Yet in December 1965 and January 1966, the crafty Cuban ace put together three of the sport’s most remarkable performances – feats rarely rivaled in any other league or in any other decade. Perhaps most noteworthy was his pair of consecutive no-hit, no-run games – a feat achieved just once in the big leagues and only twice ever in North American Organized Baseball (see footnote 6 below for further details). Hardly less rare, however, was this same obscure hurler’s iron-man single-game performance less than a month before. He rang up 19.1 scoreless innings before losing on one run in the 20th. It’s not an exaggeration to propose that no other pitcher in the game’s long annals ever matched this trio of brilliant outings in such a brief span.

Baseball history is remarkably full of short-term wonders that flash for a week, a month, or even a season – but soon fade away to mediocrity. Cuba’s Abreu was a classic example of the phenomenon. He was one of the earliest notable figures of Cuba’s post-1960 “revolutionary” baseball, but his brief fame rested more on his few spectacular moments than on sustained performance. At the end of his near-decade-and-half league career (1962-75), the native of Cienfuegos Province stood below .500 (55-59 in 14 National Series). He earned a few moments of overseas glory with the Cuban national team, long before it became an invincible dynasty in international tournament play. But he never stood out among the Cuban League pitchers of his own decade, let alone the legendary mound aces that would follow. The parallels between Aquino and Johnny “Double No-Hit” Vander Meer are striking – both in terms of their marquee accomplishment1 and their up-and-down overall careers2 – though one must still be careful about equating them.

In his 14 National Series seasons, Aquino won more than he lost in just four.3 Only once did he reach double figures in wins: he was 10-1 during his best season, 1968-69. His 5-10 mark in the winter of 1973-74 balanced that feat. In retrospect, perhaps Aquino’s most distinguished stat was his ERA, which fell under 2.00 in seven seasons, exactly half of his National Series career. Yet that was an era of pitching dominance – Abreu himself never led the league in ERA; the leaders averaged a minuscule 0.95 while he was active (one of them as low as 0.37 and four others below 0.70). In fact, no National Series leader ever went above 2.00 until 1988 (the circuit’s 27th year of existence).4 Nonetheless, he was arguably one of the most solid hurlers in the league’s early years, even if he rarely stood among the year-end statistical leaders.

The Cuban League has emerged in recent decades as a world-class venue ranking only below the majors (and perhaps also the Japanese Central and Pacific Leagues). This was certainly not the case during Abreu’s era, however – Cuba’s top stars of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s performed when IBAF tournament play featured aluminum bats. They earned stellar international reputations largely by drubbing amateur squads composed mainly of university all-stars or pro-league rejects. Had they chosen to leave their homeland, few Cuban Leaguers of Abreu’s decade would have been able to crack big league rosters or even Triple-A lineups. Even so, 18 straight innings of no-hit baseball at any level – merely considering the bounce of the ball, occasional superb contributions of skilled defensive teammates, and the undeniable role of raw luck – is indeed miraculous.

That fact is strongly supported by the equal rarity of such an event at any level of Organized Baseball. Many writers have labeled Vander Meer’s feat as the most unbreakable record in baseball, since a hurler would need to complete an unimaginable three straight hitless nine-inning outings to best it. Only two other major-league pitchers – Howard Ehmke in 1923 and Ewell Blackwell in 1947 – have ever come legitimately close to matching Vander Meer in 1938.5 More obscure were Bill Bell’s consecutive hitless games in May 1952 for Bristol (Virginia) in the Class D Appalachian League.6 No documented evidence is known that might suggest this stellar event has taken place in any other pro league found in any of the world’s ball playing nations.

Little is known publicly about Abreu’s early life away from the baseball diamond, other than his origins. Abreu’s father, Lupgardo Abreu Gómez, and his mother, Petrona Aguila Arbolaez, were part of the largely impoverished farming class that populated central Cuba during the decade immediately preceding World War II. Tomás Aquino Abreu Aguila was born in the rural agricultural distinct of southern Cienfuegos Province – in the village of San Fernando de Camarones7 – on March 7, 1936. The island’s population was then still recovering from a bloody U.S.-backed 1933 revolution that had ended the ruthless dictatorship of President Gerardo Machado, but also first brought future strongman Fulgencio Batista to prominence.

Aquino married twice, the second time in 1958. He sired three sons – all with his first spouse, María Cuéllas – named (in order of age) Francisco, Reinaldo, and Pedro. The remainder of Abreu’s private life remains altogether obscure. His rare public comments have always been narrowly focused solely on his substantial athletic career in the 1960s and 1970s.8

In 1989, interviewers Leonardo Padura and Raúl Arce prompted Aquino to comment about his three sons and their own baseball ambitions. The ex-pitcher’s answers were somewhat evasive. Only the middle son (Reinaldo) apparently harbored early baseball ambitions. “He was also a pitcher and accounted himself well as a youth, but he had to give it up,” Abreu observed. “He is now a physical education professor,” Abreu continued, “but the others followed different paths: the elder is an engineer and the younger is a minor official with FAR (an acronym for the Cuban Armed Forces). Even if they didn’t become ballplayers, the most important thing is that they are happy and that I am proud of them all.” But the self-described proud father never revealed why Reinaldo had to relinquish his own pitching dreams (perhaps because of injury, if not lack of talent).

In that same 1989 interview, Abreu also provided only sketchy details concerning his own start on the amateur diamonds of rural Cuba in the ’50s. His fantasy from the start was to become a famous baseball figure – “I always dreamed of being a ballplayer, of appearing on television, of wearing those fancy uniforms, and of being popular, and cheered for. But despite those dreams I never thought I could play in the organized leagues, or even less that I could represent Cuba overseas. But it all came true and therefore today I am hugely satisfied.”

Abreu also informed Padura and Arce that his earliest memories were of weekend games in local pastures serving as crude diamonds. He and his buddies played barefoot and without any formal equipment outside of a rubber-taped ball and crudely carved bat. A pitcher from the outset, young Abreu was invited in 1950 (at age 14) to play on a neighboring village club from Cumanayagua during the regional juvenile championships. He had apparently drawn some local attention as a hard thrower, although he admittedly knew very little at the time about the art or science of pitching. Early success in these local youth tournaments eventually led to a spot in the Liga Azucarera (Sugar Mill League). There he made his debut in 1958 for a club sponsored by the Central Manuelita (Manuelita Sugar Mill). By 1960 he was working for the Cienfuegos Province Hanabanilla hydroelectric plant and pitching weekend games for the local Cumanayagua ball club in the island’s popular Amateur Athletic Union League.

Aquino never played pro ball (though he later claimed to have received some offers from abroad). Amid U.S. concerns about player safety, Cuba’s franchise in the Triple-A International League, the Havana Sugar Kings, was transferred overnight to Jersey City in July 1960. In the aftermath of this uprooting, the final season of Cuba’s professional winter league took place in Havana in 1960-1961. Only native players (including such recognized local big leaguers as Pedro Ramos, Camilio Pascual and Julio Moreno) participated, amid an ongoing exodus of the nation’s best baseball talent. Immediately before or shortly after Castro’s forces seized government control in January 1959, established big-leaguers (Ramos, Pascual, Moreno, José Valdivielso) and top pro prospects (Tony Oliva, Zoilo Versalles, Luis Tiant, Jr., Bert Campaneris, Cookie Rojas, José Tartabull, and Tany Pérez, among others) all departed for the States. The Sugar Kings’ roster in 1960 still included such present or future big-leaguers as Leo Cárdenas, Miguel Cuéllar, and Orlando Peña, but they also were soon refugees from their homeland. Most of those Cubans (including already established big leaguers like 1961 Cuban League MVP Ramos and his Washington teammates Pascual and Julio Bécquer) returned to their North American clubs in the spring of 1961 and almost none returned after tensions escalated between the governments in Havana and Washington.9

Fidel Castro rapidly overhauled Cuban society in the early 1960s, seeking to launch a “fairer and more just” societal order (one founded upon Soviet-style socialist principles). This effort involved totally revamping the island-wide organized sports system. Sports and recreation – like education and health care – would now become a genuine “right of the people” and not an enterprise for profit-oriented commercial business. A revamped government agency labeled INDER (Institute for Sports, Education and Recreation) was founded in February 1961. Under its direction, all professional sports were outlawed across the country (with the famous National Decree 936) by the middle of the same year. There would now be no admissions charges for attending such public events as ball games and concerts; attending matches and ballgames would become a popular celebration aimed at entertaining and building community spirit. Baseball would now involve only native Cubans (no more imported foreign talent) in a new kind of national league with a prime focus on developing strong homegrown and patriotic national squads.

A seven-decade-long tradition of professional winter play in Cuba was suddenly over, but a new type of baseball would soon enough emerge. It would be rebuilt on the backs of a considerable army of “lesser” talents who had remained at home on their native island. The opening decade of a new post-revolution brand of national baseball was full of pomp and circumstance – with a strong dose of patriotism and politics thrown in for good measure – even if the quality of play did not always quite measure up to the earlier professional standards.

The new “National Series” league opened play in January 1962, with only four clubs that recruited their talent from the popular amateur leagues of the previous decade. Amateur leagues (especially the Amateur Athletic Union league and the various sugar mill circuits) had always been highly popular. Now they would no longer take a back seat to a pro league operating only in the metropolis of Havana and featuring many visiting North American professionals. The first few seasons would be played with just a handful of teams – but by the end of the first decade there would be a dozen squads, and they would be spread across the island.10 For the first time Cuba could enjoy not only a purely indigenous brand of baseball but also a genuinely “national” sport that was staged in all of the island’s (at the time) six provinces.

One motive for the new league was to supply and train players for a national team that could carry the Cuban banner into the international arena and thus display the imagined strengths of the socialist (non-commercial) brand of baseball. Whether Fidel (an acknowledged fan) had been deeply stung by the loss of the AAA-level Sugar Kings remains conjecture. But after 1962 President Castro seemed bent on launching a novel system designed to beat the Americans at their own “national game” in international tournament venues. At the very time the April 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion was unfolding some of the top amateur Cuban players (soon to be showcased in the new league) were already winning a first proud victory in nearby Costa Rica. The surprisingly robust Cuban amateur squad went undefeated en route to capturing a cherished gold medal during that spring’s 15th edition of what was then called the Amateur Baseball World Series.11

Early “revolutionary” baseball was also highlighted to a notable extent by staged political displays of yet another flavor. Castro himself would regularly make much celebrated appearances at the first several “opening day” league festivities. It was arranged for El Comandante himself to slug out the first “official base hit” of the inaugural league game on January 14, 1962 (he tapped a fat delivery from Azucareros starter Jorge Santín through a cooperative infield). This staged ritual was subsequently carried on for the next several seasons.

Against this new “revolutionary baseball” backdrop, Aquino Abreu emerged during the first National Series of winter and spring 1962. Performing for the Azucareros (Sugar Harvesters) under manager Antonio Castaño, Abreu was the pitcher of record in all six of his starts that season, with two defeats and three complete games. The diminutive but nonetheless talented righty logged his first league victory on February 8, 1962 in Havana’s Latin American Stadium. It was a complete-game six-hit 5-0 shutout of rival Habana, the eventual league cellar-dweller. Abreu earned four of his second-place ball club’s 13 wins. If that total seems small, the schedule was short (27 games) – even the most successful league pitchers won only a half-dozen games.

Aquino’s physical stature on the mound was less than imposing – he stood a shade less than six feet and weighed in at a fraction less than 150 pounds at the height of his career. His successes resulted more from carefully honed craftsmanship than from any element of raw power or exceptional talent. Years later he commented to Padura and Arce that he had an adequate fastball and tricky curve at the outset of his career – but the tutoring of 1940s-era amateur league great Pedro “Natilla” Jiménez (then the manager of a rival National Series club, Orientales) opened the door. Jiménez painstakingly instructed Abreu on how to mix speeds and stressed the need to concentrate on the specific weaknesses of each batter.

Despite early promise and his developing command, Abreu entered his fifth league season with a lackluster total of 10 wins and 16 losses. He was seen as just a run-of-the mill league pitcher until his rare masterpieces unfolded at the midpoint of that breakout winter. By late-January 1966 he was overnight christened a celebrity hurler, even though he would log only one other win that season outside of his two no-hitters. With a 3-2 won-lost mark but only nine earned runs permitted, he ranked second that year in individual ERA at 1.50, the closest he ever came to leading the league (1961 World Cup hero Alfredo Street was first at 1.09). And he accomplished this even though his Centrales club finished dead last in the six-team circuit at 23-40.

Perhaps Abreu’s greatest outing was actually the one that preceded his pair of no-hitters. That was the marathon game on December 28, 1965 – at the time, it was the longest in Cuban League history. At the Sports City Park in Santiago, Abreu took the hill against Orientales and shut them down for 19 innings. The four opposing pitchers were just as effective, though, and the scoreless contest stretched on for more than four nail-biting hours. Abreu struck out 13, while allowing 12 hits and walking seven. But he gave up the game’s lone run with one out in the home half of the 20th. Elpidio Mancebo doubled, and after an intentional walk to set up a possible double play, Aquino faced his 76th batter, Gerardo Olivares. Olivares finally ended the affair by slapping a single to right.

This marathon feat of Abreu’s was likely even more difficult than his no-hitters. In the big leagues, there have been nearly 300 no-hitters, but only three men have thrown 20 or more consecutive scoreless innings in a single game. The record of 21 belongs to Joe Oeschger, who did it on May 1, 1920 in his 26-inning battle with Leon Cadore, who also finished with 20 of his own. The only other man to do it in the big time was Joe Harris on September 1, 1906 (he gave up a run in the third and then lost in the 24th).12 In Venezuela, on June 5, 1938, Dominican pitcher Andrés Julio Báez went all the way in a 20-inning shutout, scoring the game’s only run himself.

