The league often is referred to as the winter league because many Major League Baseball (MLB) players spend their off-seasons there developing their skills.
Puerto Rico takes great pride in its baseball tradition. That pride is visible in the support from fans. It also can be seen in the enthusiasm and camaraderie of the players who are selected to represent Puerto Rico in international competition, such as in the World Baseball Classic that is played every four years. Puerto Rico has produced many Major League players including Hall of Famers Orlando Cepeda, Roberto Alomar, and Iván Rodríguez. Yet the greatest baseball player to hail from the small Caribbean island is Roberto Clemente. He has become known as the "Babe Ruth" of Puerto Rico. Roberto Clemente e rto Walker was born in 1934, in Carolina, Puerto Rico. He was the youngest of seven children in a family without a lot of means. He grew up working alongside his brothers and father, harvesting sugar cane and loading it into trucks.
At a young age, Roberto showed great athletic talent. By the time he was 17 years old, he was a member of the Santurce Crabbers team in the Puerto Rican Baseball League.
DID YOU KNOW?
Hiram Bithorn and Luis Olmo were the first two baseball players from Puerto Rico to play in the Major Leagues. Bithorn, a pitcher, played his first game for the Chicago Cubs in 1942. He played for four seasons.
Olmo, an outfielder, played his first game for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1943. He played for six seasons, ending his career with the Boston Braves.
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Putting the Pieces Together
Americans needed to begin to put the past behind them, come together, and plan for the future in the spring of 1865. But Abraham Lincoln, the man best equipped to lead them and who had hoped to restore the country as smoothly and peacefully as possible, had been assassinated.
LAST SHOTS
The last Confederate forces in the Civil War didn’t surrender in the spring of 1865 or on a battlefield.
AND IN OTHER 1865 NEWS
A group of African Americans stop at the White House’s annual public reception on January 1, where they shake hands with President Abraham Lincoln.
A Plot to Kill President the
For several months, actor John Wilkes Booth’s band of conspirators had plotted to capture President Abraham Lincoln and hold him hostage in exchange for Confederate prisoners.
Let the Thing Be Pressed
In June 1864, Union Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant began a nearly 10-month campaign in Virginia.
HEALING THE NATION
President Abraham Lincoln took the oath of office for the second time on March 4, 1865.
A Helping Hand
The spring season is hard in any agricultural society. Plants and animals are too small to eat.
WAR SHERMAN-STYLE
As far as Union Major General William T. Sherman was concerned, the Civil War had gone on long enough.
PEACE TALKS
The fall of Fort Fisher made clear that the Confederacy’s days were numbered. Southerners were tired and hungry.
FORT FISHER'S FALL
Outnumbered Confederate soldiers inside Fort Fisher were unable to withstand the approach of Union troops by land and the constant Union naval bombardment from the sea.
