A memorial service Sunday at Milwaukee’s Journey House, located at 2110 W. Scott St., marked the passing of another local major league baseball icon, whose influence and accomplishments went far beyond his playing career.
Former Milwaukee Brave Felix Mantilla, who played on the city’s last World Series winner in 1957, died January 10, 2025, at age 90, after living for decades in the area.
The native of Isabela, Puerto Rico, played for the Braves from 1956-’61. He continued his career with the New York Mets, Boston Red Sox and Houston Astros, before being signed and released (after suffering an injury) by the Chicago Cubs in 1967.
While with the Red Sox, Mantilla was chosen to start at second base for the American League in the 1965 All-Star Game.

At Sunday’s memorial service, Journey House board member Eugene Manzanet, a longtime friend of Mantilla, noted the former ballpayer had played in major cities. But when his playing days were over, “the reality is, and I want to impress this on everyone here, he chose Milwaukee. He chose us, to live and make a family here. I feel blessed that not only as an individual, but our community, our city, should feel blessed that he chose us,” Manzanet said.
By the early 1970s, after efforts by local Latinos to set up a baseball Little League for Latino youth, Mantilla agreed to have the league named after him.
Manzanet said, even in recent decades, while the two men were talking by telephone, Mantilla would ask about Manzanet’s family, but then add, “How are my kids?, “ referring to the Little League players.

Milwaukee Common Council President Jose Perez is one of thousands of people who played in the Felix Mantilla Little League.
Sunday, Ald. Perez reminisced, “The excitement of getting up and knowing we’re going to play ball that day, and going to Baran Park. If you were there, you know. It was our Field of Dreams. I’d give a lot to have some of those moments back."
Several members of Mantilla’s family also spoke during the memorial, including talking about the racism Mantilla encountered while playing in baseball’s minor leagues in the early 1950s, especially in the southern U.S., during Jim Crow years.
Granddaughter Sarah Griffin said, “He told us about traveling on buses with his teammates, about being denied access to restaurants, about almost getting arrested for drinking out of the wrong water fountain, and even about receiving death threats.”
Another Mantilla granddaughter, Julie Hanson, said Mantilla never let the racism he experienced have any impact on how he viewed himself, “because he truly found racism pitiable in its moral inferiority.”

The memorial service for Mantilla comes a few days after the death of Bob Uecker, another former Milwaukee Brave who went on to a long career as the Milwaukee Brewers radio announcer, as well appearing on television shows, commercials and in movies.
Uecker was also 90 when he passed away. A bio of Mantilla written for Society For American Baseball Research says that in the winter of 1965-’66, Mantilla, Uecker and Don Pavletich (another Milwaukee-area athlete who played Major League Baseball) worked for Milwaukee Police Department in a program to help curb juvenile delinquency.