Source: notanotherbaseballblog.wordpress.com --- Sunday, December 31, 2017
Lately, the tiny island nation of Curacao (current population 150,000) has garnered a lot of attention for all the great Baseball players produced there. Before Curacao, the tiny Caribbean island nation (sort of) that produced a surprisingly large number of major league players was the U.S. Virgin Islands. The first Virgin Islander to play in the major leagues was Valmy Thomas on April 16, 1957. Thomas was born in Puerto Rico, where he later experienced the greatest share of his professional Baseball success, because his mother didn’t trust the hospitals in the U.S. Virgin Islands and thought she’d get better care in Puerto Rico. However, mother and baby returned to the Virgin Islands shortly after the delivery. Joe Christopher was the first major league player actually born in the Virgin Islands when he broke in in 1959. Including Thomas and Julio Navarro , who was also born in Puerto Rico but grew up on St. Croix, at least 16 Virgin Islanders have played in the majors. Here is my list of the best ten: 1. Horace “Hoss” Clarke (1965-1974). The starting 2Bman in the period immediately following the end of the New York Yankees’ multi-decade dynasty, Clarke was in his prime a terrific defensive 2Bman, leading the Junior for six consecutive seasons in assists (1967-1972), four consecutive seasons in putouts (1968-1971) and twice in double plays (1969, 1972). He was also seen as a good lead-off man in his day, but he was definitely a ...
from Baseball http://ift.tt/2lzNIz7
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