Abreu may well have paid a steep price for his singular show of strength. Arm problems plagued him in his next two historic outings and then lasted until the end of his career. Abreu told Padura and Arce that his arm woes actually could be traced back to the 1963 season (his second National Series) and lingered after that. He claimed that he could hardly throw in 1964, but a year later, surprise improvement allowed him to last as long as he did in the marathon contest. He remarked that he felt “borracho” (drunk) by the end of that game – it is most likely that the recurring pain he felt during his no-hitters came from a re-aggravation during the 20-inning grind less than a month before.13

The first no-hit gem came on Sunday afternoon, January 16, 1966. It was the opener of a doubleheader; Centrales was hosting Occidentales in Santa Clara’s venerable Augusto César Sandino ballpark (named for Nicaragua’s revolutionary hero, and now the home stadium of the current league powerhouse Villa Clara Orangemen). Most of the visitors hailed from Pinar del Río Province, including outfielder Fidel Linares, a solid early league performer in his own right but also the father of future league star Omar Linares, whom many followers of the international game view as the best third baseman never to play in the North American major leagues.

The game was one-sided from the start and regrettably sloppy. The home team jumped ahead with four runs in the first and six more in the third, coasting easily from there to the final 10-0 score. The outclassed losers not only went hitless but also committed six errors. With a substantial lead, Abreu struck out four and walked three. Another base runner reached on an error (second baseman Mariano Alvarez booted an infield roller by the game’s third batter, Fidel Linares). If not artistic, the game was nonetheless a milestone: the first no-hitter in league history.

A quarter-century later, Abreu spoke wistfully to Padura and Arce about the first no-hitter – and about the sore arm that didn’t stop him. Also, he apparently was not aware of what he had going until catcher Jesús Oviedo pointed it out in the eighth. But this violation of baseball superstition was not nearly as troubling as increasing arm pain. By game’s end, Aquino was unable to lift the sore limb above his shoulder. It continued to throb and ache for the full nine days until his next scheduled start (league teams then played only four or five times a week, not on a daily basis).

On the evening of January 25, in Havana’s cavernous Latin American Stadium, Abreu faced the eventual league champion, the Habana Industriales, already the island’s most beloved team. This contest was far cleaner, with the losers only making two errors, but it was also equally one-sided on the scoreboard. Again Abreu benefited from the comfort of an early lead (a pair of runs in the first and a 7-0 cushion after five) and coasted home despite struggling a bit with his control. He struck out seven while also walking six. His pitching arm still pained him severely, though. According to the pitcher’s own later report, he felt sound during pre-game warm-ups, and he remained pain-free until the game’s midpoint. But from the fifth inning on he had to abandon his more effective fastball and rely on a prayer and soft breaking balls. In addition, a pair of remarkable late-inning fielding plays – by second sacker Alvarez and shortstop Ramón Fernández – both saved likely base hits.

The final out was a tame roller to second by outfielder Eulogio Osorio. Abreu had duplicated Johnny Vander Meer’s feat from 28 years earlier. And as was the case for Vander Meer (who had walked the bases full before getting the last out at Ebbets Field), the Cuban’s second no-hitter had been anything but clean or easy.

It is perhaps a curiosity that a flood of 11 no-hitters followed Aquino’s over the next four National Series – with five in NS VII (two on the same day) and three more the following year. And it should also be noted here that no-hit games are far less frequent in Cuba than in the majors.14 This has held true both throughout early league history, when pitchers were dominant, and in latter decades (especially the aluminum bat era), when hitters tended to rule.

Aquino’s pair remained a lofty peak in what was otherwise a chain of often nondescript seasons. With the renamed Las Villas club one season later, “Mr. No-Hit” was just 3-6, and he went 6-8 after returning to the Azucareros club a year after that. But in 1968-69 (National Series #8), Abreu enjoyed a sudden upswing and a surprising return to prominence. His 10-1 mark was one of the league’s best and his ERA again dipped below 2.00 (as it would four more times before his career finally wrapped up). In terms of consistency, 1968-69 was definitely a “career” season for Abreu. He also posted good records in the two following National Series for Azucareros (6-3 and 6-1). But in 1974 (back with Las Villas), he lost a career-high ten (versus five wins). He then quickly faded over his final two seasons, pitching just 38 and 22 1/3 innings.

In addition to his 55-59 record in 14 National Series, Abreu was 1-2 in one Selective Series and 6-4 in one Special Series. His victory total of 62 averages out to less than five per season; his career 2.26 ERA is only impressive if taken out of his era’s context. A half-dozen Cuban League mound stars boast sub-2.00 lifetime marks. A full dozen – some from later, more hitter-friendly decades – are under 2.20 for a full ten-year-plus career. There were far greater pitchers during the same pioneering era, even if none of the others enjoyed three individual outings that were quite so brilliant. In the end, the best that can be said is that Abreu’s overall mound record is somewhat blunted since it came during an era of remarkable pitching that marked the Cuban League’s own “dead-ball” epoch.

Abreu also made a brief mark on the world tournament scene as Cuba was first establishing its international dominance. His first such outing – on the heels of his National Series debut season – came at the August 1962 Central American Games in Kingston, Jamaica. The Cubans were returning to these Games after a 12-year absence; the young and inexperienced club was managed by former big leaguer Gilberto Torres. They lost three heart-breakers to the Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, and Mexicans, sandwiched around victories over Colombia and Venezuela. Abreu appeared twice in relief, giving up one earned run in six innings, striking out one batter while walking four, with no game decisions. When asked in 1989 about his fondest baseball memory, he did not cite either of his no-hitters – without hesitation, he said it was in Jamaica, the first time he heard the Cuban national anthem while wearing a national team jersey.

During the April 1963 Pan American Games in Brazil, both the Cuban team and Abreu himself performed far better. Seven victories against a lone defeat brought home a gold medal, and Abreu had two complete-game wins against the hosts: an 11-2 five-hitter, and a 17-3 laugher. A more impressive triumph against stronger competition came after his double no-hit season. In June 1966, at the Tenth Central American Games, he was again part of a Cuban championship squad. This tournament was held in Puerto Rico against a backdrop of severe political tension. The Cuban delegation was purposely detained after its ship arrived at San Juan harbor, long enough to miss the event’s official opening ceremonies. During the baseball matches anti-Castro exiles heaved stones at Cuban players on the diamond, interrupting action on several occasions. Abreu earned a complete-game 5-2 victory over the hosts in the opener (he made one other brief appearance in relief). Cuba took gold again after a second victory over Puerto Rico in the finals.

Abreu recalled being enticed during the 1966 stay in San Juan to leave his homeland and join North American professional ball clubs. As Abreu remembered it, “there was a great effort to buy a number of our players and I got several offers, including 30,000 pesos to sign with Pittsburgh. They even put in the paper that I had signed for 50,000 pesos, but it wasn’t true and in the end none of us on the team stayed in Puerto Rico.”15

After retiring from pitching, Aquino continued working as a baseball instructor and pitching teacher at the lower levels of Cuba’s highly organized and community-based athletic training system. In 1974 (during his final National Series season with the Las Villas ball club) he opened the Manicaragua Baseball Academy, based at the local “Escambray” ballpark in his hometown (a rural outpost in central Las Villas Province about 25 miles east of his birthplace in neighboring Cienfuegos Province).

Immediately after his playing days ended, Abreu also served briefly as a coach for the Azucareros, his team in seven different National Series. He also managed the Arroceros team for a single winter, National Series XVI (1976-77), guiding them to a ninth-place finish (20-19) in the 14-team circuit. That season was also notable as the first in which the Cuban League used aluminum rather than wooden bats (a practice that would last until 1999).

Settled in Manicaragua, the quiet and unassuming ex-ballplayer remained entirely out of the limelight for the next three and a half decades. The hoopla surrounding the Golden Anniversary of the National Series in 2010-11 brought little media attention to Abreu’s achievements. Still, he did reemerge in public for a lengthy Havana national television interview in April 2012 during a pre-game broadcast before the second game of an Industriales-Ciego de Avila championship playoff series. The still-hearty 76-year old veteran spoke eloquently about his skills in combating early-era league hitters, his own particular philosophy of pitching, and the vast differences between the athletes of his own time and the modern day.16

When Cuban League fans and enthusiasts today speak of the great hurlers of the past half-century, even the best-informed have little memory of Abreu. His reputation pales alongside these other luminaries:

• Rogelio García: a 200-game winner in Pinar del Río and all-time National Series and Selective Series strikeout king;
• Braudilio Vinent: Cuban League career leader in shutouts and author of numerous important international triumphs in the 1970s and 1980s;
• José Ariel Contreras, owner of an unblemished 13-0 mark in top-level international tournaments before abandoning Cuba in 2003 for a solid big league career;
• Pedro Luis Lazo, whose 2006 stellar bullpen effort against celebrated Dominican big leaguers vaulted Cuba into the finals of the first World Baseball Classic;
• José Antonio Huelga, decorated by President Castro after a heroic 1970 IBAF World Cup victory in Colombia over the Americans and future big-leaguer Burt Hooton.

Yet even if what Abreu once accomplished has seemingly been relegated to the dustbin of Cuban League history, it can never be entirely erased. So far his signature feats have not been matched – and will most likely never be topped. And as the first (and only) to achieve the double no-hit rarity in his homeland, Aquino Abreu therefore holds a lasting place in the Cuban baseball annals.

This account was adapted from my more elaborate portrait of Aquino Abreu (including a career statistical table) found in the “Estrellas de Series Nacionales” section of my Cuban League website at www.BaseballdeCuba.com. I am indebted to Rory Costello for his skillful editing that helped condense and strengthen this version of the Abreu story. And also to Cuban journalist Martin Hacthoun in Havana for verifying several biographical details during his October 2012 telephone interview with Aquino Abreu. An updated version of this biography appeared in “Cuban Baseball Legends: Baseball’s Alternative Universe” (SABR, 2016), edited by Peter C. Bjarkman and Bill Nowlin.

• Related link: “Aquino Abreu: Baseball’s Other Double No-Hit Pitcher,” by Peter C. Bjarkman (Spring 2014 Baseball Research Journal)
  

Sources

Alfonso López, Felix Julio. Con las bases llenas: Béisbol, historia y revolución. Havana, Cuba: Editorial Cientifico-Técnica, 2008.

Barros, Sigfredo. “La hazaña de Aquino Abreu,” Granma 51 Serie Nacional Webpage (http://granma.cubaweb.cu/eventos/51serie/noticias/html)

Bjarkman, Peter C. A History of Cuban Baseball, 1864-2006. Jefferson, North Carolina and London: McFarland & Company Publishers, 2007. See in particular Chapter 8: Cuba’s Revolutionary Baseball (1962-2005).

_____. “Vladimir Baños Provides First No-Hitter of Cuba’s Golden Anniversary Season,” internet column for www.BaseballdeCuba.com (December 28, 2010) (http://www.baseballdecuba.com/newsContainer.asp?id=2345)

_____. “Cuban League Witnesses Historical “Schiller Rule” Tandem No-Hitter,” internet column for www.BaseballdeCuba.com (March 14, 2012) (http://www.baseballdecuba.com/newsite/NewsContainer.asp?id=2763)

Garay, Osvaldo Rojas. “La inedita hombrada de Aquino Abreu,” Blog de Las Avispas de Santiago de Cuba (http://lasavispas-sc.blogspot.com/2011/01/la-inedita-hombrada-de-aquino-abreu.html)

Green, Ernest J. “Johnny Vander Meer’s Third No-Hitter,” The Baseball Research Journal, Volume 41:1 (Spring 2012), 37-41.

Guia Oficial de Béisbol Cubano 1966 (National Series VI). Havana: Editorial Deportes (INDER), 1966.

Guia Oficial de Béisbol Cubano 2010-2011 (National Series L). Havana: Editorial Deportes (INDER), 2012.

Johnson, Lloyd and Miles Wolff (editors). The Encyclopedia of Minor League Baseball. Second Edition. Durham, NC: Baseball America, 1997.

Padura, Leonardo and Raúl Arce. Estrellas del Béisbol. Havana: Editorial Abril, 1989. (Chapter 5: “Aquino Abreu … sin hits … ni carreras,” p. 74-83.)

Stang, Mark. “Matching Johnny Vander Meer ….. a pair of near misses,” Mark Stang Baseball Books, July 27, 2009 (http://markstangbaseballbooks.com/node/62)

Toledo Menéndez, Dagoberto Miguel. Béisbol Revolucionario Cubano, La Más Grande Hazaña – Aquino Abreu. Havana: Editorial Deportes, 2006.

Photo Credits

Author’s Collection

Notes

Acosta was one of the first Cubans to make the jump to the major leagues in the United States, which he did in 1913 as a youth of 17. The little outfielder (5-feet-7 and 140 pounds) never lived up to his lofty prospect status in the majors. He hit a punchless .255 in 180 games through 1918, mainly with the Washington Senators. However, he did enjoy a successful career as a popular minor-leaguer, playing on through 1928 in the U.S. — the last 10 seasons in Louisville.

Afterwards Acosta became one of the more influential Cubans in professional baseball, and devoted years to promoting baseball relations between the two countries, ultimately receiving the highest honor for baseball players in his native land.

