Emilio Navarro
| Emilio ("Millito") Navarro | |||
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Born: September 26, 1905 Patillas, 
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Died: April 30, 2011 (aged 105) Ponce, Puerto Rico |
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| Negro League debut | |||
| 1928, for the Cuban Stars (1928–1929), Negro Leagues | |||
| Last Negro League appearance | |||
| ca. 1949, for the Leones de Ponce | |||
| Negro League statistics | |||
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Batting average (Cuban Stars) |
.337 | ||
| Teams | |||
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Cuban Stars, Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Leones de Ponce |
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| Career highlights and awards | |||
| Administrator, Paquito Montaner Stadium Ciudad Deportiva Millito Navarro Parque de los Ponceños Ilustres "The Ideal Professional Baseball Player" MLB ceremonial Negro League draftee - NYY Puerto Rico Baseball Hall of Fame Inductee Puerto Rican Sports Hall of Fame Inductee Hispanic Heritage Baseball Museum Inductee |
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Emilio Navarro (September 26, 1905 – April 30, 2011), better known as "Millito Navarro", was the first Puerto Rican to play baseball in the American Negro Leagues. At the time of his death, at age 105, Navarro was the oldest former professional baseball player and the last surviving player from the American Negro League.
Navarro was born in Patillas, Puerto Rico, to Botello and Pepa Navarro, and raised in the city of Ponce. His father was a well-known shoemaker in Patillas who died when Emilio was 6 years old. His widowed mother soon moved to Ponce where she had family. From a young age, Navarro helped his family economically by selling newspapers, peanuts and ice. In Ponce he attended Castillo Public School and worked after school shining shoes and delivering the foods which his mother prepared to sustain the family. His first contact with baseball occurred when he went to watch the school team play. On one occasion he did not have enough money to pay for an entrance ticket to watch a game between the Castillo and Reina teams. He therefore jumped a fence, which happened to be in the outfield. It so happened that one of the Castillo team members became sick and when the coach saw Navarro jump the fence he asked him to play. He agreed and played baseball since.
After graduating from high school, Navarro was offered a grant to attend the University of Puerto Rico in Mayagüez, which he turned down. Instead, Navarro felt that he should help his family financially and believed that he was more than ready to play in the Major Leagues in the U.S..
In the 1920s, the United States was a racially segregated country and Navarro's skin color presented a problem for his participation in American baseball leagues — in baseball, blacks were not permitted to play in the same leagues as their white counterparts. As a consequence of this policy, a group of white and black businessmen joined forces and organized their own "Negro Leagues". The teams played against each other and even had their own "World Series". Two of those teams were the "Cuban Stars", owned by Alex Pompez, and the "Cuban Giants". Both of those teams consisted mainly of African-American or Afro-Latino players.
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