Cristóbal Rigoberto Mendoza Carreras

He was born in Ceiba del Agua, Havana province.

Cuban baseball player, he made his Major League debut in 1970 with the Minnesota Twins. He debuted on April 9, 1970 and played his last game on June 7 of that same year. He played as an infielder and coach.

He was 6 feet tall and weighed 180 pounds, batted and threw right-handed.

After 16 seasons in the Minor Leagues (12 of them with the Twins, or their predecessors, the Washington Senators). The Twins said that Minnie was 36 years old (using the date of birth that is still considered correct), but Mendoza insisted he was 34. His promotion to the major leagues was not a gift; in the previous season Minnie led the Class AAA American Association with 194 hits and a batting average of .333.

But it turned out there was no space for Mendoza to play with the Twins. He only participated in 16 games, in relief, and had 3 hits in 16 at-bats before being returned to the minor leagues in mid-June. There he won another batting title in the minors, with an average of .316 to be the best in the Class AA Southern Association in 1971, when he was already 37 years old, with which he helped Charlotte Hornets win. (He played in Charlotte for 10 seasons and was enormously popular there.) Mendoza ended his Minor League career with 2,502 hits (his record on Baseball-Reference.com does not include the 43 hits he batted in the Mexican League in 1973).

After retiring as a player, Mendoza was a coach for Charlotte O's. Mendoza was also first base coach for the Baltimore Orioles during the 1988 season. Later he was a minor league instructor for the Orioles organization.

Mendoza was a coach for the Burlington Indians in the Appalachian League and manager of the team in 1992.[2] As of 2008, Mendoza was coordinator for Latin America in the Cleveland Indians Organization.