Baldomero Pedro Acosta Fernández was born May 19, 1896, in Bauta, Cuba, a town located about 17 miles southwest of Havana. The nickname “Merito” is a shortened version of Baldomerito, meaning the little Baldomero, in honor of his father Baldomero Pedro Acosta Eusebio. The senior Baldomero can be found referenced in Cuban history books. He was a high-ranking officer in the in the 1895 Cuban fight for independence, and also fought in the Spanish-American War. He was later the mayor of the municipality of Marianao, a position that would be helpful throughout his son Merito’s career. The senior Acosta remained involved in political activities in the nation for years up to his death in 1943.

Merito was one of at least three children born to Baldomero and Clara Fernández Lago. One brother, Pedro, played with the Long Branch Cubans, a traveling team made up of Cuban ballplayers that was based out of New Jersey, but he later quit in order to join the Cuban military in support of his father.1

José Acosta, a Cuban pitcher of the same era who also played for Washington, is referenced in a number of places as being Merito’s brother, but this is likely not correct. José was born in Havana and does not show any connection to Baldomero Acosta in ancestry searches. And in researching articles on Merito, no mention was found of the two being related, even during International League games where they faced each other. It was more likely a general assumption that two Acostas from Cuba, who both spent time with the same major-league organization, must have been related.

Merito Acosta first gained some attention in Cuba playing as a teen in a tournament for a team from Medina, a town outside of Havana.2 From there he was recruited to play for the popular Habana Leones, or Lions (traditionally known as the Reds). As a 16-year-old rookie playing for the Reds in 1913, he caught the eye of Victor Muñoz, the sports editor for El Mundo, one of the largest newspapers in Havana.

While managing the Cincinnati Reds in 1911, Clark Griffith had been impressed with Cubans Armando Marsans and Rafael Almeida. The next season Griffith moved over to the American League to manage the Washington Senators (commonly known as the Nationals at the time), and he hoped to discover more talent on the island that he could import for his new club. He developed a relationship with Victor Muñoz to help “bird dog” players in Cuba. In January 1913, based on Muñoz’s recommendation, Griffith signed Acosta, along with Jacinto Calvo of the Almendares club.3 It was reported that the senior Baldomero proclaimed a holiday in their hometown of Marianao to celebrate the signing.4

Washington, D.C. did not hold a parade in honor of Acosta’s signing with the Nationals, but there was much fanfare from Washington newspapers, and no shortage of outrageous expectations heaped on the youngster. Acosta had never been seen playing in the States, but based on reports from Cuba, the lefty outfielder was dubbed among other things “the most remarkable performer the game has ever developed when his age is taken into consideration.”5 He was considered to be as fast as Ty Cobb, and utilized a punchy hitting style that was compared to that of “Wee” Willie Keeler. The diminutive Acosta generated little power, but he had a keen eye for the strike zone and possessed “much ability with the bat, being particularly efficient when it comes to bunting.”6

Acosta made a good showing in his first major-league spring training, but it was widely accepted that at just 16 years old he was much too young to play in the big leagues and would be farmed out to a minor-league club to start the season. But when Washington broke north in April, Acosta was still on the Opening Day roster. Griffith wanted a left-handed outfield bat on the bench, and he figured that the young Acosta could get better experience being around the big-league squad versus playing in the minor leagues. Acosta batted with a hunched-over batting stance that drew several walks, and Griffith wanted to personally work with Acosta to adjust his swing and add some power to it. Griffith’s decision was probably financially motivated as well — keeping a couple of inexperienced rookies on the team would cost less than signing other players who worked their way up from the minors. “I could cite a dozen cases where players who were in the majors and were released owing to lack of experience came back at absurd prices,” said the Old Fox7

Acosta languished on the bench for nearly two months, stepping onto the field occasionally only as a base coach. By the end of May he was pleading with Griffith either to play him or farm him out. Quotes in the Washington papers attributed to Acosta were either completely literal to his broken English or were a bit embellished. “I no like sit on bench….In big league sit on bench and yell. No fun for Cuban ball player.”8 The quote may or may not have been altered a bit for the article, but it summed up Acosta’s mindset. Finally on June 5, Acosta was sent in to pinch-hit for pitcher Nick Altrock, and he reached base on his first attempt when he laid down a bunt and St. Louis Browns pitcher Roy Mitchell bobbled it for an error. At just over two weeks past his 17th birthday, Merito became the youngest player of the modern era to make a major-league debut.9 Acosta continued to be used sparingly during the season, normally for pinch-running duties or fielding substitutions. It was not until September 6 when Acosta finally achieved his first big-league hit, a pinch-hit bunt single off Yankees’ pitcher Cy Pieh. Two more bunts and an error allowed Acosta also to score his first big league run. To this day he is still the youngest Latin American player to make his debut and get a base hit in the majors.10

Acosta completed the 1913 season playing entirely for the Nationals, though he made only 12 appearances. Washington papers continued to portray him as a star in the making for the following season, but it was acknowledged that his hitting had not been ready for the major leagues. His bat seemed to warm up upon returning to Cuba, where he again played for Habana for the winter. Reports back to the States on his performance there were positive, including his being asked to join a team of Cuban all-stars, handpicked by Jake Daubert to take on his Brooklyn Superbas in a series of exhibition games in December.11

Acosta’s seasons in Washington were spotted with occasional chances to get into the regular lineup that were short-lived for one reason or another. He was inserted in the lineup early in 1914 to replace injured outfielder Danny Moeller, but he was replaced early in the next two games. Then, in just his third game, he too was sidelined after spraining his ankle. Acosta was again the beneficiary of an injury to a teammate when on July 17 Clyde Milan was hurt after colliding with Moeller in the outfield. Acosta was placed into the starting lineup, and during a three-game home stand against the White Sox, he went 7-for-13, raising his average to .258. It was an encouraging series, but the Nationals still picked up outfielder veteran Mike Mitchell on waivers after he’d been released by Pittsburgh, and Acosta returned to his bench role.

Acosta did start the final six games of the season for Griffith, but the shine was already starting to wear off his prospect status. For one thing, his average in 12 at-bats against left-handed pitching that season was only .083, not high enough for a regular in a time when platoons were not widely used. His batting against lefties was deemed bad enough that once, when forced to insert Acosta into the lineup against White Sox southpaw Reb Russell, Griffith penciled him in at the bottom of the lineup behind weak-hitting starting pitcher Jim Shaw. There was also a lingering concern about Acosta’s fielding. He was fast, possessed a good arm, and good baseball instincts, but he had difficulties playing the sun field in the left side of Griffith Stadium’s outfield. After a series of dropped flies, Washington Times columnist Bugs Baer even suggested trying Acosta at pitcher, since he had “developed quite a drop ball in the outfield.”12

From the onset of the 1915 season, it was becoming evident that Griffith considered Acosta more suited to a utility bench role. The manager even experimented with the lefthander at third base in exhibition games to see where the team could make use of him. On July 29, Griffith shook up the lineup and Acosta was again given a chance to be a starter. He made the best of the opportunity, raising his average from .233 to .298 in the span of one week. But again Acosta suffered an untimely injury, this time getting hit by a pitch on the right elbow. His batting average dipped a bit, but he played through with a bruised arm. On August 29, he was hit in the same spot by George Sisler, then a young St. Louis Browns pitcher. Acosta missed only one game, but his batting average steadily declined from there, and he finished the season at .209.

During the 1915 season, Acosta took part in an odd baseball incident. In the first game of a doubleheader on August 22, he was involved in an inning where a run scored without a registered at-bat. Facing Detroit that day, Chick Gandil and Acosta both walked to start the second inning. They each moved up a base by way of a sacrifice bunt, and Gandil scored on a sacrifice fly, but then Acosta was picked off second to end the inning.

In February 1916 it was announced that Acosta would be sent to the Minneapolis Millers of the Class-AA American Association. Acosta played almost the entire year in Minnesota, returning to Washington only for a five-game stint in July. Unfortunately, the injury bug followed him to the minors. He hurt his leg, and that wiped out the final 42 games of his season and his entire winter league season.

After playing for the Baltimore Orioles in the Class-AA International League for all of 1917, Acosta was farmed out again to start the 1918 season, this time to the Atlanta Crackers in the Class-A Southern League. He was recalled to Washington during the year to replace Sam Rice, who had been called to report for military service. Acosta appeared in only three games, though, before being returned to Atlanta, finishing the season with .224 average over 34 games there. But this time he was traded outright to the Crackers, officially ending his time in the Washington organization. Griffith remained active in the Latin player market for years to come (aided by Joe Cambria), but he had finally moved on from one of his first prospective targets from the area.

That June, Philadelphia Athletics manager Connie Mack needed an outfielder and purchased Acosta’s contract from Atlanta. He made his Athletics debut on June 26, ironically against his former Washington teammates. He went 2-for-4 and scored a run. With Philadelphia Acosta seemed to finally find his stride, something that had eluded him in Washington. Mack figured Acosta could hit as long as he was “permitted to hit in his own style,”13 The approach helped Acosta become one of the surprise performers of the summer. At one point in July, he had the top batting average in the junior circuit, reaching a high mark of .417, though his 48 at-bats was not enough to quality for the league lead.

Yet as productive a season as Acosta had, hitting .298 over 171 at-bats, it was his last in the major leagues. Over the offseason Mack felt his outfield improved with the return of Whitey Witt from military service and the addition of Braggo Roth. Acosta’s services were no longer needed by the Athletics.

While waiting to determine where he might play for the upcoming season, Acosta again returned to Havana for the winter. In a game on December 2, 1918, he took part in another baseball rarity. He completed an unassisted triple play, which is rare enough on its own — but his feat was accomplished as a center fielder. Acosta was playing shallow and caught a line drive, then ran into the infield to step on second base and promptly tag out the runner approaching from first. This rarest-of-rare version of the unassisted triple play has never been accomplished in the majors in the modern era.14

In March 1919 Acosta found his home away from Cuba when the Louisville Colonels of the Class-AA American Association purchased his contract. He remained there for the next decade. During the 1920s he helped future major league manager Joe McCarthy build a powerhouse of the league that won three pennants and upset the Baltimore Orioles in the 1921 Junior World Series (the AA minor league equivalent of the World Series). He batted .350 and scored 135 runs to help the 1921 champions and batted over .300 again for the Colonels in their 1925 pennant winning campaign. Nearly 30 years later he was still remembered as one of the most popular Colonels of all time.15 He was appreciated by fans and teammates in Louisville for his hustle and for his jovial personality, and his popularity did not end there. In 1922 he married the team’s secretary, the former Nancy Lee Bennett. Nancy also happened to be the adopted daughter of Colonels owner William F. Knebelkamp.

It was during this period that Acosta moved into a manager role in the Cuban league. Although he was still only in his twenties while he played in Louisville, he had already developed a knack for player development. He often assisted with coaching the University of Louisville baseball squad or local amateur teams, and he was later credited with having a hand in training young Earle Combs.16 In the 1922-23 winter season, at just 26 years old, he became the first manager of the new Cuban winter team in his hometown of Marianao. Acosta was an easy choice for the role — he was also part-owner of the team. In their first season the team finished first in the league. He served as player-manager for two more winters, often recruiting his Louisville teammates to travel south and join him.

As in his major-league seasons, Acosta continued to suffer injuries during his time in Louisville. He missed most of 1923 after breaking his leg in May and did not return until June the following season. In September 1925 he hurt his back sliding in a game and ended up with a damaged spinal column that later required surgery. This latest injury affected him through the next two seasons, essentially ending his playing career in the winter Cuban league. He finished his 12-year career there with a recorded lifetime batting average of .292.17

Acosta’s back still ailed coming out of spring training 1927; thus. he decided to retire as a player and accept a role as a coach for the Colonels. He was financially secure from business dealings in Cuba, including running a paving business and being involved with a horse track in Marianao. Acosta was an ardent fan of horse racing, another reason for his fondness for Louisville. He even co-owned a horse with Colonels’ owner Knebelkamp, fittingly named Acosta. So he would have been perfectly happy helping coach the team and devoting his remaining time to his side interests.

But in July, Acosta was pressed back into outfield duty for the Colonels. He’d have been better off staying in the coach’s box full time. On August 15, at Louisville’s Parkway Field, Acosta stepped in to face Millers pitcher Pat Malone, whose first offering sailed and struck Acosta in the right ear. He fell unconscious to the ground at the feet of catcher Hank Gowdy, and was rushed to the hospital to undergo surgery for a fractured skull. During Acosta’s stay in the hospital Cuban president Gerardo Machado requested daily wire updates on his condition.18

Acosta made a full recovery, but outside of filling in for 16 games in 1928, he officially retired as a ballplayer. He hoped to transition into managing in the U.S. As luck would have it, Colonels’ owner Knebelkamp needed a skipper for another team he owned, the Dayton Fliers of the Class-B Central League, and Acosta was hired for the position. He managed the team just for the 1929 season, leading the Flyers to a third-place finish. Though his minor-league managing career was short-lived, one of his accomplishments at Dayton was helping to work with 19-year-old Billy Herman on his way to a Hall of Fame career.19

After leaving Dayton, Merito and Nancy, along with their three sons, moved to Havana so he could focus more on his businesses there. Sad to relate, in March 1933 Nancy died after being stricken with peritonitis during a visit back to Louisville. Their three boys went to live with her sister and brother-in-law back in Louisville. Acosta stayed in Cuba to work on business, and soon politics, but he was a regular visitor to the states to visit his sons.

Acosta started off his political career as Cuban consulate to the United States. In 1938 he was elected to the Cuban House of Representatives. Through both roles Acosta maintained ties to baseball. He was still part owner of the Marianao team, and he worked to set up exhibition tours for major-league teams to come to the country, as well as barnstorming tours for Cuban teams. He also formed a business relationship with his old boss, Clark Griffith, and through him met Joe Cambria, Griffith’s super scout who was especially active in Latin territories.

