Sandy Amorós

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Edmundo "Sandy" Amorós (January 30, 1930 - June 27, 1992) was a Cuban left fielder in Major League Baseball for the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers and Detroit Tigers. Amorós was born in Havana. He both batted and threw lefthanded.

Amorós had a brief and unremarkable career in the major leagues except for one, defining moment with the Brooklyn Dodgers. It was the seventh inning of Game 7 of the 1955 World Series. The Dodgers had never won a World Series in their history and were now trying to hold a 2-0 lead against their perennial rivals, the New York Yankees. Amorós came in that inning as a defensive replacement. The first two batters in the seventh inning reached base and Yogi Berra came to the plate. Berra hit a shot into the left field corner that looked to be a sure double, as the Brooklyn outfield had just shifted to the right. Amorós came out of nowhere to catch the ball and then threw to second to complete the double play. The Yankees rally was crushed and the Dodgers won the series two innings later.

After baseball, Amorós became a prosperous rancher in Cuba, but the coming of Fidel Castro forced him to flee to Miami, Florida,^{[dubious — see talk page]}. The Cuban's last season in the majors was 1960. He then fell on hard times. As author Roberto González Echevarría notes in his book The Pride of Havana (1999), "For many players, the collapse of the Cuban League had tragic consequences. The diaspora began. Amorós, for instance, returned to Cuba broke, and could not leave for many years, during which he became an alcoholic and eventually a diabetic. When he did leave, the Dodgers put him on their roster for the few days he needed for his pension."

It was 1967 when Amorós finally left for Miami, Florida. He lived in poverty and increasing ill health until his death from pneumonia. In a sad irony, he had been scheduled to travel to Brooklyn for a day in his honor and an appearance with Yogi Berra at a baseball-card show that would have earned him a little money.