[GeoPoto]

Roberto "Bobby" Estalella Ventoza [es-tah-LAY-yah] was a Cuban professional baseball outfielder and third baseman, who played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Washington Senators (1935-1936, 1939 and 1942), St. Louis Browns (1941), and Philadelphia Athletics (1943–1945 and 1949). 620 hits and 44 home runs in 9 MLB seasons. He was selected to represent the American League (AL) in the ill-fated 1945 Major League Baseball All-Star Game, which was scheduled for July 10 at Fenway Park but never played because of World War II restrictions on civilian domestic travel.

Bobby Estalella played nine years in the majors, with a career OPS+ of 128, well above average. While his 44 career home runs don't look impressive, during the era in which he played, he was typically first or second in home runs on his teams. With the Philadelphia Athletics in 1943, for example, his 11 home runs were by far tops on the team, with the second-best total only three home runs. Even before World War II, with the Washington Senators in 1939, his eight home runs were second on the team. In his best year, with the Athletics in 1945, his OPS of .834 was a huge amount ahead of the team average of .622 (and was third in the American League).

Bobby Estalella was signed by Washington Senators scout Joe Cambria and was one of many Cuban players the Senators carried through the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s.

He played parts of nine seasons in the majors with the Senators, St. Louis Browns, and Athletics between 1935 and 1949, serving as a regular for the Senators and Athletics during World War II. In the minors, he won the Piedmont League Triple Crown with the Charlotte Hornets in 1938, hitting .378 with 38 homers and 123 RBI.

With Philadelphia, Estalella hit .298 in 1944 and .299 in 1945 (fourth in the league). He would have played many more years, but he was one of the players suspended by Commissioner Happy Chandler in 1946 for jumping to the outlaw Mexican League. Chandler mentioned a lifetime suspension for them, but when the penalty was reduced in 1949, Estalella came back to the majors.

Although Estalella vigorously denied it during his life, several current baseball writers now consider him to have been the first player of some African ancestry to have played in the Major Leagues in the 20th century.