{{short description|Puerto Rican baseball player (born 1952)}} {{BLP sources|date=June 2010}} {{Use mdy dates|date=July 2024}} {{Infobox baseball biography |name=Bombo Rivera |position=Outfielder |image=1978 Minnesota Twins Postcards Bombo Rivera.jpg |bats=Right |throws=Right |birth_date={{Birth date and age|1952|8|2}} |birth_place=Ponce, Puerto Rico |debutleague = MLB |debutdate=April 17 |debutyear=1975 |debutteam=Montreal Expos |debut2league = NPB |debut2date= |debut2year=1985 |debut2team=Kintetsu Buffaloes |finalleague = MLB |finaldate=October 3 |finalyear=1982 |finalteam=Kansas City Royals |final2league = NPB |final2date= |final2year=1986 |final2team=Kintetsu Buffaloes |statleague = MLB |stat1label=Batting average |stat1value=.265 |stat2label=Home runs |stat2value=10 |stat3label=Runs batted in |stat3value=83 |stat2league = NPB |stat21label=Batting average |stat21value=.240 |stat22label=Home runs |stat22value=37 |stat23label=Runs batted in |stat23value=86 |teams= *Montreal Expos ({{mlby|1975}}–{{mlby|1976}}) *Minnesota Twins ({{mlby|1978}}–{{mlby|1980}}) *Kansas City Royals ({{mlby|1982}}) *Kintetsu Buffaloes ({{npby|1985}}–{{npby|1986}}) }} '''Jesus "Bombo" Rivera Torres''' (born August 2, 1952) is a Puerto Rican former Major League Baseball outfielder. At the age of seven, his youth baseball manager started calling him "Bombo", meaning "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 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.{{Citation needed|date=December 2008}}
==Playing career==
===Minor leagues=== Rivera signed with the Montreal Expos in 1970 and during his first season in the Expos farm system, while playing for the Gulf Coast League Expos in Bradenton, Florida, Rivera and some of his teammates took a trip to see the major league club play. The game was against the Pittsburgh Pirates, and Rivera finally got to see his idol Roberto Clemente play in right field.{{Citation needed|date=December 2008}}
===Puerto Rican winter ball=== From 1977 to 1986, Rivera played his Puerto Rican winter ball with the Mayaguez Indians. During the 1977–78 season, Mayaguez won the Puerto Rican league championship and Caribbean Series in Mazatlán, 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, José Morales, Iván DeJesús, Ed Romero, Rick Sweet, Willie Hernández, Danny Darwin, and Kurt Bevacqua. Rivera was named to the series All Star team.
===Major league career===
====Expos career==== After several seasons in the minors, Rivera made his major league debut in {{Baseball year|1975}} with the Expos. After playing just five games in the majors for Montreal that season, he spent the entire season in the majors in {{Baseball year|1976}}, splitting time in left field with several other players, including Pepe Mangual, Del Unser, Mike Jorgensen, and Jerry White. In 68 games that season, Rivera batted .276. He spent the entire {{Baseball year|1977}} season back in the minors, and in October his contract was sold to the Minnesota Twins.<ref name="ap">{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=AL40AAAAIBAJ&pg=1156,5842933&dq=baseball+bombo-rivera&hl=en|title=Yesterday's sports transactions|date=27 October 1977|work=Argus-Press|publisher=AP|page=18|accessdate=7 June 2010}}</ref>
====Back to the majors: Twins and Royals==== Rivera was back in the major leagues in {{Baseball year|1978}}, playing 101 games for the Twins and batting. 271. Rivera played in 112 games for the Twins in {{Baseball year|1979}}, the most in his major league career. He hit .281/.324/.392, and was the starting left fielder for the season. However, after batting .221 for the Twins in {{Baseball year|1980}}, he was released during spring training of {{Baseball year|1981}}.
Although Rivera was signed by the Kansas City Royals shortly after his release by Minnesota, he did not log much more playing time in the majors, adding only five games to his career total, all in {{Baseball year|1982}}. He was released the following spring.
===On to Japan=== His best professional season came in Japan with Kintetsu Buffaloes in {{Baseball year|1985}} and {{Baseball year|1986}} where he hit 37 home runs over the course of the two seasons, 31 of those in 1985. He was released by the team in 1986 due to a hamstring injury.
===Later career and retirement=== Rivera added another Puerto Rican League championship in the 1985–86 season. Also on that team were Bobby Bonilla, Wally Joyner, Tim Belcher, Paul O'Neill, Harold Reynolds, and Randy Ready. It was Rivera's last season in Mayagüez. He finished his Puerto Rican baseball career with the Arecibo Wolves in 1989.
Bombo Rivera played briefly for the St. Petersburg Pelicans of the Florida Senior Professional Baseball Association in {{Baseball year|1989}}. Today he lives in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico and works for a non-profit organization that offers sports clinics to disadvantaged children free of charge. He also stays close to Puerto Rican youth baseball by umpiring local games.
==Cultural references== Rivera was the subject of a song in the late 1970s by Garrison Keillor named "The Ballad of Bombo Rivera."<ref name="manning">{{cite book |last1=Manning |first1=Sean |title=Top of the Order: 25 Writers Pick Their Favorite Baseball Player of All Time |date=2010 |publisher=Da Capo Press |isbn=9780306818998 |page=xiv |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fF9ry1NyizYC&q=ballad+of+bombo+rivera&pg=PR14 |accessdate=2 August 2018 |language=en}}</ref> There is also a brief mention of Bombo Rivera in W. P. Kinsella's ''Shoeless Joe'',<ref name="manning" /> the basis for the film ''Field of Dreams''. Rivera also received hundreds of write-in votes in the 1979 University of Minnesota election for student council president, coming in second place.<ref>{{cite news |title=Sports World Specials |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1979/05/28/archives/sports-world-specials-vote-for-bombo.html |newspaper=The New York Times |accessdate=2 August 2018 |language=en |date=28 May 1979}}</ref>
==See also== * List of Major League Baseball players from Puerto Rico
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== {{Baseballstats |mlb= |espn= |br=r/riverbo01 |fangraphs=1011000 |brm=rivera003jes }}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rivera, Bombo}} Category:1952 births Category:Living people Category:Caribbean Series managers Category:Denver Bears players Category:Ganaderos de Tabasco players Category:Gulf Coast Expos players Category:Jamestown Falcons players Category:Kansas City Royals players Category:Kintetsu Buffaloes players Category:Louisville Redbirds players Category:Major League Baseball left fielders Category:Major League Baseball players from Puerto Rico Category:Major League Baseball right fielders Category:Memphis Blues players Category:Minnesota Twins players Category:Montreal Expos players Category:Nippon Professional Baseball outfielders Category:Omaha Royals players Category:Ponce High School alumni Category:Puerto Rican expatriate baseball players in Canada Category:Puerto Rican expatriate baseball players in Japan Category:Puerto Rican expatriate baseball players in Mexico Category:Québec Carnavals players Category:Rieleros de Aguascalientes players Category:Saraperos de Saltillo players Category:Baseball players from Ponce, Puerto Rico Category:Sultanes de Monterrey players Category:West Palm Beach Expos players Category:20th-century American sportsmen