Paulino Casanova Ortiz was born on this day in 1941, in Perico, Matanzas, Cuba. He also played for Almendares in the Cuban winter league. Casanova broke with Washington in 1965 and ended with Atlanta in 1974.
In 1966, he hit 13 HR and 5 triples in his first full season! In 1967, Casanova made the American League All Star team as a member of the aforementioned Senators. It was his best year in the majors, as reported on SABR:
Casanova set career highs in games played (141), plate appearances (551), and RBIs (53) in 1967. One particularly memorable game started on the evening of June 12. In Washington, the Senators and the Chicago White Sox played a 22-inning marathon. Casanova caught the whole thing, receiving 268 pitches.
As he recalled in 2012, “The reason the game went so long was because of my defense” – he wiped out a number of runners. He went 1-for-9, missing a chance to end it in the 20th inning when he hit into a third-to-home-to-first double play with the bases loaded – but his one hit was the game-winner at 2:44 A.M.”
22 innings behind the plate plus the winning hit in the 22nd frame? That’s really something!
I met him in the 1970’s and he was a very nice, friendly person. We chatted politics, baseball, and music, his other great passion.
Average players, although good enough to play MLB, like Casanova and Chico Ruiz, just to name two, made more money in their Major League careers, than the so called “superstars” that played all their lives for Fidel Castro in Cuba.. Fidel ruined the careers of so many athletes in different sports but most of them went along with it.