El Bronx, NY: Yesterday was the last day of Hispanic Heritage Month which runs from, September 15th to October 15th. It was during this month that we presented our 31st annual LatinoMVP awards, the oldest and most prestigious awards given to Latino baseball players.
We prefer to give our LatinoMVP awards during Hispanic Heritage month to help promote the month that recognizes the contributions of the Latino community to the fiber of the country and Latino’s contribution to America’s pastime. In fact, I dare say that Latinos have contributed not just to the number of Latino players and super stars, but also in adding gusto, excitement to baseball.
These 31st annual awards were once again presented during a Covid environment which made it somewhat difficult to interact with the players and thus a bit more difficult. However, thanks to the support of MLB and the Media departments of the teams with the top two awards the American and National League LatinoMVP winners we overcame. Those two winners were José Abreu of the Chicago White Sox and Fernando Tatis Jr. of the San Diego Padres (read articles on this site). Each was presented with a beautiful watercolor painting done by nationally recognized artist, James Fiorentino.
But the LatinoMVP awards are more than just awarding the top MVP’s. Our awards also recognize the top pitchers, relievers/closers, and rookies. Those awards unfortunately were not ready in time as our artist for those awards, John Pennisi took ill and was not able to do what he had been doing for the past decade, present a fun caricature of those winners. However, you can’t keep a great and prestigious award out and the baseball God’s responded by introducing us to Maz Adams. Maz is a young freelance and developing artist that has a talent of capturing the essence of the players and like Pennisi, adding his personal touch to make his pieces fun.
Maz, a professional freelance artist who started specializing in sports a few years ago and is now the Latino Sports artist for the Pitchers, Relievers/Closers & Rookie awards. (photo courtesy of Maz)
Maz recently completed the prints and though it was too late for us to present during this Hispanic Heritage Month as the season ended, we did not want to let the entire season end without letting all our readers and players know that we will do our upmost to get the awards to the winners during spring training of the 2022 season. Thank you Maz for stepping up to the plate like a great pinch hitter and hitting a home run with your prints. We are sure that players would love them as much as we do.