In March 1946, Acosta was asked to participate in a conference with major-league Commissioner A.B. “Happy” Chandler and other baseball officials to review the structure of Latin American baseball and how Cuba would work with Organized Baseball. (The conference was in response to Jorge Pasquel’s efforts to lure players to his “outlaw” Mexican League.) Just one month before to this conference, it had been announced that Acosta would head up a team in the new Class-C Florida-International league, the first attempt to bring Cuba into Organized Baseball. The Havana Cubans were sponsored by the Washington Senators, with Griffith owning a stake and Cambria helping run the club as the secretary-treasurer. The team was to play home games at La Tropical Stadium, which would be fitted with the first night lighting in a Cuban ballpark.20

The “Cubans” was an appropriate name: their roster was filled with Cuban players, many of them veterans of the winter leagues. Conrado Marrero, the staff ace from 1947 through 1949, was the primary example. He was joined by the other three standout pitchers from the glory years of Cuban amateur baseball: Julio “Jiquí” Moreno, Rogelio “Limonar” Martinez, and Sandalio “Sandy” Consuegra.

The Cubans raised some eyebrows when they won 19 of 20 games to start off their inaugural season, and questions arose about the team’s roster. An investigation in May found that several players on their roster were ineligible according to league roster rules. Acosta claimed the league’s policies had been misinterpreted, but the Cubans were forced to forfeit 17 of their victories.21 Havana still ran away with the league pennant, winning it by seven games, before being upset by West Palm Beach in the league playoffs. The Cubans were the dominant team of the league at its outset, winning the first five pennants (the league ceased operations in July of the 1954 season).

But the Cubans were also beset with controversy during Acosta’s years leading the team. In August 1947 Cambria was investigated for accusations that he may have been paying Cuban players under the table. Cambria was later cleared of the claims, and Acosta was never believed to be involved in the first place, yet the Havana club was still fined $500 for salary violations.22 Acosta spent an interim period in 1948 as league president, and under his direction the status of the Florida-International league was raised a level, to Class-B, in 1949. Yet despite his accomplishments, the controlling group of team stockholders, led by Griffith and Cambria, unceremoniously voted Acosta out as team president on the grounds of team mismanagement.23 (For more on the wrangling among the various stakeholders in the Cubans franchise, see the biography of Bobby Maduro, who eventually bought majority interest in the club.)

Acosta sued in Cuban court, and it was ruled under Cuban law that even though Griffith’s group held more shares of team stock, Acosta and his faction possessed more votes in team decisions.24 Acosta was granted back control of the team, but he did not act on his victory, and the whole experience seemingly ended his interest in being involved in professional baseball. He maintained a minority share in the Cubans franchise, but he concentrated on his other ventures. He continued to hold position in the Cuban congress, and later he established the first greyhound dog racing track in the country. He had remarried in Cuba to Graciela Eugenia Fernández, and they had two young children, Edgar and Grace, which also kept him busy.

Acosta was still active in Cuban politics when Fidel Castro assumed power over Cuba in 1959. Acosta tried to promote baseball as best as he could under the new regime, but he and his family ultimately left the country and relocated to Miami. He was actively involved in anti-Castro efforts from the U.S. when he suffered a heart attack and died on November 17, 1963, at the age of 67. He was interred at Flagler Memorial Park in Miami.

But before he departed Cuba, Baldomero Acosta’s career as a player, manager, executive, and promoter of baseball between his native country and his adopted home in the United States had been recognized in 1955 when he was inducted into the Cuban Baseball Hall of Fame.

Acknowledgments

Roberto González Echevarría and Felix Julio Alfonso were both gracious enough to answer any questions I had for them regarding Baldomero Acosta and Cuban baseball. Rory Costello contributed additional items on the Havana Cubans roster and history.

This biography was reviewed by Darren Gibson and Rory Costello and fact-checked by Evan Katz.

Sources

In addition to the sources shown in the notes, the author used Baseball-Reference.com, Newspapers.com, Ancestry.com, and the Encyclopedia of Minor League Baseball.

Coen, Ed. “Setting the Record Straight on Major League Team Nicknames,” SABR Baseball Research Journal, Fall 2019, 69-70.

Echevarria, Roberto Gonzalez. The Pride of Havana: A History of Cuban Baseball (New York, NY, Oxford University Press, 1999).

Figueredo, Jorge S. Who’s Who in Cuban Baseball: 1878-1961 (North Carolina, McFarland & Company, 2007).

Hernandez, Lou. Chronology of Latin Americans in Baseball, 1871-2015 (North Carolina, McFarland & Company, 2016).

O’Neal, Bill. The American Association: A Baseball History, 1902-1991 (Austin, TX: Eakin Press, 1991).

Smith, Steve. “The Long Forgotten Florida International League”, The National Pastime: Baseball in the Sunshine State (Miami, 2016).

Sugar, Bert and Samelson, Ken. The Baseball Maniac’s Almanac, 5th Edition (New York, NY, Sports Publishing, 2019).

Wilson, Nick C. Early Latino Ballplayers in the United States: Major, Minor, and Negro Leagues, 1901-1949 (North Carolina, McFarland & Company, 2005).

SABR bio of Armando Marsans, by Eric Enders.

Minor league stats were taken from The American Association by Bill O’Neal.

www.acostarottweilers.com/mydad is a family site that highlights Merito Acosta’s life with notes and rare family photos.

Notes

1 J. Ed Grillo, “Griffith’s Cuban Recruits Look Like Real Players,” Evening Star, (Washington D.C.), February 2, 1913: 56.

2 “Acosta, Youthful National, Comes from Fighting Stock,” Washington Post, March 16, 1913: 4.

3 Calvo was farmed to Atlanta in August, but he ended up playing over 20 seasons in Cuba and in the minor leagues.

4 William Peet, “Griff’s Cuban Recruit Is Son of Marianao Mayor,” Washington Herald, February 2, 1913: 39.

5 J. Ed. Grillo, “Griffith Signs 16-Year-Old Cuban Outfielder”, Evening Star, January 26, 1913: 53.

6 Grillo.

7 William Peet, “Thousand Fans Greet Nationals at Station,” Washington Herald, July 25, 1913: 8.

8 “Senator”, “Acosta Wants To Go To The Bush,” Washington Times, May 29, 1913: 12.

9 According to The Baseball Maniac’s Almanac, 5th Edition, Acosta was the youngest player to make a debut since Joe Stanley joined the 1897 Washington Senators at the age of 16 years, 6 months. Acosta’s modern era record stood until August 18, 1943, when Roger McKee joined the Philadelphia Athletics at 16 years, 11 months.

10 This was noted in the book Chronology of Latin Americans in Baseball by Lou Hernandez and verified using www.baseball-reference.com.

11 Louis A. Dougher, “Honors Pour Upon Climbers’ Midget,” Washington Times, December 2, 1913: 12.

12 Albert “Bugs” Baer, “Mince Pie (Little Bit of Everything),” Washington Times, June 19, 1915: 11.

13 “Diamond Notes,” Carbondale Daily News (Carbondale, Pennsylvania), August 17, 1918: 7.

14 The SABR Triple Play database shows this feat was completed by outfielder Paul Hines in 1878 for Providence (see SABR’s game story). It has not occurred in the major leagues since.

15 “Ruby’s Report,” Courier–Journal, (Louisville, Kentucky), August 1, 1951: 15.

16 “Merito Acosta, Former Ball Player, Now Cuban Consul,” Associated Press, May 6, 1937.

17 Cuban Winter League statistics taken from Who’s Who in Cuban Baseball by Jorge S. Figueredo.

18 “Cuban President Cables Inquiry About Acosta,” Courier–Journal, August 19, 1927: 15.

19 Jack Gallagher, “Routzong Credits Rickey for His Rise as Executive,” The Sporting News, December 1, 1954: 10.

20 Pedro Galiana, “Havana Will Install Lights for Debut in Organized Ball”, The Sporting News, February 7, 1946: 6.

21 “Minor League Rules Uphold Fla.-Int. Proxy on Forfeits,” The Sporting News, July 10, 1946: 34.

22 John McMullan, “’Whole Club Guilty,’ Havana Fined Record $500 For Salary Violations,” Miami Daily News, August 17, 1947: 10.

23 Guy Butler, “Griff Plans to Unseat Acosta; F-I Moguls Pleased At Change,” Miami Daily News, August 4, 1950: 17.

24 Jimmy Burns, “Griff to Fight Cuban Court Ruling Restoring Acosta as Havana Boss,” The Sporting News, August 16, 1950: 17.

“Wish we had him. He is not colored.”1

Those were the words that Frank Bancroft, the Cincinnati Reds’ business manager, wrote to team president and National Commission Chairman Garry Herrmann in 1911 about Rafael Almeida. The Reds were in the midst of acquiring Almeida and fellow Cuban player Armando Marsans, and, as the first two Cubans to play major-league baseball, their signings marked a significant milestone in terms of who could participate in white Organized Baseball at its top level. However, as evidenced in Bancroft’s letter, Almeida’s presence on the Reds roused the suspicions of the league’s white-supremacist gatekeepers, and questions of his perceived skin color and racial background dominated much of his short playing career in the National League.

Almeida and Marsans traveled similar paths to the Reds. Born in Havana on July 30, 1887, Almeida was the child of a wealthy Cuban family, a background that would form the crux of many later battles over his racial “fitness” for white professional leagues in the United States. Wealth and whiteness were linked closely in nineteenth-century Cuba, and Almeida’s family benefited from a racial hierarchy in society and politics that privileged whiteness. Racial knowledge in Cuba differed greatly from that of the United States, a nation simultaneously recovering from an aborted Reconstruction project, indulging its imperialist impulses (including that which compelled the United States to fight for possession of Cuba), and welcoming thousands of immigrants from some European countries while shutting out completely nations with populations comprising people of color. Almeida’s career in both Cuba and the United States occurred in and engaged with all of these historical trends.

At the age of 16, Almeida made his professional debut for a local Havana club, and he spent the next eight years plying his infield craft in a variety of Cuban leagues and in winter series with a mix of black American players and Cubans. Many of the teams for which Almeida played in Cuba fielded players who would go on to become Negro Leaguers and major leaguers, including Marsans, Al Cabrera, and the legendary José Mendez. Almeida likewise gained experience playing with and against players from the United States in occasional series against Negro League and major league teams, and also from playing with a handful of Americans — black and white — who had come to Cuba during the United States’ occupation from 1906 to 1909.2

Almeida’s Almendares club won the championship in 1905, behind his strong play and that of Marsans, and it would be the only Cuban team of the three traditional teams in the circuit — Almendares, Fé, and Habana — to largely field only Cuban players for the next several years. Fé and Habana saw an influx of American players in 1907, with Habana featuring talent from the white major leagues and Fé boasting Rube Foster and other black baseball greats.3 Historian Roberto González Echeverría notes the nationalist underpinnings of the Almendares-Fé contests that decided the champion that season: Almendares were the Cuban darlings, and the Fé club garnered the unsubtle nickname intervencionistas. Almeida’s first experience playing with American players came in competition against them, and not as a teammate.

While he was not a prolific hitter, his overall solid performances for the storied Almendares club earned Almeida recognition from touring players and managers from the United States. When Negro League and major-league clubs sojourned in Cuba, Almeida faced them, and Almeida, Marsans, and Mendez often beat them. Almendares steeled themselves against the American incursions: They fielded almost exclusively Cuban players, defeated American teams, and impressed both their fans and their opponents with their play.

The third baseman Almeida starred in these contests, impressively enough in the eyes of some American gatekeepers to garner his first taste of baseball in the United States. That came in 1908, the product of a peculiar struggle over the talents of Almeida and Marsans. The previous season, minor-league clubs from Scranton, Pennsylvania, and New Britain, Connecticut, both placed claims on the two players; Garry Herrmann, as chairman of the National Commission, ruled in favor of Scranton, but Almeida and Marsans chose not to report to the team. They signed with New Britain.4

That season in New Britain, Almeida was the 11th-ranked hitter, but Adrian Burgos recounts some of the violence — physical and psychological — that the Cubans on the New Britain roster had to endure en route to that successful mark. Opposing pitchers aimed to hurt the players at bat, and fans rained boos and taunts upon them.5 Such abuse anticipated the treatment faced by Jackie Robinson and the host of integration pioneers after him.

Almeida, for his part, played well. In 326 at-bats over 86 games, the infielder recorded 95 hits (good for a .291 average) and slugged five home runs while playing steady defense. His very participation was in jeopardy for the 1909 season, however, as the league convened to decide whether it would draw the color line more starkly.

The Connecticut League had actually been somewhat of a haven for black players since the 1880s, and had at one point hosted an all-black team featuring legends Frank Grant and Sol White.6 Teams made up of black players had competed against white teams often in the league’s history, some even fashioning themselves under the moniker “Black Cubans” — a common practice at the time, even though the players were black Americans.

The league eventually relinquished plans to bar black players (likely including black Latinos), but it folded only a few years later. Almeida played for New Britain in 1909 and 1910, hitting around .300 in both seasons.

The Cincinnati Reds had lost seven of 13 games while touring Cuba in the winter of 1908 — not an uncommon occurrence for major-league clubs barnstorming in the Caribbean — and saw firsthand the exceptional skill many of their opponents possessed. While there, the Reds noted certain players who might be major-league material. Management settled upon a project to bring some of those players stateside — a pioneering move — but, as with the Dodgers’ signing of Jackie Robinson decades later, their chief fount of inspiration was Garry Herrmann’s pocketbook, not progressive sensibilities.

