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What: “Athletes Remembered: Mexican/Latino Professional Football Players, 1929-1970” by Mario Longoria.

Price: $24 (Bilingual Press).

Mario Longoria’s college roommate at UCLA, Efren Herrera, became a kicker for the Dallas Cowboys, Seattle Seahawks and Buffalo Bills, which set Longoria thinking.

“How many Latinos had ever played professional football?” he asked friends. Ballpark guess: Not many. Compiling a list that petered out at 10, Longoria suspected there had to be more--and so began a 14-year research project that resulted in this book.

Longoria found that 98 Latinos had played professional football between 1929 (when the first, Jesse Rodriguez, debuted as a running back-punter with the Buffalo Bisons) and 1970 (which Longoria used as a cutoff date, citing the NFL-AFL merger as the end of a significant era in the history of pro football.)

A few names are readily familiar--Joe Kapp, Tom Flores, George Mira--but the book’s main value as a reference resource is Longoria’s unearthing of the obscure and the--often unfairly--forgotten.

Rick Casares, a running back with the Chicago Bears during the 1950s and ‘60s, outgained Gale Sayers during his career and held every important franchise career rushing record until Walter Payton began his Hall of Fame run. Gene Brito was a five-time all-pro defensive end with the Washington Redskins in the 1950s.

Longoria also chronicles the obstacles many Latino athletes encountered at the professional level. Eddie Saenz spent 1946-51 with the Redskins, suffering the nickname “Tortilla” that was foisted upon him by the team’s front office. “Saenz hated it,” Longoria writes.

Occasionally, Longoria’s zeal gets the better of him, as in the case of Lupe Joe Arenas, who played in the 1950s San Francisco 49er backfield with Y.A. Tittle, Hugh McElhenny and Joe Perry. “One wonders why the renowned ‘Fabulous Four’ is minus one in Canton, Ohio,” Longoria writes. “This exclusion is a gross injustice.”

Arenas’ NFL career consisted of seven seasons, 987 rushing yards, 46 pass receptions and the sixth-best kickoff-return average in league history.

Hall of Fame material? Not quite. But it is a career to remember, and now we shall, due to Longoria’s perseverance.