Teolindo Antonio Acosta Lázaro (July 23, 1937 — August 2, 2004) was a
Venezuela
Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...
n professional baseball player. Listed at 5' 7", 168 lb., he
batted and threw left handed.
[ (Spanish)]
Acosta was a distinguished batter in his homeland. As a result, many people called him, in friendly way, as ''El Loquito que Inventó el Hit'' (the tiny crazy who invented the hit).
[Gutiérrez, Daniel; Alvarez, Efraim; Gutiérrez (h), Daniel (2006). ''La Enciclopedia del Béisbol en Venezuela''. LVBP, Caracas. ]
His skills were shown in his motherland with the
Aguilas del Zulia,
Cardenales de Lara
The Cardenales de Lara ( en, Lara Cardinals) is a baseball team in the Venezuelan Professional Baseball League. Founded in 1942 and based in Barquisimeto, the ''Cardenales'' have won six domestic titles, including back-to-back in 1998 and 1999, an ...
,
Industriales de Valencia The Industriales de Valencia was a baseball club who played from 1955 through 1968 in the Venezuelan Professional Baseball League. The Industriales joined the league as a replacement for the Santa Marta BBC.
The Industriales were based at Valencia ...
,
Licoreros de Pampero The Licoreros de Pampero was a baseball club who played from 1955 through 1962 in the Venezuelan Professional Baseball League. The team joined the league as a replacement for the Patriotas de Venezuela and played its home games at the Estadio Univ ...
,
Llaneros de Acarigua and
Tigres de Aragua
The Tigres de Aragua ( en, Aragua Tigers) is a baseball team that plays in the Venezuelan Professional Baseball League and represents the state of Aragua.
Founded in 1965, the Tigres plays its home games at the Estadio José Pérez Colmenares i ...
of the
Venezuelan Professional Baseball League
The Venezuelan Professional Baseball League or Liga Venezolana de Béisbol Profesional (LVBP) is the professional baseball league in Venezuela. The league's champion takes part in the Caribbean Series each year.
History Early years
Baseball exp ...
. Besides, Acosta played nine seasons in the
Mexican League
The Mexican League (, ) is a professional baseball league based in Mexico and the oldest running professional league in the country.
The league has 18 teams organized in two divisions, North and South. Teams play 114 games each season. Five te ...
for the
Leones de Yucatán
The Leones de Yucatán (English: Yucatán Lions) are a professional baseball team in the Mexican League. The team play its home games at Parque Kukulcán Alamo in Mérida, Yucatán. The Leones have won the Mexican League title five times in , , , ...
,
Pericos de Puebla
The Pericos de Puebla (English: "Puebla Parrots") are a professional baseball team in the Mexican League based in Puebla, Mexico.
History
The state of Puebla came upon baseball in the early 1920s when returning Poblanos that had come from militar ...
,
Tecolotes de Nuevo Laredo
The Tecolotes de los Dos Laredos (''Owls of the Two Laredos''), formerly known as the Tecolotes de Nuevo Laredo (''Owls of Nuevo Laredo''), are a Minor League Baseball team based in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, and Laredo, Texas in the Mexican Leagu ...
and
Cardenales de Villahermosa, now known as
Olmecas de Tabasco
The Olmecas de Tabasco (English: Tabasco Olmecs) are a professional baseball team in the Mexican League based in Villahermosa, Tabasco, Mexico. Their home ballpark is the Estadio Centenario 27 de Febrero.
The Olmecas won their only Mexican Leag ...
.
Along his prolific career of 23 years, Acosta won five batting crowns, two of them in his motherland and the rest of them in México.
Professional career
Early years
Acosta broke into minor league baseball with the Class-D
Dothan Cardinals of the
Alabama–Florida League
The Alabama–Florida League was a low-level circuit in American minor league baseball that existed from 1936 through 1939 and 1951 through 1962. In 1940–1941 and from 1946–1950. The absence of clubs based in Florida caused the league to chan ...
in 1958, batting .313 with 76
RBI and a league-leading 36
stolen base
In baseball, a stolen base occurs when a runner advances to a base to which they are not entitled and the official scorer rules that the advance should be credited to the action of the runner. The umpires determine whether the runner is safe or ...
s in 124 games. For whatever reason, the parent
Cincinnati Reds
The Cincinnati Reds are an American professional baseball team based in Cincinnati. They compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) National League Central, Central division and were a charter member of ...
assigned him to Dothan for a second season in 1959, and he responded by bopping out a .337 average and again led the circuit with 46 steals. Sufficiently impressed, the Reds moved Acosta up to the
Billings Mustangs
The Billings Mustangs are an independent baseball team of the Pioneer League, which is not affiliated with Major League Baseball (MLB) but is an MLB Partner League. They are located in Billings, Montana, and have played their home games at Dehler ...
of the Class C
Pioneer League the next season, where he topped the loop with a .369 average (the first of his five pro batting crowns) and 45 swipes. He leapfrogged over B ball in 1961 to play for Class A
Columbia Reds
Columbia may refer to:
* Columbia (personification), the historical female national personification of the United States, and a poetic name for America
Places North America Natural features
* Columbia Plateau, a geologic and geographic region in ...
of the
South Atlantic League
The South Atlantic League, often informally called the Sally League, is a Minor League Baseball league with teams predominantly in states along the Atlantic coast of the United States from New York to Georgia. A Class A league for most of its ...
, and once more was best in the league in batting (.343) and steals (40), marking his fourth consecutive stolen base titles.