Almeida and Marsans were already playing with the New Britain club when Herrmann made his move to bring a few Cuban players aboard. However, the two ballplayers had made an impression during the Reds’ time in Cuba, while they played for Almendares. Almeida found himself the beneficiary of that project, and he and Marsans signed with the Reds in June 1911. In its report on the transaction, the Washington Post cited the players’ “good style” of fielding and their good hitting seasons.7 Bancroft, the business manager of the Reds, had clearly become enamored with that style when he visited the country during barnstorming tours.

Anticipating the intense suspicion regarding Almeida’s racial background, Bancroft and the Reds issued a barrage of letters and press insisting on his whiteness. The club called the players “pure Spaniards, without a trace of colored blood,” but the most infamous of justifications came via the pen of the Cincinnati Enquirer: The two Cubans were of “a noble Spanish race, with no ignoble African blood to place a blot or spot on their escutcheons. Permit me to introduce two of the purest bars of Castilian soap that ever floated to these shores.”8 Bancroft, Clark Griffith, and Herrmann had the power to shape the color line to their desires; clearly, their desires were to hem it as close to whiteness as possible. They denied the opportunity to expand Organized Baseball to more players of color, and their rhetoric had significant ramifications for Latinos who sought to play major-league ball.

There were others with stakes in the success of Almeida and Marsans who sought to define their prospective baseball careers in other terms. Robert Peterson, in Only the Ball Was White, relayed the comments of a black newspaper upon the signings: “Now that the first shock is over it would not be surprising to see a Cuban a few shades darker than Almeida and Marsans break into the professional ranks. … With the admissions of Cubans of a darker hue in the two big leagues it would then be easy for colored players who are citizens of this country to get into fast company.”9 The Reds’ language denied this possibility, however. For the next three decades, Cubans and other foreign-born Latinos were whitened in the press, and Almeida’s signing would be only a half-measure of integration.

Almeida and Marsans finally debuted on July 4, 1911, against the Cubs at their pre-Wrigley Field ballpark on the West Side. One journalist noted that Almeida secured his spot on the club in August by doing “what few players would attempt”: getting hit by a pitch with the bases loaded to coax in a run.10 The reporter noted that Almeida received an “awful blow” that “nearly put him down and out.” Almeida’s violent plunk was among the first of the dangerous and racially motivated hit-by-pitches players of color would face for decades.

Almeida’s first month with the club met some skepticism from local and national media, however. In a syndicated piece, the Boston Globe wrote in July that, while “practically certain” that Marsans would stay with the Reds, Almeida had been injured and “unable to show his full worth.”11 By July, however, there was at least some belief that Almeida would be a key part of the Reds. Recounting a game against St. Louis at the Palace of the Fans — in the final season of its service as the Reds’ home park — the Cincinnati Enquirer praised Almeida and Marsans, noting that they “were greeted with great applause,” and reporting on Almeida’s strong arm and speed, saying he “threw like a shot from third base and beat out an infield hit.”12

Jack Ryder, the Reds beat writer near the start of his 30-year career with the Enquirer, continued to relay Almeida’s performance and the Reds fans’ reactions to his play. In a characteristic column, Ryder wrote of Almeida’s “timely hitting” as a “great [factor] in the Reds’ success” that day, driving in the two winning runs. A few lines below, he captured the crowd’s feelings and alluded to Almeida’s purported racial makeup: “Almeida was greeted with rousing cheers from the populace, and responded by doffing his cap in a polite Castilian manner as he left the field. His double was one of the longest and hardest hits of the day, and came just when it was most needed to give the Reds the edge on the contest.”13

This sort of writing is emblematic of how many tied Almeida’s skill to his perceived white professionalism and class background, a theme common with Latino players in the pre-Jackie Robinson era. Ryder directly linked Almeida’s good performance, his favor among the Cincinnati faithful, and his “Castilian manner,” an important schema of thought for those invested in upholding the color line. When faced with the prospect of those who didn’t fit the black/white binary upon which the segregated major leagues were built, it became vital for those white gatekeepers to engage in the rhetorical whitening of those players. Rafael Almeida’s major-league experiences are an important piece in the story of Cubans gaining entry — or failing to gain entry — to white Organized Baseball in the United States.

The next two years were trying for the infielder, as he bounced between Cincinnati’s big-league club and minor-league affiliates. Almeida’s batting line dropped from a good .313/.383/.769 — good for an OPS 18 percent better than league average — to .220/.281/.390 in only 65 plate appearances. The infielder found himself relegated to the Reds’ minor-league club in Montreal, coincidentally the same team for whom Jackie Robinson would debut in 1945.

Almeida performed well enough for the Montreal Royals to merit a larger role on the 1913 Reds, and he capitalized by hitting .262/.324/.392. But Herrmann was willing to let Almeida depart the Reds for a modest sum in 1913, when he asked $1,800 from a Nashville minor-league team for the infielder’s services. The deal was never consummated, but Almeida did return to Montreal, and there he learned to play center field. One report summed up a meeting between the erstwhile Red and his ex-teammates, including Marsans, stating that Almeida’s “presence made the rest of the Reds feel what a big mistake was made in letting him go so suddenly.”14

The 5-foot-9, 164-pound Almeida played third base most of the time he was with the Reds, with a couple of games at shortstop, one at second base, and three in center field. He had an unfortunate career fielding percentage of .904. His major-league career comprised 102 games spread over the three seasons, and he finished with a career batting mark of .270.

Ultimately, it seemed that Almeida’s greatest sin was that he was not Marsans. His pioneering counterpart starred in the National League for several years, and Almeida often faced unfair comparisons to the outfielder who shined. While Marsans would go on to be a key figure in the case of the National League against the upstart Federal League — a case he lost, in part, due to Reds manager Clark Griffith’s testimony — Almeida quietly departed the Reds and the National League to continue his career in American minor-league ball and in the Cuban league. Almeida donned the Almendares and Habana uniforms for many years after his major-league career had stalled, always finding a spot on the field at Almendares Park.

Then a major-league veteran, Almeida patrolled the outfield into the 1920s, and remained active in Cuban sporting culture. He shepherded the amateur Vedado Tennis Club to several pennant victories in the mid-’20s and helmed the winning Cuban national club at the 1930 Central American Games, and his baseball oeuvre warranted induction into the Cuban Baseball Hall of Fame in its inaugural 1939 class.15

Almeida’s 102 games with the Reds comprise the centerpiece of his baseball career, but the infielder played a quarter-century in Cuban and American baseball leagues, found himself located in various spots on the spectrum of the color line, and achieved a great deal on the diamond. During his life, his legacy as a pioneer often went unrecognized for reasons rooted in lingering white supremacy. A New York Times assessment of the precarious position in which Cuban major leaguers found themselves in the wake of the Cuban Revolution recounted the tale of Almeida’s signing with the Reds, but removed any semblance of autonomy for Almeida. “The instigator of the immigration was Clark Griffith. … A year before he established his regime in Washington, Griff was managing Cincinnati. It was from there in 1911 that he hired his first Cuban, Rafael Almeida. He was bought sight unseen, a mail-order purchase.”16

Knowledge of the actual circumstances of Almeida’s signing had clearly atrophied — he had played several seasons in the United States, and the Reds themselves had personally seen him before Herrmann inked him to a contract. Fortunately, Almeida’s legacy has been rehabilitated over the past few decades as historical research on the participation of foreign-born Latinos the major and minor leagues has grown. He’s now rightly recognized as the pioneer he was. Almeida died in Havana on March 18, 1969, at the age of 80 and a decade after his home country cut ties to the country in which he was an early integration pioneer.

By the time of his 1939 induction into the Cuban Baseball Hall of Fame, Almeida had become one of the legends of Cuban baseball’s golden era, joining Marsans, Mendez, Cristóbal Torriente, and others in representing the nation’s diverse racial demography. Almeida was emblematic of the inductees: a participant for decades in the Cuban leagues, the American major leagues, and the American minor leagues, and a representative of the nation’s sizable impact on transnational baseball culture.

Notes

1 Frank Bancroft correspondence, “1080 1914” box, Garry Herrmann Papers, National Baseball Library and Archive.

2 Rob Ruck, Raceball: How the Major Leagues Colonized the Black and Latin Game (Boston: Beacon Press, 2011), 12-13.

3 Roberto González Echevarría, The Pride of Havana: A History of Cuban Baseball (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 127.

4 Adrian Burgos Jr., Playing America’s Game: Baseball, Latinos, and the Color Line (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007), 92.

5 Burgos, 93.

6 Steve Thornton, “Swinging for the Fences: Connecticut’s Black Baseball Greats,” ConnecticutHistory.org, https://connecticuthistory.org/swinging-for-the-fences-connecticuts-black-baseball-greats.

7 “Reds Buy Cuban Players,” Washington Post, June 16, 1911.

8 Burgos, 90.

9 Robert Peterson, Only the Ball Was White (New York: Random House, 1970), 61-62.

10 “Gets Hit; Has a Job Now,” Washington Post, August 29, 1911.

11 “Cincinnati Owners to Give Several Men Another Try in Hope of Bracing the Reds,” Boston Globe, July 20, 1911.

12 Jack Ryder, “One Round: Enough for the Cards,” Cincinnati Enquirer, July 24, 1911.

13 Ibid.

14 “Cuban Almeida Calls on His Fellow Countrymen and Old Team Mates,” Cincinnati Enquirer, August 14, 1913.

15 Echevarria, 277.

16 Arthur Daley, “Sports of the Times: Decision Is Castro’s,” New York Times, January 6, 1961.

Nonetheless, Santos had the talent. His son and grandson – Rubén Amaro Sr. and Ruben Jr. – were in the majors for 11 and eight years, respectively. Two members of the clan’s fourth generation were chosen in the amateur draft before going to the college ranks. “Baseball is our way of life in the Amaro family,” said Rubén Sr.3

Santos Amaro played 14 winter seasons in his homeland from 1936-37 to 1949-50. He was in Mexico during the summers from the late 1920s through 1955, including at least 17 seasons in the Mexican League. He was also a manager in both Cuba and his adopted home, and he eventually became a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame in each nation.

Originally a catcher, Amaro also played third base, first base, and across the outfield – but his true home as a player was in right field, thanks to his powerful throwing arm.4 Fermín “Mike” Guerra, a catcher for many years in Cuba and the majors, told Cuban baseball historian Roberto González Echevarría that Amaro’s arm was the strongest he had ever seen in an outfielder.5 Amaro consistently hit around .300, though he hit mainly line drives and had surprisingly little home-run power for his size. “He never lifted the ball,” said Rubén Sr., “but he was a strong gap hitter who used all fields, got lots of extra bases, and was very conscientious with men in scoring position.”6

Amaro was a man of regal appearance and bearing. The Mexican Baseball Hall of Fame described him as “a complete gentleman outside the diamond, but on the field of play he practiced aggressive baseball, because he did not like to lose; he always wanted to be a winner and always gave his maximum effort to achieve this.”7 He was a member of eight champion teams in Cuba plus at least five more in Mexico – three confirmed as player, one more as player-manager, and another as manager alone. Author Milton Jamail put Amaro in a special category along with three other men he had the good fortune to interview: Curt Flood, Vic Power, and Willie Wells. “All fought the discrimination they faced through the quality of their play on the field and their incredible strength and dignity off it.”8 These attributes served Amaro well as a manager. He also passed them on to his family.

Santos Amaro Oliva was born on March 14, 1908, in Aguacate. This place – its name means avocado in Spanish – is a village in the former province of La Habana.9 It is in the western part of the country, between the Cuban capital and the city of Matanzas. When Santos was a youth, it had between 2,000 and 3,000 inhabitants. As was true of much of Cuba, the area was agricultural. “My grandmother’s family cultivated rice, mainly,” said Rubén Sr.10

Santos Amaro shared his given name with his father, a merchant seaman who came from Portugal. Baseball’s influence was already visible in the family. Author Nick Wilson wrote, “He was following in the footsteps of his father, who played at the turn of the century. When I interviewed Santos at the age of 92, he could not remember whether his father had confined himself to pitching or had played many positions as was customary in those early days.” Wilson added, “But there were many things about his own career which he could recall with clarity.”11 Though Amaro died not long after Wilson spoke to him, Rubén Sr.’s own excellent memory strongly complements what can be gathered from other sources.

Amaro’s mother, Regla Oliva, was (according to Rubén Sr.) “always a homemaker, a great cook, very able – doing everything to raise cattle and children when very young. She died in her sleep in Cuba when she was 114 years old, very healthy. I had just talked to her on the phone four days before she passed away. Abuelita Regla always mentioned that she was born in Cuba, but her parents both were Abencerraje Moors from Africa – nomads. They were slaves brought to Cuba and were given their freedom there, got married, and had three children.”12

Santos was the fourth of five children. He had three older brothers, named Mario, Rogelio, and Elpidio; he was followed by a sister named Visitación (“Niña”). “The family moved from Madruga, a bigger town near Aguacate, to Luyanó/Reparto Rocafort [neighborhoods in the city of Havana] when my father was 13 years old,” said Rubén Sr. “The oldest brothers, Mario and Rogelio, started work to support the family. My grandfather had passed away.”13

Santos became an apprentice carpenter, learning the craft of cabinetmaking and detail work.14 “He played baseball in the placeres, or sandlots, when young,” remembered Rubén Sr. “He was always a catcher – too skinny and too tall, but a great arm. His best friend growing up was Kid Chocolate, one of the greatest boxers of Cuba – very small, totally opposite.”15

With a group of other young Cubans, Santos went to Mexico in 1928 with his first professional team, a traveling outfit called Bacardí. Three teammates also went on to play many years in Mexico: pitcher Alcibíades Palma, catcher Rafael “Sungo” Pedrozo, and shortstop Marcelino Bauza. The manager was a stocky little man named Luis Sansirena; he too spent decades in Mexico as a manager and coach. Amaro earned $10 a week, plus room and board.16

In 1929 Amaro met a young woman named Josefina Mora (1910-2007), a member of the Vera Cruz Women’s Professional Baseball Club.17 They were married in 1930 in Veracruz – “by a justice of the peace,” Rubén Sr. remembered. “They had a Catholic Church wedding in the Cathedral of Veracruz in 1951. It was my 15th birthday gift.”18 Santos and “Doña Pepa” had two sons. Mario was born in 1931 in Veracruz; Rubén was born in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico in 1936.19 Around 1956, with both of their sons grown men, the couple adopted a seven-month-old baby girl named Ana Teresa, fondly known as “Ana Banana.”

