President Obama paid tribute to a baseball hero on Sunday, the late Chicago White Sox star Minnie Minoso. “For South Siders and Sox fans all across the country, including me, Minnie Minoso is and will always be ‘Mr. White Sox,'” Obama said in a written statement.

Minoso, who was believed to be 92 years old, died early Sunday, the Cook County medical examiner announced. Noting that Minoso was Chicago’s first Black major league baseball player, Obama said that the native of Cuba “was a target of racial slurs from fans and opponents, sometimes forced to stay in different motels from his teammates.”