Page 126 - 1975 BoSox

ON OCTOBER 16, 1975, IN THE eighth inning of Game Five of the World Series, the Red Sox trailed the Reds 5-1.
In the bottom of the eighth, Dick Pole walked Johnny Bench and Tony Perez. Diego Segui, one of Boston’s two Cuban pitchers, replaced Pole and inherited a tough situation: two men on, no outs, George Foster advancing to the plate, and a crowd of 50,000 in Cincinnati not satis ed with the comfortable lead. Later, Dick Pole was asked what he thought about while out there during the few minutes of his World Series mound appearance. He said it was exactly what he didn’t want to have happen, and he’d have to live with that memory.
No one asked Diego Segui, who relieved Pole, about his performance: how he got Foster, a formidable hitter during the regular season, to hit a y ball to Dwight Evans, with Bench moving over to third and Perez waiting it out at rst; then allowed Dave Concepcion to drive home Bench with his own y to Evans.
For there is little glory in it for the relief pitcher. eir brief mound appearances provide scant inspiration to reporters prowling for after-game stories. Diego Segui had traveled a long way in the major leagues before he found himself on the mound in his only World Series appearance. And yet there is a great story to be told about him.
Born on August 17, 1937 — or 1938 by other reports — in Holguin, Cuba,“la tierra de campeones.” Although a right-handed pitcher, he was a southpaw in every other activity of daily living, writing, eating; and, if required, could pitch that way too. “Not too well, though,” he said in an interview with Hy Zimmerman in the Seattle Daily Times in 1969. “Been throw- ing other way too long. I was changed
when I was [a] little boy in Cuba. It was so long ago, I do not remember who or why. But I changed. Maybe they needed a right-hander. I grew up on [a] farm. Not many kids in the neighborhood. We played base- ball in elds with small teams. Maybe ve, six boys on a side. I was [a] good hitter. I thought I would get to baseball that way. But I throw hard. So they make me a pitcher.”1
Diego Segui was signed by the Cincinnati Reds in 1958 after being scouted by Al Zarilla. But the Reds released Segui in April and he spent the season pitch- ing for Tucson, a team in the Class C Arizona-Mexico League with no major-league a liation. At the end of September Tucson sold him to the Kansas City Athletics. e next three seasons Segui pitched in the Athletics farm system and spent the o season with teams around Central America and Venezuela, prompting concern that he would squander his pitch- ing arm on meaningless games, instead of saving it for the major leagues. But Segui considered the o - season an opportunity to stay in shape. When Fidel Castro canceled the Cuban Winter League season in 1961, players were confronted with a choice between returning to Cuba and joining amateur leagues or professional baseball outside their homeland. Segui had not been back to Cuba after 1960. His parents and sister were still there. His brother Dario, a pitching prospect, had a 13-4 record in the Florida State League until he hurt his arm. “He was better pitcher than I.
Much too bad.”Among the notable players who did not return to Cuba were Tony Oliva, Jose Cardenal, Cookie Rojas, and Frank Herrera.
In 1960, US players had been barred from playing in games in Havana, where the winter league had long attracted many major-league prospects. Cuban sports commissioner Jose Llanura struck the nal blow in 1961 when he announced
Diego Segui
by Joanne Hulbert
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