Former AL batting champion to owning a baseball team and serving as mayor in Mexico: The tremendous story of Bobby Ávila
Bobby Avila was once an award-winning baseball player. He would go on later in life to become the mayor of Mexico, cementing his status as one of the country's best and most iconic figures.
In 1954, Bobby Avila became the first foreign-born Latino to win a batting title. He is a native of Veracruz, Mexico and he hit .341 for the pennant-winning Cleveland Guardians, who were then known as the Indians.
Ironically, Ted Williams, who is a Mexican-American, hit slightly better that season. He hit .345, but he didn't have enough at bats due to military service. Williams spent a lot of time in the military.
Bobby Avila went from baseball star to mayor
This was a time well before Mexican players were as common in Major League Baseball. Cuban outfielder Minnie Minoso of the Chicago White Sox (the runner-up for the batting crown), Chico Carrasquel from Venezuela, the White Sox' shortstop, and Ruben Gomez of Puerto Rico, a New York Giants' pitcher, made up the bulk of the country's stars alongside Bobby Avila.
Via the New York Times, it was this experience in baseball that helped him become mayor of Mexico later on in life:
"Baseball helped me in a lot of ways with politics. When you live with people so closely like you do in baseball, you learn how to deal with people."
His success there was good, but he was arguably an even better baseball player. That season that he won the batting title was almost marred by a thumb injury, but he refused to let it stop him:
"I started to hit well early, and once you're hitting well you build confidence. I felt like I could hit anybody."
Despite being lost to the annals of history, Bobby Avila had a fairly good career. He played from 1949 to 1959, playing second and third base. The infielder accumulated 28. 4 bWAR and had a career average of .281. His career OPS+ of 104 suggests he was a pretty solid hitter.