El Bobo Castillo & the Screwball

I want to write about something that's been bugging me for the longest time which is the lack of recognition for a Mexican American baseball player named Bobby "Bobo" Castillo who taught Fernando Valenzuela how to throw the screwball.

I remember el Bobo Castillo because as a kid I use to know the name of every baseball player on the Dodgers and because they won and I saw the World Series in 1981, and 1987 and remember the pain of losing in 77 and 78 to the Yankees, that damn Reggie Jackson interferred with the ball thrown to first base. Yet what really bothers me and it sort of did also back in the day was why all the attention by the Mexico born fan base was given to Fernando Valenzuela though Castillo had been there for a few years and taught Fernando the famous screwball. I'm not arguing different types of players, some would say Fernando was a better overall player, the Cy Young and Rookie of the Year Award proved it but it was the skill of a Mexican American, born in Los Angeles who taught the southern Sonoran player how to throw that famous screwball.  El Bobo never seemed to get attention except for Vin Scully saying LA's own but that was the extent of the recognition which should have been much more because he was one of our own and in those days baseball use to mean something to me. Granted I was never good, would hit the ball at Centinela Park(underhand pitch) and watched the ball go up in the air. My grandmother Kika would yell "run, mijo, run" and I would watch the ball go up in the air and then decide to run. My father Julian and grandpa Gus would just throw their arms into frustration. Later when I played at Sentinel Field in Inglewood, on Inglewood Avenue with the vaunted 3-4 story high fence I would never hit the ball, dropped flyballs that my friends on the opposing teams wished I would hit the ball to get over the embarassment of being the worse player. Baseball was not for me and I knew it, but I was a Dodger fan.

I never dreamed of making it but it meant something to see a brown Castillo versus a Black Castillo from the Caribe or Venezuela.  Castillo had been on the Dodgers but as soon as Fernando arrived, he was overly promoted and the dog pack from Mexico responded in kind along with the Dodger machine. But those same Mexican nationals did not support a Bobo Castillo even though it was known that he taught Fernando Valenzuela how to pitch the screwball. I remember in 1982 visiting Mexicali where they are big Aguila followers and even attended a game at the Nido Stadium but when Fernando was going to pitch, even the mudo of the neighborhood Cuautemoc where my father's friend lived uttered words to see "lllll tolo llll tolo" el toro was going to pitch as my Ernesto el Cochis, my father's adopted brother translated. Every little television was on and El Bobo was a forgotten player nobody mentioned much less in Mexicali.

I see this phenomenon, as indicative of a trend where Mexican nationals come to the US, sometimes sponsored, or on their own but the people who help them along is some solitaire Mexican American who sees a kin or because he's the one that translates for the Whites just like Fernando, he did not know how to speak English.  Mike Brito was the translator, Vin Scully tried his sombrero comment, Tommy Lasorda was carrying sentences and even Stu Nahan travelled to the Mayo rancho where Fernando was from and spoke in his Canadian Version of Spanish with Fernando's parents.  Fernando did not have to speak English and made much more money while el Bobo got lost in the mania.

I always wondered how El Bobo must have felt, because he never got his recognition or fan support simply because the Mexican nationals did not see him as one of them.  Even though his knowledge is what made Fernando Fernandomania but as I once saw an interview on the farmworkers, Gilberto Rodriguez stated that he and other Mexican Americans taught the newly arrived braceros how to work in the fields because it is a learned skill and the Mexicans were getting paid more. It obviously bothered him because he would not have mentioned this in the Cesar Chavez documentary.  My Nino Gus would say that it was the Mexican Americans who taught Mexican nationals how to work in the railroad tracks in the mid 1940's otherwise the jobs would have taken longer to learn.  And 50 years later, he still remembered that skill before his passing.

I guess I see that the Mexican nationals want to see themselves and only believe that those in Mexico are like them and do not consider those of us north of the border as them hence the Bobo Castillo phenomenon of not being known anymore or celebrated back then when pitching schools should have been established with the screwball being the signature pitch.

And that still happens today, where the Mexicans with skills, capital--Chivas USA, or preferred labor even without residency arrive and are given access while the average Mexican American fights for is existence and is lumped in with the rest of Mexican nationals as if he was one of them even though he was born in the US. In the Mexican national eyes, a Mexican American is an American and now a Gringo.  Hell the Mexican nationals are allowed to even move in academia Chicano Studies which was based on the Mexican American narrative of US birth and have been pushed aside for the undocumented plight, dream act and fight for amnesty when none of those issues have anything to do with a Mexican American.  Mexican Americans don't face deportation hearings so that is not our narrative. We can vote assuming there is no criminal record but that also applies to Whites, Blacks and women.

Fernando was a phenomenon which I believe was first inspired by ABBA that then carried into the baseball mound but those of us with baseball memory know that before Fernando ever crossed the border, El Bobo Castillo was already pitching with the Dodgers practicing the screwball pitch that Fernando was able to use for his own development. I wonder if he was like Adele's ex boyfriend wanting part of the royalty for inspiring "Rolling in the Deep".

Fernando I hope once acknowledged him for that lesson.