Félix Torres

Félix Torres Sanchez

• Bats Right, Throws Right
• Height 5' 11", Weight 165 lb.

• Debut April 10, 1962
• Final Game October 3, 1964
• Born May 1, 1932 in Ponce, P.R.

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Biographical Information

Félix Torres was the Los Angeles Angels' regular third baseman from 1962 to 1964, showing better than average power. He was in double figures in home runs in 1962 and 1964, while in 1963 his 32 doubles were third in the American League. In 1964 he hit 12 homers in only 277 at-bats.

Torres was almost 30 when he made his major league debut.

He led the 1953 Amateur World Series with 15 RBI.

According to Leon Wagner in the book Baseball Has Done It:

"Felix was lost here. He had a wife and couldn't get an apartment and only had two words of English: 'money' and 'beefsteak' . . . I went out and got the apartment for him."

The language factor was important at the ballpark, too. The book Viva Baseball! quotes an Angels trainer as saying that he once worked on Torres' left arm for a couple of days before discovering that it was the right one that was sore.

The book Once They Were Angels states that Torres wore a batting helmet while in the field at third base in 1962.

Torres appeared in the 1960 Serie del Caribe, hitting three home runs, and played with the Buffalo Bisons in 1961, hitting 24 home runs.

Baseball Digest of January 1963 carried an article about him. It described Leon Wagner as watching over him with "a fatherly quality". The Angels called Torres "Chico". Torres was said to come from a poor family in a Puerto Rican fishing village, and was subject to racism when he played in the American South. At one point, rather than play for a minor league team in the South, he went back home.