Venezuelan Winter League (1956–1979)
Teolindo Acosta belong to a selected list of baseball players in Venezuela, who are in the top of several offensive departments; Acosta is the third in the list of most games played (1130); third in plate appearances (4324); he is fourth in Run scored (604); also he is third in hits (1289); additionally, is in the second place in Triples (56) and fourth in stolen bases (121). Along his long career of twenty three years in the Venezuelan winter league, Acosta won two batting titles. In between, he spent part of the 1959–1960 season with the
Gavilanes
Gavilanes is a municipality located in the province of Ávila, Castile and León, Spain. According to the 2004 census (INE
INE, Ine or ine may refer to:
Institutions
* Institut für Nukleare Entsorgung, a German nuclear research center
* Ins ...
and
Rapiños clubs of the rival
Occidental League.
Mexico League (1968–1976)
Acosta was one of the top batters in Mexican baseball for nine seasons between 1968 and 1976, winning three batting titles in a six-year span. Never a power hitter, the 5’6" 158-pound outfielder was a contact hitter who rarely struck out and sprayed the ball all over the field, similar in fashion to
Rod Carew
Rodney Cline Carew (born October 1, 1945) is a Panamanian former professional baseball player and coach. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a first baseman, second baseman and designated hitter from 1967 to 1985 for the Minnesota Twins ...
.
He cooled off a bit over the next few seasons, batting between .269 and 294 from 1962 through 1966, and after only hitting .238 for Buffalo of the International League over 49 games in 1967, he moved south to Mexico for the 1968 campaign with
Puebla
Puebla ( en, colony, settlement), officially Free and Sovereign State of Puebla ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Puebla), is one of the 32 states which comprise the Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided into 217 municipalities and its cap ...
.
Acosta found his footing in the Mexican League, bettering .320 his first eight seasons. He hit .325 for the Pericos in 1968, followed by a Liga batting crown with a .354 average in 1969. Despite that, he moved on to Yucatán in 1970. After hitting .337 that season (including one game in which he went 6-for-6 with six runs), he was the top hitter in Mexico in 1971 with a career-high .392 BA and followed up with a solid .346 season in 1972. Acosta returned to Puebla during his .375 campaign in 1973, and won his fifth and final batting championship in 1974 with a .366 showing. After hitting .320 for Villahermosa in 1975, he wrapped up his career as a 39-year-old with
Nuevo Laredo
Nuevo Laredo () is a city in the Municipality of Nuevo Laredo in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas. The city lies on the banks of the Rio Grande, across from Laredo, United States. The 2010 census population of the city was 373,725. Nuevo Lar ...
in 1976 by batting .276, his only sub-.300 season in nine Mexican League campaigns.
The left-handed Acosta carried a lifetime .328 average in 19 seasons of professional baseball, collecting 2,724 hits with 64 homers and 389 stolen bases. He did even better in Mexico, knocking out a .345 batting average (sixth-best lifetime in the Liga) with 132 stolen bases. He led all of professional baseball in batting in 1971 and 1974. Despite these figures, he is not a member of Mexican baseball's Salon de la Fama.
Career statistics
:''Note: Some statistics are incomplete because there are no records available''.
:''Bold denotes category leader''.
Batting
The Sunset of Warrior
Acosta, basically was sharing his time as active baseball player between México and Venezuela, and after 23 seasons, he decided to hung up his spikes in 1979 while he was playing with Cardenales de Lara in the Venezuelan winter league. Acosta retired with a lifetime .298 average, and five batting crowns in his pocket, two batting titles he won in Venezuela and the rest of them in México.
After retiring from winter ball in 1979, Acosta settled down in
Valencia
Valencia ( va, València) is the capital of the Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Valencian Community, Valencia and the Municipalities of Spain, third-most populated municipality in Spain, with 791,413 inhabitants. It is ...
where died from heart problems on August 2, 2004 at 67.
Honors and Acknowledgments
In 2006 Acosta received the honor of induction into the
Venezuelan Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum
The Salón de la Fama y Museo del Béisbol Venezolano (in English, the ''Venezuelan Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum'') is a nonprofit institution operated by private interests, which was founded on April 18, 2002, thanks to the vision of Carlos ...
.
[
]
Sources
* Treto Cisneros, Pedro (2002). ''The Mexican League/La Liga Mexicana: Comprehensive Player Statistics, 1937–2001''. McFarland & Company.
* ''Mexican Baseball Stars'' by John Phillips
* Nuñez, José Antero (1994). Serie del Caribe de la Habana a Puerto la Cruz. JAN Editor.
* Gutiérrez, Daniel; Alvarez, Efraim; Gutiérrez (h), Daniel (1997). ''La Enciclopedia del Béisbol en Venezuela''.
* Gutiérrez, Daniel; Alvarez, Efraim; Gutiérrez (h), Daniel (2006). ''La Enciclopedia del Béisbol en Venezuela''. LVBP, Caracas.
External links
Teolindo Acosta
player information from ''museodebeisbol.org''
Venezuelan Professional Baseball League statistics
{{DEFAULTSORT:Acosta, Teolindo
1937 births
2004 deaths
Águilas del Zulia players
Baseball outfielders
Billings Mustangs players
Cardenales de Lara players
Columbia Reds players
Dothan Cardinals players
Gavilanes de Maracaibo players
Industriales de Valencia players
Leones de Yucatán players
Licoreros de Pampero players
Llaneros de Acarigua players
Mexican League baseball players
Pericos de Puebla players
Rapiños de Occidente players
Sportspeople from Maracaibo
Tecolotes de Nuevo Laredo players
Tigres de Aragua players
Venezuelan expatriate baseball players in Mexico