Puerto Rican icon Chi Chi Rodriguez ‘was all good’

As kids, Chi Chi Rodriguez and Roberto Clemente played for the same neighborhood baseball team in Carolina, Puerto Rico. The Great One Clemente was merely a pinch runner for the Sabana Llana Stars at the time. Juan Antonio “Chi Chi” Rodriguez was a 117-pound pitcher.

According to Rodriguez, the legendary golfer who died at the age of 88 on Thursday, “he could bring it” on the mound. Decades later, Rodriguez would laugh at the thought of a Hall of Fame right fielder being relegated to pinch-running on a neighborhood team.

Clemente and Rodriguez took different paths to stardom. Ultimately, though, they’ll both be remembered as iconic figures in Puerto Rican history beyond their athletic exploits. They also left their marks with altruistic efforts. 

Chi Chi Rodriguez served others

Clemente’s life was cut short when he died on a relief mission for earthquake victims in Nicaragua on New Year’s Eve 1972. Clemente, who died when his cargo plane crashed into the ocean shortly after departing from San Juan, would have been proud of the life his friend Chi Chi Rodriguez lived.

One of the best compliments I can pay Rodriguez is to say that he lived the type of life that would have made Clemente proud. Both men served the U.S. armed forces. Rodriguez served in the U.S. Army during the Korean War. Clemente was a Marine Corps Reserve.  

Rodriguez famously refined his golf swing as a kid by cutting branches from guava trees to use as makeshift golf clubs. Five years after Clemente made his big league debut with the Pirates in 1955, Rodriguez debuted on the PGA Tour in 1960.

Eight years later, Rodriguez claimed his first of eight PGA Tour victories. He added 22 more titles on the PGA Champions Tour. He also helped children through his Chi Chi Rodriguez Foundation.

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Rodriguez became the first Puerto Rican inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1992. He was also a fixture over the years at the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., when fellow Puerto Ricans were inducted. 

‘All good’

On an island where most citizens strive to be like Clemente, Rodriguez is one of the few athletes who can rate with Clemente among the greatest athletes Puerto Rico has produced. 

Clemente “was not only my idol. He was my hero,” Rodriguez told La Vida Baseball. “And he’s been that way to most of the Spanish-speaking guys because Roberto, when God picks a person he doesn’t pick a person just for a certain group. 

“He picks them for the world. Everybody in this world’s got some good in him, but Roberto was all good.”

A one-of-a-kind celebration.

Chi Chi Rodriguez explains his signature “sword dance.”

He will be missed. pic.twitter.com/XTsN9tzjCe

— PGA TOUR Champions (@ChampionsTour) August 9, 2024

The same should be said about Rodriguez. He mesmerized fans. He thrilled them when he joyfully used his putter like a sword. Rodriguez also used his celebrity to help his fellow man.

Rodriguez credited his parents with his playful personality. He described his mother as a bit of a comedian who was beloved by children. His father had a similar personality, he recalled.

“I guess it was always in my blood to be me,” Rodriguez once told the PGA Tour. “It’s not a sin to be you. You have to be what you have to be.”

Magical sword

Rodriguez would put his hat over the hole after sinking a putt. He began that tradition as a teen after a frog jumped out of a hole and knocked his ball out. Some players on the Tour complained that he was leaving spike marks around the hole. Then he began celebrating with the putter sword.

Few folks realized that Rodriguez was pretending to be a matador who had just finished off a bull. He even used his handkerchief to mimic drying off blood.

“Latin people, everything is revolved around the (bull) ring,” he said. “So I figured the hole was a bull. I had the sword, and I go and I stab the bull. And I dry the blood off, and I put the sword back. In real life I wouldn’t kill a fly. I don’t like to see anything bleed.”

To paraphrase the golf legend, Chi Chi Rodriguez was all good.