The Vanished Gardens of Córdoba

Roy was a Chicago White Sox fan until 1956, when the Sox traded their shortstop, Chico Carrasquel, who was Roy’s favorite player, to the Cleveland Indians, to make room for a rookie, Luis Aparicio. Roy switched his allegiance to the Chicago Cubs, who had the home run–hitting newcomer Ernie Banks at shortstop, and he never forgave the White Sox for getting rid of Carrasquel. Aparicio, like Chico, was from Venezuela, and the Sox proved correct in exchanging one Venezuelan for another, since Little Looie, as he came to be called, went on to a Hall of Fame career, while Carrasquel quickly faded into obscurity. But Chico had been the first flashy Latin infielder in the major leagues and Roy, who was then a nine-year-old shortstop on his Little League team, never forgot him. Chico and Looie were the vanguard of Venezuelan star shortstops, to be followed by Davey Concepcion and Omar Vizquel, the latter being perhaps the best of them all. Roy became enamored of Ernie Banks, too, but more for his power stroke than his fielding. Banks had good hands—he set the major league record for fewest errors in a season (since broken)—but limited range. Carrasquel made more errors but he got to more balls, as did Aparicio, whom Roy eventually came to respect and admire. Alfonso “Chico” Carrasquel, whose father, Alex, had been a legendary pitcher in his native Venezuela, would remain Roy’s baseball hero. When he grew up, Roy decided, he would write a biography of Chico Carrasquel even if nobody else remembered him. Many years later, when Roy read in a book about Prince Faisal saying to Lawrence of Arabia, “And I . . . I long for the vanished gardens of Córdoba,” he pictured Chico Carrasquel on the vanished infield of old, since demolished Comiskey Park in Chicago, snagging a hard ground ball on the short hop and firing it to first base just in time to nail the runner. Roy knew exactly how Faisal felt.