The improbable career of Jungle Jim Rivera

With the death of Minnie Minoso, just two 1950's Go-Go Sox remain standing: Billy Pierce, 87, and my favorite, 93 year old Jungle Jim Rivera. If Billy Pierce was Ozzie Nelson, Jungle Jim was Bad, Bad, Leroy Brown, and his ten year career as sparkplug of the Go-Go Sox a near miracle.
One of 12 children of a destitute Puerto Rican immigrant couple in Spanish Harlem , Rivera was farmed off to a orphanage at age six for ten years after ...his mother died. Back in circulation at 16, Rivera bounced around at a number of body building construction jobs and honed his athletic skills in boxing and baseball. Rivera joined the Army Air Corp in 1942, won a service boxing championship and played on a service baseball team. But in 1944, Rivera's future was grim; sentenced to life for attempted rape and assault. His disproportionate sentence had much to due with his being Puerto Rican, committing his crime in the South and choosing a victim whose father was an Army officer. But in the 40's, many prisons fielded baseball teams who played both other prison teams and civilian teams, needing good exhibition opponents. Rivera so impressed the owner of the Atlanta Crackers minor league team, he finagled Rivera's parole in 1949, after just five years. Rivera went on to lead the Class D Gainesville G Men and the Class D Pensacola Flyers to pennants in 1949 and 1950, batting .335 and .338 with 142 and 139 runs scored respectively. Playing in the Puerto Rican league after the 1950 season, Rivera encountered another angel; the ornery curmudgeon Rogers Hornsby, managing a rival Puerto Rican team. Hornsby, who said Rivera was the only player he'd ever pay to see play, arranged for Rivera to make the jump to Triple A Seattle in the Pacific Coast League. In 1951, Rivera carried his third straight team to a pennant, batting 352, while garnering 135 runs and 231 hits. Rivera's luck held as Hornsby was tapped by Bill Veeck to manage the '52 St. Louis Browns. Hornsby convinced Veeck to sign Rivera, completing his spectacular jump from the Joint to the Big Show. But it took Baseball Commissioner Ford Frick to let Rivera into the Bigs, after the St. Louis Bluenoses tried to oust the ex-con from playing in their city. Rivera slumped early and was traded to the White Sox in July. He became a perennial fan favorite with his head first slides and fabulous running catches in right field. He homered in the 1959 pennant clinching game to give the Sox an insurance run in their thrilling 4-2 victory of the Indians.

Prisons today are a neglected and oft privatized Hell, where opportunities for salvation and redemption are nil. How many thousands of Jim Rivera's are languishing in these disgraceful edifices to heartless austerity we'll never know. But for ten years we South Siders got to see one fabulous success story, which comes to mind with the passing of the Cuban Comet.