line.
. - Chapter X: Evoking the Old Glories.

This book was published by the call “Fund of Publications of the University of the Atlantic. Collection of Social and Economic Sciences Rodrigo Noguera Barreneche”, and form for Editorial New People in Santa Faith of Bogotá, in December of 1999.

In the year 2000, The Herald's Sunday Magazine had to well to publish, during seven Sundays, the first chapter that is to say: “Brushstrokes of the Baseball of the Grandparents.”

In their first part or “Presentation”, the doctor Ubaldo Enrique Mesa he wrote what continues:
“(…) 1948, crucial year for the history of Colombia, it was also it, from another perspective and in very different dimensions, for the game of the small ball.

For that beginning was given then, in Barranquilla and Cartagena, to the First Championship he/she National-is worth to say, coastal-of that sport so typical and so our. The date in that the baseball happened was of fond of professional.

“One lived in the Costa the glorious time of the “Trunk” Rodríguez and the “Submarine” Cúpidan, of the “Chita” Miranda and the Cuban Pelayo Chacón-mentor of so many young promises -, of the “Capi” Arrieta and the “Guayubín” Olive tree, the “Venao” Flórez and “Niñobueno” Crizón, peloteros unforgettable and several times world champions with the cap and the colors of Colombia, above selections as that of the Island of Cuba.

The brilliant time of the Indians and of the Torices, of the siblings Grandson, of Federico Schemel, Marcos Pérez Caicedo, Chelo of Castro, Nick Rosanía and so many other, many of them already missing that deserved the cradle of this sport so coastal and-in a more universal-so Caribbean environment. It was, in two words, the Time of Gold of the Colombian baseball.

“When remembering the most remarkable episodes in that first championship, as well as to the pioneers and the stellar figures, José Nieto dedicated Ibáñez, author of the book that today is giving to know our Fund of Publications, months and months of zeal.

Their vivid histories, full with rigorous data but at the same time of amenity, they are the mature fruit of a patient, serious, meticulous investigation, one of whose merits, besides the writing, it is to have gone, as direct source, to the same main characters of the facts that he narrates…. etc.

Lastly, “Genesis of the Colombian Professional Baseball” it was very well welcomed; but it was not well diffused and much less taken to the bookstores of Barranquilla and Cartagena, cities where it would have been a sale success with all security.

At the present time they are great number of copies in the cellars of the own University of the Atlantic where it can be acquired by a moderate price.

José Nieto Ibáñez