Kenneth Siscon Collection - The Pinoy Project

Robert Rudolph Balcena (August 1, 1925 – January 5, 1990) was an American professional baseball player. He played as an outfielder in Major League Baseball for the Cincinnati Redlegs during the 1956 season. He had two at-bats and scored two runs as a pinch runner.

Listed at 5 ft 7 in, 160 pounds, Balcena batted right-handed and threw left-handed. He was born in San Pedro, California.

Prior to playing professional baseball, Balcena served in the Pacific Ocean theater of World War II with the United States Navy.

Balcena became the first player of Asian American and Filipino ancestry to appear in a major league game. He had a long distinguished Triple-A career with the Seattle Rainiers as a center fielder in the 1950s; one paper described him as a "popular miniature dynamo of almost infallible perpetual motion" after his Rainier team won the 1955 Pacific Coast League title.

He also played from 1952 through 1962 in the Minor Leagues, including stints with the Leones del Caracas and the Industriales de Valencia in the Venezuelan Professional Baseball League.

He batted .284 with 134 home run and 441 runs batted in in 1948 minor league games. In a VPBL two-season career, he posted a .306 average with five homers and 44 RBI in 87 games.

After his baseball career ended, he worked as a longshoreman in Seattle where he had played parts of four seasons in the minor leagues.

Despite being the first Filipino-American to play in the major leagues, Balcena kept company with Slavs during his life. His union president told the Los Angeles Times that he was an "honorary Slav. He always ran around with the San Pedro Slavs. He speaks Slav. He sings Slav."[1] Outside of his professional career, he also played baseball with an amateur team of Yugoslav Americans.

Balcena died in his hometown of San Pedro, California at the age of 64.

1952 Parkhurst Frostade International League (V338-1) #20

1957 Hygrade Meats Seattle Rainiers (F178)

1974 Popcorn 1957-58 Pacific Coast League #56

1956 Seattle Rainiers Popcorn

Paulino Alcántara Riestrá (7 October 1896 – 13 February 1964) was a Filipino and Spanish professional footballer and manager who played as a forward. He spent most of his playing career at FC Barcelona, and also represented Catalonia, the Philippines and Spain internationally.

Alcántara made his debut for Barcelona at the age of 15, and remains the youngest player to play or score for the club. He scored 395 goals in 399 matches, a club record that stood for 87 years. He also won a total of 19 trophies including 10 Catalan leagues, 5 Copa del Rey, 2 Pyrenees Cup and 2 Philippine league championship titles during his 15 year career. After retiring as a player in 1927 at the age of 31, he became a doctor and was also a prominent figure in Spanish politics during the 1930s, having been a member of a fascist political group, while serving as both a military soldier and a doctor.

Alcántara also served as club director of Barcelona between 1931 and 1934. In 1951, Alcántara became a coach and managed Spain for three games.

In 2007, he was officially recognized by FIFA as one of the greatest football strikers in the 20th century and in the history of football, and the best Asian footballer of all time.

921 Paulino Alcantara Barcelona 18 Card Set Soccer Jaime Boix

1920s Paulino Alcantara Chocolates Playing Card

Paulino Alcantara 1922 Chocolate Eduardo Pi Jugadores Futbol #12

Francisco Villaruel Guilledo (August 1, 1901 – July 14, 1925), commonly known as Pancho Villa, was a Filipino professional boxer. Villa, who stood only 5 feet and 1 inch tall and never weighed more than 114 pounds, despite the racial discrimination of that time, rose from obscurity to become the first Asian to win the World Flyweight Championship in 1923, earning the reputation in some quarters as one of the greatest Flyweight boxers in history. Villa is widely regarded as one of the greatest Filipino boxers of all time alongside Manny Pacquiao and Gabriel Elorde. He was never knocked out in his entire boxing career, which ended with his sudden death at only twenty-three from complications following a tooth extraction.

1926 W512 HAND CUT #42 PANCHO VILLA PSA 7

923 Exhibits Pancho Villa Postcard Back

1924 PANCHO WILLARD CHOCOLATE #51

Ceferino Montano Garcia (August 26, 1906 – January 1, 1981) was a champion boxer born in Naval, Biliran, Philippines. He holds the most victories ever achieved by a Filipino boxer and is also the only boxer from the Philippines to become world champion in the middleweight division. Garcia is commonly credited to as the first well known user of the bolo punch, which was later popularized by Cuban fighter Kid Gavilán. He was inducted into the Ring Magazine Hall of Fame in 1977 and the World Boxing Hall of Fame in 1989.

1948 Leaf

1930's Exhibit

Raw