As Rubén Sr. told author Stuart Gustafson many years later, his parents were a study in contrasts. Santos was tall (1.92 meters, or roughly 6-feet-3½) with dark coffee-colored skin. As an adult, he filled out to 95 kilos (210 pounds).20 Josefina was petite (5-feet-1) and fair (her grandparents on both sides were Spanish). Rubén and Mario wound up in between at 5-feet-10½. Doña Pepa was the one with whom the boys practiced their baseball skills, because Santos stressed education above all.21 “He only had an elementary education,” said Rubén Sr. in 2010, “but he told me baseball players have a lot of empty time. He used to read all the time and played with words. When we were doing our homework, he’d come by and say, ‘Fix that. That’s not done properly.’ There would be no playing baseball until we were ready to face the world otherwise. He would preach to us every day. ‘Get prepared. And when you embark on a task, don’t look back.’ ”22

This gentle but firm fatherly guidance continued when Rubén Sr. was in his early years in the minor leagues. Amaro spent the summers of 1956 and 1957 with Houston. Over half a century later, he recalled that he was ready to quit because of the racial and ethnic taunts of some Texas League fans – “the vituperation,” in his own words. Jim Crow laws were also humiliating. But he stuck with it after Santos Amaro calmly reminded his son that he had originally let him leave school on the condition that he do whatever it took to reach the majors.23

Mario Amaro was a skillful baseball player too, but he chose instead to focus on medicine (he also played professional soccer in Cuba while in medical school).24 In 1965, Rubén Sr. said, “No professional sport is as highly regarded in Mexico as it is in the US. A doctor, a lawyer, an engineer has more respect than any baseball player. I have a brother here who is a doctor, and everywhere we go people say, ‘This is Ruben Amaro’s brother.’ But back home, when people see me, they say, ‘Ah, there goes Dr. Amaro’s brother.’ ”25

Another intriguing insight into Santos Amaro the autodidact came from another great Cuban player, Hall of Famer Martín Dihigo. El Inmortal was born two years before Amaro and they played against each other in Cuba in the 1920s. Dihigo later became a teammate in other nations, godfather to Rubén Sr. – and a fellow member of the Freemasons.26 A 1938 letter from Dihigo is visible on the website of the auction firm Leland’s. In it, he described his efforts to absorb the knowledge contained in a three-volume Masonic encyclopedia.27 Amaro must have done the same – “he was a Past Master later on in his life,” said Rubén Sr.28

After barnstorming almost two years with Bacardí, Amaro joined the Mexican League team Tigres de Comintra in 1930, according to Rubén Sr. This team won the league championship. Unfortunately, further documentation has not yet surfaced; La Enciclopedia del Béisbol Mexicano’s records start in 1937.

Though his features did not fit the “African” stereotype, Amaro’s complexion meant that he encountered racism while playing with a barnstorming team in the United States in 1932. By one account, he did not wish to return.29 “But in 1935, he went on an eighty-game, fourteen-state tour of the United States with … La Junta de Nuevo Laredo.”30 He received some press in the U.S.; for example, the Wisconsin State Journal noted Amaro as the “star catcher of the Junta baseball team” and “long dusky rightfielder.” It also referred to him as “the Babe Ruth of the Mexican outfit” even though he was a line-drive hitter.31

Santos was not allowed to play much while the tour was in Texas. The prejudice he faced in the U.S. apparently killed his desire to play in the Negro Leagues. Yet Afro-Cubans faced bias even at home – in baseball and in society at large. Cuba’s high-level Amateur League, which exceeded pro ball in popularity for much of the first half of the 20th century, remained segregated until 1959. Two integrated amateur leagues eventually sprang up in Cuba, but not until the 1940s. Mexico was a more welcoming environment. In addition to greater opportunities on the field, several black Cuban players married Mexican women. One was Pedro Orta, whose son Jorge became a major leaguer from 1972 to 1987.32

Despite his limited action in the Lone Star State, Amaro still made an impression on Texan fans who saw him in Nuevo Laredo. In 1965 a man from the border city of McAllen named Bill Walsh wrote a letter to Sports Illustrated to that effect. It read in part, “In his prime Santos Amaro could have played on any ball club anywhere in the world. There was one reason he did not: he was black. Other Cubans had played in the majors, but they were always light in color. Santos could perform at any spot on the baseball field, except as a pitcher. In 1936 I saw him in a four-game series against an American League All-Star team headed by Rogers Hornsby, and including such players as Pinky Higgins, Red Kress, Eric McNair, and pitchers such as Ted Lyons and Jack Knott. In this series at Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, Santos played in the outfield, and in the four games he got 13 hits.”

Walsh continued, “But it was as a catcher that Santos was at his best. I have seen [Gabby] Hartnett, [Yogi] Berra and [Bill] Dickey, and none of them was any better than Santos Amaro. You cannot say anything about a baseball catcher better than that.”33 Mexican sources suggest that Amaro’s height hindered him behind the plate and was a factor in his position switch.34 Perhaps his athleticism was better suited to other spots, though – Amaro’s size and leaping ability won him the nickname El Canguro – “The Kangaroo.”35 By another account, though, it came in the 1930s as he was running to try to catch a team bus that had left him behind at a restaurant.36 Amaro’s contemporary, pitcher Conrado Marrero, cited skin color as well as stature.37

In 1937 Amaro went to play in the Dominican Republic. That was a remarkable year for Dominican baseball; the season was dedicated to the re-election of dictator Rafael Trujillo, and Ciudad Trujillo assembled a powerhouse team, luring the best Negro Leaguers of the day to come down. The league’s other teams competed, at least to a degree. Águilas Cibaeñas of Santiago signed Amaro plus Martín Dihigo and another fellow Cuban, Luis E. Tiant. With all the foreign reinforcements, there were relatively few Dominicans in the league, but the Santiago club had one of the nation’s early stars, Horacio “Rabbit” Martínez (Juan “Tetelo” Vargas was with Ciudad Trujillo). Amaro displayed power that was unusual for him; he tied Dihigo for the league lead in homers with four.38

The Dominican pro circuit collapsed after the excesses of 1937, however, not to reappear for another 14 years. Amaro then went to Venezuela in the summer of 1938, as did various other Latino ballplayers. A book called Historia del Béisbol en el Zulia, which focuses on the game in Venezuela’s westernmost state, notes that he joined the Centauros team.39 This locale remained important to the Amaro family over the years. Rubén Sr. became a manager and executive for the winter-ball team Águilas del Zulia, and Rubén Jr. played with that club for six seasons.

Rubén Sr. said that Santos “started to play in Venezuela with the Centauros, but didn’t have any success and they sent him to the other pro league, the Central League, with the Valdés club. He won the batting title. The other teams were Venezuela, Premier, Vencedor, and Vargas.”40 It was a brief schedule, though; Venezuelan baseball historian José Antero Núñez showed that Amaro was 13 for 31 (.419). He appeared in nine of the club’s 15 games.41

According to Who’s Who in Cuban Baseball, 1878-1961, Amaro’s first Cuban winter team was Santa Clara. He was there for five seasons, starting in 1936-37. (The Great Depression hit Cuban baseball hard in the early 1930s; the 1933-34 season was canceled.) In his second year, the Leopardos won the league championship with a lineup that also starred Negro Leaguer Sam Bankhead, who won the Cuban batting title. The staff ace was US Hall of Famer Ray “Jabao” Brown. The 1938-39 squad – featuring the great Josh Gibson as well as Brown – repeated as champs. “My father’s time in Santa Clara was his favorite,” said Rubén Sr. “It was a prelude to arriving at the top of his game around great players.”42

The first available Mexican League records for “Santicos” Amaro (as he was also known) come from 1939, when he was 31 years old. He joined Águila de Veracruz. In 1940 Águila was not in the league; Amaro played 14 games for the Veracruz Azules (Blues). This team was the league champion, which was not surprising – it was loaded with several of the all-time great Negro Leaguers: Josh Gibson, Willie Wells, Leon Day, Ray Dandridge, and Cool Papa Bell, as well as Ted “Double Duty” Radcliffe. Martín Dihigo was also with the club as player-manager. Mexican magnate Jorge Pasquel had bought the club before the season, moved it to Mexico City, and persuaded Dihigo to come aboard.43

“He always mentioned the superb experience of playing against and besides players of that caliber,” said Rubén Sr., “but two players that he considered above everyone else of that era were Martín Dihigo and Alejandro Oms, both from Cuba. His favorite players from the USA were in this order: James Bell (Cool Papa), Buck Leonard, Raymond Dandridge, Roy Campanella, and Josh Gibson.

“Pitchers: Dihigo, Satch Paige, Max Lanier, Ramón Bragaña, Lázaro Salazar, Vidal López (Venezuela), Connie Marrero, Tomás de la Cruz, Theolic Smith, Sal Maglie, Sandalio Consuegra, Agapito Mayor, Indian Torres. Whenever my father talked to his peers about their times, those names were always at the top of his conversations.”44

After his year with the Azules, Amaro then played seven-plus seasons with the Tampico Alijadores45 from 1941. Tampico was one of the better teams in Mexico during the 1940s, winning back-to-back championships in 1945 and 1946 under manager Armando Marsáns, one of the early Cubans to play in the majors. Amaro also gained his first experience as a manager in Tampico. He led the Alijadores for part of the 1943 season (replacing Willie Wells) and part of 1947 (taking over for Marsáns). “I remember the days in Tampico. We lived there more than five years,” said Rubén Sr. “When Tampico left the Mexican League [the club folded partway through the 1948 season], he went back to the Azules.”46

As of the 1941-42 Cuban winter season, Amaro was with the Almendares Alacranes. That team was the league champion, and so were the Scorpions of 1942-43, 1944-45, and 1946-47. During this time, Amaro also appeared in the American Series of 1942, when the Brooklyn Dodgers came to Havana for spring training and lost three out of five games to a Cuban all-star team.

In 1947-48, Cuba had an “alternative” league called La Liga Nacional (or Players Federation). The circuit, which lasted just one year, featured players who had become “outlaws” in the US because of their association with the Mexican League in 1946. Amaro played first with Alacranes, and then he went to the club called Cuba in a trade that also involved Sal Maglie. Amaro took over as manager for Cuba, succeeding Napoleón Reyes, who “retired on doctor’s orders. The combined work of player and manager brought a breakdown.”47

Amaro then rejoined Almendares in 1948-49, playing his last two winters at home for the Scorpions. Both of these teams became league champions and thus went on to play in the first and second Caribbean Series. Though mostly Cuban, there were notable Americans, such as future TV star Chuck Connors and Al Gionfriddo. In fact, Amaro was signed to replace Connors in January 1950 – allegedly after manager Fermín Guerra released the Dodgers farmhand “for failing to respect training rules.”48 It is remarkable to note that one man from the 1949-50 roster still survived as of 2012: Conrado Marrero, at 101 the oldest living major leaguer. (Catcher Andrés Fleitas died in December 2011 at the age of 95.)

Amaro ranked sixth in the history of Cuba’s main professional league in hits (725) and ninth in RBIs (321). He batted over .300 five times in his career there, finishing with a lifetime average of .294 – though he had just 12 homers. (Total games played are not available.) He wasn’t quite through as a player at home, though – in 1950-51, another new league sprang up, again called La Liga Nacional. Background on this league is available in Roberto González Echevarría’s book The Pride of Havana.49 Peter Bjarkman, historian of Cuban baseball, summed it up as follows:

“By that time, the ban had been lifted on [all] former Mexican leaguers, but the overall labor dispute had reduced the number of jobs in the Cuban League for older native Cuban players. With the assistance of Martín Dihigo, some of the over-the-hill veterans organized a separate league in Havana which was considered a minor circuit, not a rival to the normal Cuban League, and drew little attention. Amaro played in that league and did manage the club called Fé (the teams were all named after historic teams from the pre-1920s Cuban League).”50

Rubén Amaro, Sr.’s memory tallies with the historians’ description. “My father was active with Almendares until 1950. In 1951 there was an experiment to see if Cuba could support two professional leagues, the other one playing at the old Tropical Stadium. My father managed the team La Fé; lots of young Cuban players that couldn’t make the big season. Four teams formed the league. The people didn’t support that league, they had a much better show in El Cerro Stadium, better than the big leagues. The best black players, the best white players from the big leagues and the best Cuban players at the time, all in one ballpark distributed in four teams.”51

Over in Mexico, Amaro came back to Águila in 1949 and spent his remaining seven summers as a player at home in Veracruz. The Amaro family traveled between Mexico and Cuba until settling permanently in Mexico in 1951. “My father was finished as a player in Cuba,” said Rubén Sr., “but he was going to continue to play in the Mexican League with the Veracruz team in the summer, as well as managing in the Central Veracruz League in the winter.”52

Santos was always a Cuban at heart, though. As Rubén Sr. said, “Both Pipo and Mima [as the Amaro sons called their parents] traveled several times to see their sons and grandchildren. My father never gave up his Cuban citizenship. We all tried to make him Mexican. It was easier for him to travel anywhere with a Mexican passport.”53 Yet it’s worth noting that Amaro liked to remind everyone about the historical significance of the first Mexican-born major leaguer, Baldomero “Mel” Almada.54

Amaro succeeded Martín Dihigo as manager of Águila in 1951 and led the club to the Mexican League championship in 1952. Though well into his 40s by that time, Amaro still played on occasion. His last five games as an active player took place in 1955. Over his documented summer career in Mexico, he hit .314 with 32 homers and 705 RBIs in 1,186 games.

