Starting in the 1950s, if you didn't come here, you were nobody in bullfighting.

It used to be common to see a matador or someone from the world of the bulls come for a drink or a meal here. Since the hotel closed, not many come anymore. All that is over now.

In bullfighting there is a term called querencia. The querencia is the spot in the ring to which the bull returns. Each bull has a different querencia, but as the bullfight continues, and the animal becomes more threatened, it returns more and more often to his spot.As he returns to his querencia, he becomes more predictable. And so, in the end, the matador is able to kill the bull because instead of trying something new, the bull returns to what is familiar. His comfort zone.

He successfully transitioned from the segregated era into the integrated era.

The story of Latinos in baseball, to a large degree was started in Tampa. There was some in Key West, but it really began to flourish in Tampa.

I think in a certain sense, we lost through history what it meant for a black Latino to break into the game. And that's partly because folks kind of looked at the story of baseball as two distinct eras, of segregated and integrated and forget about the folks who made the transition.