Bombo Rivera

Jesus "Bombo" Rivera was born in Ponce, Puerto Rico on August 2, 1952. At the age of seven, his youth baseball manager started calling him “Bombo”, which meant “fly ball,” and the nickname stuck. Aside from baseball, Rivera also excelled in track and field. He ran the 100 meters and threw shot put during his days at Ponce High School. He followed in the footsteps of his grandfather, who was known for his "bomba and plena" musical skills, and played percussion for Ponce’s local bomba plena bands. Rivera signed with the Montreal Expos in 1970. During that first season in the Expos’ farm system, while playing for Bradenton, Rivera and his teammates took a trip to see the major league club play. The game was against the Pirates, and Rivera finally got to see his idol Roberto Clemente play in the Right Field.

From 1977-1986, Rivera played his Puerto Rican winter ball with the Mayaguez Indians. During the 1977-1978 season, Mayaguez won the Puerto Rican league championship and Caribbean World Series in Mazatlan Mexico, with a record of 5-1. Rivera was an important part of the team that he calls the best he ever played with in Puerto Rico. Other players on that championship team included major leaguers Jim Dwyer, Ron LeFlore, Jose Morales, Ivan de Jesus, Ed Romero, Rick Sweet, Willie Hernandez, Danny Darwin, and Kurt Bevacqua. Rivera was named to the series All Star team.

Back to the majors

Bombo in 112 games for the Twins in 1979, the most in his major league career. He hit .281/.324/.392, and was the starting left fielder for the season. Though Bombo Rivera was signed by Kansas City shortly after his release from Minnesota, he didn’t log much more playing time, adding only five major league games to his career total.Rivera added another Puerto Rican League championship in the 1985-1986 season. Also on that team were Bobby Bonilla, Wally Joyner, Tim Belcher, Paul O’Neill, Harold Reynolds, and Randy Ready. It was Bombo’s last season in Mayaguez. He finished his Puerto Rican baseball career with the Arecibo Wolfs in 1989.

His best professional season, came in Japan with Kintetsu Buffaloes in 1985 and 1986 where he hit 37 home runs over the course of the two seasons. He was released by the team in 1986 due to a hamstring injury.

Bombo Rivera played briefly for the St. Petersburg Pelicans of the Florida Senior Professional Baseball League in 1989. Today he lives in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico and works for a non-profit organization that offers sports clinics to disadvantaged Kids free of charge. He also stays close to Puerto Rican youth baseball by umpiring local games. He was also the subject of a song in the late 1970's by Garrison Keillor named "The Ballad of Bombo Rivera."

There also a brief mention of Bombo Rivera in W.P.Kinsella's "Shoeless Joe"; a novel based for the film "Field of Dreams".

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