Title: Where Have You Gone, Pascual Perez?
Material: oil on canvas
Size: 48×72
Year: 1991
For the execution of the voyage to the Indies, I did not make use of intelligence, mathematics, or maps. – Christopher Columbus
Pascual Perez pitched for the Pirates, Braves, Expos, and the Yankees. He was nicknamed “I-285” because he got lost on Atlanta’s Perimeter beltway
one day when he was supposed to pitch and missed the kick-off. He circled the city numerous times before getting pulled over by a cop and corrected. He was a product of the Dominican Republic’s baseball talent machine, where the ultimatum is ‘throw baseballs or chop cane’. A productive cane harvester makes $1.50 per ton, times 2 tons per day, = $3.00 per day, so Pascual decided he’d rather throw baseballs and make $5,000 per day. Wise choice.
This painting looks at our minorities and how they have always been expected to create a public front readable as an existing stereotype or be chastened for being rebellious. You can be Yogi Berra or you can be Joe DiMaggio, though there’s always the Hank Greenberg route. They survived being a minority each in his own way.
The title riffs on the line, “Where have you gone, Joe Dimaggio?” from Simon and Garfunkel’s song, “Mrs. Robinson”. Paul Simon wanted to use Mickey Mantle’s name in the song rather than Joe DiMaggio’s, but the syllables wouldn’t fit. True story. He could have considered Cincinnati Reds
hot-tempered, hard-drinking pitcher, Van Lingo Mungo — “Where have you gone, Van Lingo Mungo? A nation turns its lonely eyes to you,” but then everyone would be as confused as you are now. Woo woo woo.