Ramiro Martinez (August 23, 1923 – July 8, 2015) was a
Cuba
Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...
n born sportscaster who settled in
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and Unincorporated ...
, where he hosted, at various times, television and radio shows. Martinez was elected to the Puerto Rican Sports Hall of Fame in 2009.
Biography
Ramiro Martinez left Cuba in 1945 and moved to
New York, New York
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Uni ...
, where he began broadcasting
Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...
games to a number of Hispanic countries. At that era, he worked alongside Argentine
baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding tea ...
commentator and friend Eloy Canel. During this period also, he authored columns for 12 newspapers and 3 magazines. In 1955, Ramirez established himself in Puerto Rico (some unreferenced sources claim he lived in
Spain
, image_flag = Bandera de España.svg
, image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg
, national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond")
, national_anthem = (English: "Royal March")
, i ...
first). Martinez had started his professional career in Cuba not as a sportscaster but as an actor.
In Puerto Rico, Martinez quickly began working as a sportscaster and reporter. He began to work there on a radio show that lasted for 50 years. Martinez, who did not openly oppose
Fidel Castro
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz (; ; 13 August 1926 – 25 November 2016) was a Cuban revolutionary and politician who was the leader of Cuba from 1959 to 2008, serving as the prime minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976 and president from 1976 to 200 ...
, as a reporter was able to interview the Cuban President and El Che Guevara live and in person.
Martinez met
Roberto Clemente
Roberto Enrique Clemente Walker (; August 18, 1934 – December 31, 1972) was a Puerto Rican professional baseball right fielder who played 18 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Pittsburgh Pirates. After his early death, he was pos ...
in 1954, as the future baseball Hall-of-Famer played triple-A baseball. The two forged a friendship that lasted until Clemente died in a plane crash on December 31, 1972. Both Martinez and Clemente considered each other to be brothers. Years later, Martinez also forged a strong friendship with boxer
Wilfredo Gómez
Wilfredo Gómez RiveraCanal 2, named "De Todo un Poco con Ramiro Martinez" ("A Little Bit of Everything, With Ramiro Martinez") in which he commented about the week's sports news, and instructed the viewers about different sports, including
baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding tea ...
-his favorite sport-,
boxing
Boxing (also known as "Western boxing" or "pugilism") is a combat sport in which two people, usually wearing protective gloves and other protective equipment such as hand wraps and mouthguards, throw punches at each other for a predetermined ...
-his second favorite one-, Olympic sports and others. Martinez later became sportscaster for the
Miami Marlins
The Miami Marlins are an American professional baseball team based in Miami. The Marlins compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) East division. The club's home ballpark is LoanDepot Park.
The franc ...
's radio transmissions.
Ramiro Martinez was also an avid sports memorabilia collector. His three-floor home in
Guaynabo, Puerto Rico
Guaynabo (, ) is a city, suburb of San Juan and municipality in the northern part of Puerto Rico, located in the northern coast of the island, north of Aguas Buenas, south of Cataño, east of Bayamón, and west of San Juan. Guaynabo is spr ...
held what is considered to be the largest sports memorabilia collection in the tiny country, including 5,000 items related to Clemente. In 1973, Martinez released an album dedicated to Clemente's memory. This album was relaunched in 2004 as a
compact disc
The compact disc (CD) is a Digital media, digital optical disc data storage format that was co-developed by Philips and Sony to store and play digital audio recordings. In August 1982, the first compact disc was manufactured. It was then rele ...
. Martinez also had the largest sports-event-related video collection in Puerto Rico.
Death
Martinez, who had recently undergone surgery to repair an injury caused by a fall, died in his home in Guaynabo, Puerto Rico, on July 8, 2015.
Personal life
Ramiro Martinez had two sons and two daughters. Ramiro Jr. , Jorge, Fe and Sarah Martinez, who works at Telemundo Puerto Rico.