Luis Aparicio - Baseball Honors

Baseball Honors

Luis Aparicio was inducted to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1984, the first native of Venezuela to be honored. Also in 1984, the White Sox retired his number 11, although the White Sox have 'un-retired' his number again for Omar Vizquel, with Aparicio's permission. Aparicio was also inducted into the Hispanic Heritage Baseball Museum Hall of Fame. In 1981, Lawrence Ritter and Donald Honig included him in their book The 100 Greatest Baseball Players of All Time. In 1999, The Sporting News did not include him on their list of the The Sporting News list of Baseball's 100 Greatest Players, but Major League Baseball did list him as one of their 100 nominees for their All-Century Team.

Aparicio was inducted into the Venezuelan Baseball Hall of Fame in 2003. He was given the honor of throwing out the ceremonial first pitch at Game One of the 2005 World Series, the first World Series game to be played in Chicago by the Chicago White Sox since the 1959 World Series, when Aparicio had been the starting shortstop for the White Sox. Since 2004, the Luis Aparicio Award is presented annually to honor the Venezuelan player who recorded the best individual performance in Major League Baseball, as voted on by sports journalists in Venezuela.