Amaro had also stayed active as a player in Mexican winter ball. His team was the Orizaba Cerveceros, or Brewers – this city had long been known as “the Mexican Milwaukee.”55 He was manager only in 1951-52, but he had a fine season as player-manager in 1952-53, when the circuit went from four to six teams and became known as the Veracruz Winter League. He batted .360 (45 for 125).56 As Cuban sportswriter Fausto Miranda later remembered, Amaro liked to say, “It’s not age, it’s the shape you can stay in.”57

Dihigo returned to the helm for Águila partway through the 1956 season, and Amaro remained with the team as a coach.58 Santos managed part of the 1959 season for the Mexico City Tigres, but was replaced at the beginning of June after the club got off to a dreadful start.59 He came back to Águila as third-base coach,60 and became manager once again in 1960. He spent four more summers as skipper in his home city, winning another league championship in 1961.

In the winter of 1962-63, Amaro managed Jalapa of the Veracruz League, a team that included his son Rubén. But when the governor of Veracruz state withdrew financial support for the Jalapa franchise, it folded, and the league’s three other teams followed suit.61 The following winter, Amaro set off to manage in another nation: Nicaragua.62 His stay with the Oriental team was brief, though; he stepped down during the Christmas holidays.63 Even Rubén Sr. couldn’t add anything about that chapter of his career.

Amaro started the 1964 summer season with León of the Mexican Center League, a lower-level circuit. He was replaced as manager by Dan Bankhead, the former Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher. Back in the ’30s, Dan’s older brother Sam had been Amaro’s teammate with Santa Clara and an opponent with Ciudad Trujillo. Amaro also managed Reynosa in the Mexican League that summer. The following year, 1965, was his last as a skipper. He managed Aguascalientes in the Mexican Center League for part of the season.

“I believe Pipo finished his career in baseball after the 1965 Aguascalientes job,” said Rubén Sr. “He started work with Rubio Exsome, a construction engineering firm in Veracruz, after that.” Amaro also worked for Deportivo Veracruzano, the city’s foremost sporting institution. His second career continued for 22 years.64

Santos and Pepa Amaro continued to live in their Veracruz home until late 1997. They stayed for a couple of months with a niece, but Rubén Sr. said, “In February 1998, my brother Mario and I decided to put both Mima and Pipo in the nursing home Residencias La Paz under Spanish nuns. Mima suffered a fall trying to clean windows at her house, broke her hip, recuperated very well and we didn’t want them to have any more mishaps. One of the rules of La Paz was that anyone joining them must be able to take care of themselves. If later on they were unable to do that, they could stay. Mima and Pipo continued to travel and visit their family anytime.

“Both lived there until the Lord took them away. Pipo, May 31, 2001, and Mima, March 16, 2007. They were both cremated and their ashes remain together in Veracruz. Dad passed away of natural causes, all the nuns praying and singing around him. Mima fell in her bathroom early one morning, didn’t call for help, broke her femur in two places and left us after three days from the day she fell.”65

Orestes “Minnie” Miñoso, who played for Amaro early in his career, told Nick Wilson, “[Amaro] was a very kind and gentle man. He never hurt anyone.” A Cuban champion boxer, Ultiminio “Sugar” Ramos, knew Amaro because he fought out of Mexico after Fidel Castro came to power. Ramos told Wilson, “He attracted people and liked to engage them. He was a guy who liked to have a good time.” Beyond that, Ramos said, “He brought a great glory to us because he was such a great baseball player.66 The Cuban Baseball Hall of Fame (in exile) inducted Santos Amaro in 1967. He became a member of the Mexican Baseball Hall of Fame in 1977. In 2012 he was named part of the fourth class of veterans to join the Latino Baseball Hall of Fame in the Dominican Republic.

In November 2012, 101-year-old Conrado Marrero contributed his opinion of his teammate from six decades past. “Santos Amaro was a serious, decent, and honorable man … one heck of a ballplayer from his cap to his spikes.”67

This biography was riginally published in 2012. An updated version appeared in “Cuban Baseball Legends: Baseball’s Alternative Universe” (SABR, 2016), edited by Peter C. Bjarkman and Bill Nowlin. Subsequently, it was further updated on January 7, 2023, to reflect Santos Amaro’s recognition as a major-leaguer.

Sources

Grateful acknowledgment to Rubén Amaro Sr. for his memories (telephone interview, October 18, 2012, and a series of e-mails from October 31 through November 25, 2012).

Continued thanks to Rogelio Marrero for obtaining the input of his grandfather, Conrado Marrero.

Continued thanks to Jesús Alberto Rubio in Mexico for various details of Santos Amaro’s career. Jesús knew Amaro personally when he lived in Veracruz in the 1970s and early 1980s. He devoted the March 14, 2010, edition of his column “Al Bat” to Amaro.

Pedro Treto Cisneros, editor, Enciclopedia del Béisbol Mexicano (Mexico City: Revistas Deportivas, S.A. de C.V.: 11th edition, 2011).

Jorge S. Figueredo, Who’s Who in Cuban Baseball, 1878-1961 (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc. 2003).

Nick Wilson, Early Latino Ballplayers in the United States (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Co., 2005).

Photo Credits

Courtesy of Jesús Alberto Rubio collection.

Notes

Sandy — so called for a supposed resemblance to champion boxer Sandy Saddler1 — was elected to the Cuban Baseball Hall of Fame in 1978. He also showed great promise in the Negro Leagues, the Dominican Republic, and Triple-A. In the majors, however, he remained a role player, spending just three full summers there along with fractions of four others. In author Peter Golenbock’s view, a language barrier hindered his career.

“Amorós had been one of the greatest players ever to come out of pre-Castro Cuba. If he had spoken English, he certainly would have played more, because in Cuba he was a .300 hitter in a fast league, was fleet in the field, was excellent at stealing bases, and was a good bunter. But he didn’t learn the language, and it was a handicap that kept him from becoming a star. A manager just doesn’t trust employing a player when he isn’t sure whether the guy understands him or not.”2

After his days as a pro ended in Mexico in 1962, Amorós then fell on hard times, running afoul of Fidel Castro. Poverty and ill health marked the last 30 years of his life.

Edmundo Amorós was born on January 30, 1930, in the Pueblo Nuevo district of Matanzas, 50 miles east of Havana.3 This city is known for Afro-Cuban culture. Many people from the area are called “Congos” — which, as author Roberto González Echevarría notes, is “a common (if tasteless) way of referring to someone who is very black. Cuban blacks themselves apply it to each other. . . . Congos are reputed to be short but tough.”4 Amorós, one of many Afro-Cuban ballplayers from Matanzas, was such a man. At 5-feet-7 1/2 and 170 pounds, he had surprising home-run power. The scout who signed him for the Dodgers, Al Campanis, called him “Miracle Wrists.”5

Edmundo was the youngest of six children born to Guillermo Amorós and Carida Isasi. Guillermo, who labored in sugar cane fields, died when his little boy was just 3. Carida supported her family by working in a textile mill. Edmundo attended school for eight years but began working in the mill too at the age of 14.6

The small but speedy youth had played baseball from an early age; he was already talented enough to hold his own with older players in Matanzas. In 1947, when he was 17, the young black man also drew inspiration from his pioneering future teammate. The Dodgers held spring training in Havana that year, and Amorós later remarked, “When I see Jackie Robinson play in my country, I say if he can do it, I can do it too.”7

In the baseball structure of Cuba before Castro, the cutoff point for the Juveniles division was age 20. In 1949, aged 19, Amorós won the national batting title at this level.8 This is significant because even well into his big-league career, newspapers and Topps baseball cards indicated that he was born in 1932. Yet by 1951, Edmundo had turned pro at home. Clearly the prospect shaved a couple of years off his age for U.S. purposes.9

In early 1950, the young outfielder gained international exposure. From February 25 through March 12, the sixth Central American and Caribbean Games took place in Guatemala City. Cuba won all seven of its games in the eight-team baseball tournament — led by Amorós, who hit .370 with six homers and 14 RBIs. Author Peter Bjarkman described Amorós and pitcher Justiniano Garay as “two initially token blacks carried on Cuba’s roster as racial integration slowly and quietly arrived within Cuban amateur baseball circles.”10

Cuba’s Amateur League, a bastion of white-only private social clubs, actually remained segregated until 1959. There was a strange and surprising Catch-22 at work. Black players could play in the main Cuban professional league but needed places to develop. Yet while two new integrated amateur leagues sprang up in the 1940s, many Afro-Cubans were forced to turn either to semipro ball or the sugar-mill circuit — and thus became ineligible for amateur international competition. Amorós and Garay remained eligible in 1950, though. Joining them was Ángel Scull, another black outfielder from Matanzas, who played nine seasons at Triple-A but never made the majors.

Edmundo then went on to join the New York Cubans, run by Cuban impresario Alex Pómpez, in the Negro American League. Playing first base in addition to the outfield, he hit .338 (an isolated and probably incomplete statistic), with at least one notable homer at the Polo Grounds. Pitcher Sam Williams had promised to knock Amorós down before the game, and sailed a fastball dangerously close to the batter’s head. Sandy then held up his end of the pregame exchange by belting one into the second deck.11

That winter, 24 Cuban sportswriters unanimously voted Amorós Rookie of the Year in the Cuban League. (The records show he played in 41 games but with just 42 at-bats, which is also likely incomplete.) He helped the Havana Rojos (Reds) to their first of three straight Cuban championships under manager Mike González. Down in Caracas, Venezuela, Amorós then went 5-for-15 in the third Caribbean Series, won by Puerto Rico.

The New York Cubans ceased to exist after the 1950 season. During the summer of 1951, Amorós played in the Dominican Republic, where pro baseball had resumed that year (the league would not switch to the winter until 1955). With the Estrellas Orientales club in San Pedro de Macorís, Edmundo went 31 for 79 (.392), scoring 20 runs and driving in 19.12

In the winter of 1951-52, Amorós posted .333-3-27 numbers for Havana and was named a league All-Star. He also attracted the attention of Brooklyn Dodgers coach Billy Herman, who was managing the Cienfuegos team. Herman in turn tipped off Al Campanis, who signed the outfielder for a $1,000 bonus.13 After the Cuban season ended, the Reds went on to the fourth Caribbean Series, played in Panama City. Cuba finished 5-0 with one tie, and Edmundo led all hitters by going 9-for-20 (.450). One of those hits drove in pitcher Tommy Fine with the only run in Fine’s no-hitter on February 21 — a unique achievement in Series history.

That spring, Amorós made his minor-league debut with the St. Paul Saints, one of Brooklyn’s two Triple-A affiliates. At that time he acquired his nickname, Sandy, from veteran teammate Bert Haas, also a teammate with Havana. The resemblance to featherweight champ Saddler was only passing, but the label stuck over time, though many contemporary articles still called him Edmundo. In the United States, however, non-Spanish speakers typically accented the first syllable of his last name.14

In 129 games with the Saints, Amorós hit strongly (.337-19-78). That July, Andy High, the Dodgers’ chief scout, said he was worthy of a $150,000 bonus, given what young American high-schoolers were then receiving.15 About a month later, on August 21, 1952, the Dodgers announced that they were sending down pitcher Chris Van Cuyk and calling up Amorós — touted as “another Willie Mays”16 — for help in the stretch drive.

Sandy made his debut the next day, in the first game of a doubleheader at Pittsburgh’s Forbes Field. In his first at-bat, as a pinch-hitter in the ninth inning, he singled off Woody Main and came all the way around to score as the ball went through the legs of center fielder Brandy Davis. Apparently Amorós was right on the tail of Gil Hodges as he crossed the plate.

Amorós batted .250 in 44 at-bats the rest of the way — “change-ups fooled Miracle Wrists,” as Dodgers chronicler Roger Kahn noted.17 Still, he remained on Brooklyn’s roster for the World Series, appearing briefly as a pinch-runner in Game Six.

Amorós starred again that winter in Cuba. Along with 3 homers and 38 RBIs, he won the batting title with a .373 mark — the league’s highest in more than 30 years. Yet despite playing at home, Havana finished behind Santurce of Puerto Rico in the Caribbean Series; Edmundo went just 4-for-24.

For various reasons, Amorós spent the whole 1953 season with Brooklyn’s other Triple-A team, Montreal. He won the International League’s batting crown as well at .353, with 23 homers and 100 RBIs. Don Thompson, Jackie Robinson, and George Shuba saw most of the action in left field for Brooklyn.

