Benny Valenzuela, a pioneering Mexican-born ballplayer, emerged from a humble start in professional baseball and reached the majors, but the Cardinals were the wrong club for a rookie third baseman.
Valenzuela played briefly for the Cardinals in two stints with them in 1958. The Cardinals, though, were set at third base with a premier player, Ken Boyer, and that meant Valenzuela had little opportunity to play.
The Cardinals traded Valenzuela after the 1958 season and he never got back to the big leagues. He did, however, continue his playing career in the minors and he went on to have success as a manager for many years in the Mexican League.
Big break
Benjamin Beltran Valenzuela was born in Los Mochis, a city founded by Americans near the Gulf of California in northwestern Mexico. His nickname was Papelero because as a boy he sold newspapers to help his widowed mother.
Benny Valenzuela, no relation to fellow Mexican and former Cardinals pitcher Fernando Valenzuela, became a bat boy for a Los Mochis team managed by former Washington Senators pitcher Syd Cohen. In 1949, when Valenzuela was 16, Cohen became exasperated by a Los Mochis outfielder who couldn’t track fly balls in the sun. Cohen lifted the outfielder during a game and replaced him with the bat boy, Valenzuela, who’d showed an ability to play.
Three years later, in 1952, Cohen was manager of the Bisbee-Douglas Copper Kings of the Arizona-Texas League and he gave his former bat boy a spot on the team. Bisbee-Douglas was in the low levels of the minors, a remote Class C league with no affiliation to any franchise in the majors, but it was professional baseball in the United States and Valenzuela was grateful to Cohen to get the opportunity.
Valenzuela spent three seasons with Bisbee-Douglas, learning the craft, and produced batting averages of .352 in 1952, .347 in 1953 and .388 in 1954.
The Cardinals took notice and on Nov. 30, 1954, they selected Valenzuela, 21, in the minor-league draft.
Rising above
Valenzuela continued his strong hitting in the Cardinals’ system. He batted .354 for Fresno in 1955, .305 with 107 RBI for Omaha and Houston in 1956 and .286 with 24 home runs and 90 RBI for Houston in 1957.
At spring training with the Cardinals in 1958, Valenzuela impressed general manager Bing Devine and moved “to the front row among candidates for pinch-hitting jobs,” the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.
Valenzuela also had a strong arm and the Post-Dispatch reported he “gets a ball away more quickly than any infielder we can remember. He frequently gets the ball to the first baseman before the batter has reached the halfway mark to first base.”
Valenzuela was listed as being 5 feet 10, 175 pounds, but often was described in unflattering terms. The Sporting News called him “thick-legged” and “stubby.” The Post-Dispatch resorted to “chunky.”
“He resembles Yogi Berra,” The Sporting News decided.
Stereotyping was common. The Sporting News, for instance, labeled him “the peppery Mexican” and cited his “chili con carne English.”
Trailblazer
Valenzuela, 24, made the Opening Day roster of the 1958 Cardinals and became the 10th Mexican-born player to reach the major leagues, according to Frontera.info. He was the second Mexican-born player to join the Cardinals. The first was pitcher Memo Luna, whose big-league career with the Cardinals consisted of two-thirds of an inning in 1954.
Mel Almada, an outfielder with the 1933 Red Sox, was the first Mexican-born player in the big leagues.
Valenzuela made his Cardinals debut on April 27, 1958, when he batted for pitcher Larry Jackson and singled to right against Johnny Podres of the Dodgers. Boxscore
“He’s hitting 1.000, a heck of an average in any man’s language,” the Post-Dispatch declared.
On May 6, 1958, Valenzuela doubled against Bob Buhl of the Braves, but the Cardinals demoted him to Omaha on May 14 after he appeared in five games.
Moving on
On June 29, 1958, another Mexican-born player, shortstop Ruben Amaro, who’d been Valenzuela’s teammate for two seasons at Houston, made his major-league debut with the Cardinals.
Meanwhile, Valenzuela hit. 284 with 72 RBI for Omaha and was named the third baseman on the Parade Magazine Class AAA all-star team.
On Sept. 2, 1958, the Cardinals recalled Valenzuela to the big leagues and he appeared in five more games, producing a single against Bob Rush of the Braves on Sept. 18.
For the season, Valenzuela hit .214 (3-for-14) in 10 games for the Cardinals. Boyer, 27 and entrenched at third base, hit .307 and led the Cardinals in runs (101), hits (175), home runs (23) and RBI (90).
On Oct. 7, 1958, the Cardinals traded Valenzuela, pitcher Billy Muffett and catcher Hobie Landrith to the Giants for pitchers Ernie Broglio and Marv Grissom.
Valenzuela played three seasons (1959-61) in the Giants’ farm system before continuing his career as a player and manager in the Mexican League. Among the former major leaguers he managed in Mexico were ex-Cardinals pitchers Diego Segui and Pedro Borbon.
Valenzuela, Vinny Castilla and Aurelio Rodriguez are among the most prominent Mexican-born third basemen to reach the major leagues.
In 1986, Valenzuela and Amaro were inducted together into the Mexican Baseball Hall of Fame in Monterrey.
RetroSimba 
“He resembles Yogi Berra,” The Sporting News decided.
Jesus, who cares? If he can hit like Yogi, he can play on my team any day.
Yep.
I remember Benny from Omaha. My father, Bill Bergesch, was the Business Manager of the Omaha AAA team. Before or after a game, he would sometimes take me with him into the clubhouse. Johnny Keane was his field manager.
My memory of Benny is of a stocky, but athletic, young man with a laugh and a smile. He was a crackerjack infielder. He seemed popular and comfortable in the clubhouse, at least to me.
Omaha in that era was not exactly a center of global worldliness. I had met very few non-native speakers of English, but Benny had sufficient command of English to laugh and joke with team-mates, or little kids, in the clubhouse, and that is how I remember him. In 1956 I was 8, and in 1958 I was 10.
I have wondered about him over the years, and this fills it in. It looks to me like he had a good and respected life in baseball, if not a big MLB career. Glad to have met you, Benny. RIP.
Thank you very much for your wonderful insights.
He , its my grandfather i have old photos and new photos … Rip 24 oct. 2018!
Thank you for commenting. I am sorry for your loss. Every remembrance of your grandfather, Benny Valenzuela, mentions his kindness and the happiness he brought to others. Quite a tribute.
This thread is full of awesome surprises.