Pedro José Rodríguez Jiménez

Pedro José "Cheíto" Rodríguez is the greatest natural home run hitter that Cuban baseball has ever produced.

When discussing home run hitters in the National Series, Pedro José is an unavoidable name. For many, in fact, he is the greatest slugger to ever step up to the plate in revolutionary baseball. Relatively small and stocky, the man would smash balls as entertainment and hit home runs purely for love of the art of batting.

Grandson, nephew, and son of great Cuban ballplayers. He was a great batter and slugger from the children's categories onward. He stood out in the Youth category when in an international tournament of that category held in Venezuela he hit 5 home runs in just eleven games, also leading in batting average and RBIs. At that event, everyone was captivated by the distance of his home runs despite his 16 years of age and short stature.

Sports Career
His debut in the National Series was the best of all time. Third in home runs with 11, a new record for rookies that lasted 27 years, despite the subsequent introduction of the aluminum bat and the lively ball. He debuted with the Cuba team and was the best in batting, home runs, and RBIs during the international campaign.

He was the greatest slugger between 1974-1985 and was also the master of the Cuban dugout during that time. That year an outstanding trajectory was interrupted that had him, at just twenty-nine years old and having played twelve series, as second in home runs with 276, only 15 home runs behind Antonio Muñoz, but with six fewer series and years than his companion.

Third in RBIs with 935, preceded by Muñoz and Agustín Marquetti, and in bases traveled with over 2100, in that same order of those two luminaries, he was first in slugging and sacrifice flies, with a .290 average and among the top five in almost all offensive categories.

Best Sports Results
Year 1978
He set a record for home runs in a National Championship in the 1978 Selective Series with 28 in 60 games. In the final game of the Championship he hit his 100th home run against star Oscar Romero and thus got his team, Las Villas, to tie for 1st place with Pinar del Río and have to play a tight playoff. He decided that Selective Series with a long home run against pitcher Rogelio García.

At the Central American Games in Medellín he set a record for home runs and RBIs with 15 home runs and 37 RBIs in just 45 official at-bats.

Leader in home runs in the two Central American Games he participated in, in one Pan American Games, one Cup, and one World Series. He is second with the most home runs hit in Central American Games. He holds the best record for home runs by a Cuban with the 68 he hit in the 1978 season, including the 44 in the national campaign and the 24 in the international arena, a record still standing.

In the World Series in Italy he decided the game against Japan with a hit and was the hero against the United States when he drove in the tying and winning runs, two of them by a mammoth home run against the supersonic Tim Leary.

Year 1979
The most valuable in the 1979 Pan American Games in Puerto Rico with his lead in batting and records in home runs.

In October he was the star figure of the IV Intercontinental Cup held in Cuba. He set a record with 3 home runs in a game against Panama. He was the hero against the United States when in the first game against the northern team he hit two cosmic home runs through center field off the southpaw star Ken Dayley. At the end of the Cup he was the leader in hits, runs scored, home runs, RBIs, bases traveled, and slugging. He was selected as the most valuable player in that tournament and for the second consecutive year among the ten most outstanding athletes of Cuba and Latin America.

When he reached 1000 hits in the National Series he was the one who accomplished it in the fewest series, tied with Pedro Jova, and among all of them the youngest at 28 years old.

In summary, he was a phenomenon. In Medellín '78 he dispatched 15 complete home runs in 45 trips to the plate. With only 29 years of age and a dozen contests played, he had already accumulated 276 blows beyond the limits and also appeared in the historical Top Five of other categories such as slugging, runs batted in, and bases traveled. He reached a frequency of one home run every 12.69 official at-bats. "Come on in, Mr. Home Run," could be heard on the airwaves in the voice of the legendary Salamanca.

No one could hold a candle to him when it came to sending the sphere as far as humanly possible. At least between 1974 and 1985, no one did. To say "Cheíto" was to say some synonym for "god." Then, during the third edition of the Copa José Antonio Huelga, a Venezuelan player gave him a mere 92 dollars and the sanction fell upon his shoulders with excessive weight.

Thus was truncated the formidable career that Pedro José Rodríguez had been writing with the ink of sacrifice and talent. They authorized him to return after three years, but he had already lost the magic to get the stands on their feet with the spontaneous chorus of "it's gone." It was time to retire, then, and on March 22, 1992, there in Cienfuegos, the Cuban version of Babe Ruth said goodbye.

Cheíto passed away at 65 years of age as a victim of renal insufficiency with dialytic regimen caused by diabetes mellitus.