The front office may have sought some more seasoning for Sandy, whose English was also still very limited — “Hokay” and “steak” were his key vocabulary words. Another factor is worth noting, though. On April 7, 1953, the New York Times observed, “Delayed for a time in Havana by the McCarran Act, Amorós hasn’t worn a Brooklyn uniform this spring. He has been working out at Vero Beach since his arrival.”18 The McCarran Internal Security Act of 1950 was a controversial law aimed at “subversives,” passed over President Truman’s veto while the Senate was in the grip of McCarthyism. Even though Communism was still several years away in Cuba, people around the world faced tighter curbs on admission to the United States, especially after the related McCarran-Walter Act was passed in 1952.

Unsavory racial implications were also visible. On days when Don Newcombe pitched, the Dodgers lineup had the potential for a majority of black players (Robinson at third instead of Billy Cox, Roy Campanella, and rookie second-baseman Jim Gilliam, as well as Sandy). Brooklyn had been a groundbreaking organization, but by that time, Branch Rickey was gone. Roger Kahn noted, “Actually, by this time the Dodgers were exceedingly cautious crusaders.”19

Sandy had another excellent winter in Cuba (.322-9-39), and then a strong spring with the Dodgers in 1954. This prompted further “poetic license” with the pronunciation of his surname as New York Mirror writer Dan Parker parodied the song “That’s Amore.”20 Amorós opened the 1954 season in Brooklyn, but the Dodgers sent him down to Montreal in mid-May when the time came to meet roster limits.

Though Dodgers management denied it, the possible racial motive again surfaced, as journalist John Lardner discussed in his May 10 story for Newsweek, “The 50 Per Cent Color Line.” Bill Roeder of the New York World-Telegram & Sun (who had separately remarked on Sandy’s habit of wiggling his wrists at the plate) also wrote of “an undercurrent of suspicion.” When Amorós returned in July, however, the majority-black lineup took the field for the first time in big-league history on July 17 at Milwaukee’s County Stadium. Jackie Robinson played third base. Six days later, Edmundo hit his first big-league homer, off Vic Raschi of the Cardinals.

The 1954 season was also notable for a controversy that developed later — Roberto Clemente’s contention that the Dodgers “hid” him in Montreal. Author Stew Thornley re-examined this generally accepted belief in the 2006 edition of SABR’s annual, The National Pastime. He quoted Canadian baseball historian Neil Raymond:

“What becomes apparent going through the Montreal papers daily (La Presse, The Gazette, The Star) is that this team was not perceived as a player development exercise,” maintained Raymond. “They were expected to win. Translation: Sandy Amorós’s at-bats were deemed a lot more valuable.” Indeed, Edmundo swung a hot bat before his recall (.352-14-50). His output for Brooklyn, largely against righty pitching, was good (.274-9-34).

Just after Christmas 1954, Amorós married Migdalia Castro, his childhood sweetheart from Matanzas.21 She may already have delivered their only child — articles from 1967 note daughter Eloisa’s age as 13.

Following a fifth straight fine season in Havana (.307-5-37), Sandy finally became the primary left fielder for Brooklyn in 1955. He posted career highs of 119 games and 388 at-bats. The numbers were not outstanding (.247-10-51), but his World Series action turned out to be special. Amorós was 4-for-12 in five games, and when he entered Game Seven in the sixth inning (as Jim Gilliam shifted from left to second), his peak moment was at hand.

Billy Martin had led off the bottom of the sixth with a walk, and Gil McDougald bunted his way on. This was Yankee broadcaster Mel Allen’s call as the dangerous Yogi Berra came to the plate:

“Johnny Podres on the mound. Dodgers leading 2-0. . . . The outfield swung away toward right. Sandy Amorós is playing way into left-center. Berra is basically a pull hitter.

“Here’s the pitch. Berra swings and he does hit one to the opposite field, down the left field line. . . . Sandy Amorós races over toward the foul line . . . and he makes a sensational, running, one-handed catch! He turns, whirls, fires to Pee Wee Reese. Reese fires to Gil Hodges at first base in time to double up McDougald. And the Yankees’ rally is stymied!”

When asked how he made the play, Sandy summed it up simply: “I dunno. I run like hell.” In addition to his superior speed, Amorós was also left-handed; righty Jim Gilliam said he would not have reached the slicing liner on his backhand. Yet according to winning pitcher Podres, “The big thing about it, though, more than the catch, was how he fired the ball back to Reese.” Podres added that Don Zimmer jokingly took credit for the turn of events because manager Walt Alston had pulled Zimmer for a pinch-hitter and inserted Amorós.22

Life magazine published a splendid photo of Sandy smiling brilliantly around a Cuban cigar as he celebrated the victory. The Cuban press reveled even more.

“Amorós, hero of the year,” proclaimed Carteles. Bohemia published a full-page photograph of Amorós over the caption: “His performance in the World Series has produced intense joy in our nation.” His deeds signified a “triumph and corroboration for the quality of our sports” and “assure him a place of honor in the history of the pastime of Cuba.”23

Sandy spent his last winter with the Havana Reds in 1955-56, falling below .300 (.262-8-34). He enjoyed his best big-league season in 1956, though, hitting 16 homers and driving in 58 for Brooklyn in just 292 at-bats. In the World Series, however, he went cold, going just 1-for-19 in six games — with one crucial near-miss. In the fifth inning of Don Larsen’s perfect game, Amorós hooked a drive barely wide of the right-field foul pole.

Before the 1956-57 winter season, Havana traded Edmundo to Almendares for four players: infielder Héctor Rodríguez, outfielders Román Mejías and Óscar Sardiñas, and pitcher Raúl Sánchez. With the Alacranes (Scorpions), he suffered a poor season, hitting just .194 with 4 homers and 24 RBIs.

Sandy never could reach a higher level in Brooklyn. From the language standpoint, he had not made great progress, relying on support from Spanish-speaking teammates including Joe Black, Gilliam, and Campanella (Roy let him live on his yacht). Brooklyn fan Pete Trunk recalls that as a boy, “My crew of buddies and I always hated when Sandy was on Happy Felton’s Knothole Gang. We couldn’t understand one word he was saying!”

Still, Amorós remained a useful role player in 1957, platooning with Gino Cimoli in left (.277-7-26). He rebounded somewhat with Almendares that winter (.247-7-29). After 1957, though, Sandy saw little time in the majors. In March 1958, the Dodgers — by then in Los Angeles — put him on waivers. Authors Larry Moffi and Jonathan Kronstadt described the situation as “a bitter salary dispute,” noting also that “Sportswriter Bill Nunn, Jr., of the Pittsburgh Courier claimed the Dodgers had influenced other teams to ‘keep their hands off Amorós’ to punish him for refusing to sign for the same salary, $10,500, he had made the year before.”24

Passing through waivers unclaimed, Sandy returned to Montreal. It is not known whether he ever picked up much French, though it should have been easier for him. He had good years at Triple-A in both 1958 (.260-16-62) and 1959 (.301-26-79), plus two more middling winters for the Scorpions, highlighted by a return to the Caribbean Series in 1959 (7-for-21). Los Angeles finally recalled him for five games in September at the end of the ’59 season. However, Amorós was not on the postseason roster.

Sandy actually made the Dodgers roster out of spring training in 1960, but saw very limited duty. On May 7, Los Angeles traded him to the Detroit Tigers for Gail Harris. He remained with the Tigers as a seldom-used reserve for the rest of the year. On May 31, his pinch-hit homer off Dick Hall — the last of his 43 home runs in the big leagues — gave Detroit its only run in a 2-1 loss.

The Cuban professional league played its last season in the winter of 1960-61, and Sandy was there until the end with Almendares, going out with a respectable .288 average. His lifetime totals in Cuba across 11 seasons, subject to some uncertainty, were 49 homers, 312 RBIs, and a .281 average in 2,305 at-bats.

Amorós then spent 1961 with Denver in the American Association (.259-10-58). On March 18, 1962, the Tigers organization sold him and infielder Ossie Álvarez to the Mexico City Red Devils. Sandy played well (.305-13-71) — but his days on the field were over, as he hit a new obstacle.

Author Nicholas Dawidoff (perhaps best known for his book on Moe Berg, The Catcher Was a Spy) provided many insights on Sandy’s life in a feature he wrote for Sports Illustrated in July 1989. He described how things went downhill because of a run-in with El Líder Máximo, Fidel Castro.

“Castro decided to form an entire professional summer league in Cuba. He asked Amorós, who, as usual, was spending his offseason in Cuba, to stay home and manage one of the teams instead of returning to Mexico that summer. ‘I told Castro I didn’t know how to manage,’ says Amorós. ‘I could play, why would I want to manage?’ Privately, Amorós had qualms about working for the government. Castro did not take Amorós’s refusal lightly. He stripped Amorós of his ranch, car, all his assets and cash.”25

Sandy worked for himself as a mechanic, repairman, or whatever he could find.26 His reduced circumstances led to other problems, notes Roberto González Echevarría:

“For many players, the collapse of the Cuban League had tragic consequences. The diaspora began. Amorós, for instance . . . could not leave for many years, during which he became an alcoholic and eventually a diabetic. When he did leave, the Dodgers put him on their roster for the few days he needed for his pension.”27

That was in May 1967. John McHale, then assistant to Commissioner Spike Eckert, was behind the kind act. When the future Montreal Expos executive found out that Sandy was seven days short of qualifying, he mentioned it to Dodgers general manager Buzzie Bavasi, who took it in turn to club owner Walter O’Malley. 28 There is a photo of Sandy — “penniless, bald and 30 pounds lighter than when he played for Brooklyn”29 — delivering the lineup card to home plate during his time at Dodger Stadium.

Sandy had been able to escape Cuba at last, thanks to the good offices of Armando Vásquez, his old comrade from home and the Negro Leagues.30 Catholic Charities of Brooklyn sponsored his visa, and Amorós got a job coaching baseball in a Catholic Youth Organization playground in New York City.31 But after the family arrived in the United States and the Dodgers lent their support, a sad sequence of events ensued, as Nicholas Dawidoff portrayed:

“In December 1967, Migdalia divorced him, taking Eloisa with her. After three years, the store he worked in [a TV shop in the South Bronx] burned down. For six months Amorós was unemployed, until a friend at the New York Post, who had connections in the office of New York Mayor John Lindsay, helped him get a job with the parks department in the Bronx. When Lindsay’s term was up so was Amorós’s. Two years of unemployment followed.”

In 1977, Amorós claimed his first pension check from major-league baseball and moved to Tampa, where he lived alone on the money he earned from a variety of menial jobs and from his pension.”32

By that time, Sandy was suffering greatly from leg pain owing to poor circulation from his diabetes. Doctors amputated part of his left leg in September 1987. Roberto González Echevarría offered another moving depiction of Sandy, “who was in no condition to be interviewed formally”:33

“I will never forget peering through a window of Edmundo Amorós’ apartment in Tampa, with Agapito Mayor [a Cuban pitcher], to see if the old hero of the 1955 World Series was awake. Every day, Mayor brought him a meal from a nearby restaurant with take-out service and cleaned up the apartment for him. I was deeply moved by Mayor’s kindness, which he displayed without fuss, as if he were performing the most routine of chores. Once inside we find a withered figure, missing a leg from the knee down (diabetes), and with the ashen color of poor health. He speaks softly of leaving Cuba, of getting an offer to play in some independent league in Canada because they still remembered him there from his salad days with the Montreal Royals. But he knew that he was through, he says. His artificial leg is propped up against the wall. A small television set blares with some adventure movie. Mayor is puttering about, picking up things, tidying up. He has run Amorós to the hospital several times. . . .”34

This was actually a step up from the worst conditions Sandy had faced. After his operation, fellow Cuban and Brooklyn Dodger Chico Fernández got the Baseball Assistance Team (BAT) to supplement the meager $495 monthly pension with an additional $400 a month.35

Amorós was still capable of some travel, though, and many other friends still kept him in their minds and hearts. In February 1990, he went to Miami for a meeting. “The Federation of Professional Cuban Baseball Players in Exile hosted their own reception in conjunction with the Caribbean Series of Baseball. The meeting room was full of baseball history. Cuban greats like Tony Oliva, José Tartabull, and Sandy Amorós gathered to talk about yesterday and today.”36

As of 1991, Sandy still lived in Tampa.37 In the last year of his life, though, he moved to Miami to live with his daughter Eloisa and her four children. The New York Times wrote another feature article on him in June 1992, shortly before he was to travel back to Brooklyn as guest of honor at the Coney Island Sports Festival. An autograph signing and memorabilia auction were set up, with the lion’s share of the proceeds intended for his benefit. June 20 was scheduled as Sandy Amorós Day in Brooklyn.38

Alas, he never made it north. He was stricken with pneumonia on June 16 and entered Miami’s Jackson Memorial Hospital.39 Though it looked as though he was rallying after he went on a respirator,40 Sandy declined and eventually passed away on June 27. He was buried in Woodlawn Park North Cemetery and Mausoleum in Miami.

More than 60 years after his greatest feat, Edmundo Amorós is still remembered in the United States and celebrated as a hero in Cuba. Yet beyond the field, through good times and hardships, there was always one constant about this proud but modest man. Said his lawyer, Rafael Sánchez:

“From the days when he played until now, he’s always had that wonderful smile. You’ll look at him and just marvel at that smile.”41

Sources

SABR Minor League Database

Professional Baseball Player Database V6.0

www.retrosheet.org

www.findagrave.com

Photo Credit

Sandy Amoros, Trading Card Database.

Notes

Arias was born in Ciboney’s Sugar Mill in Camaguey Province on June 6, 1931. His father, Arturo Arias, managed a railroad station and his mother, Zoila Martinez, was a housewife who never worked outside of the home. The young Rodolfo was a rebellious child and before too long got himself expelled from school and sent to an educational facility sponsored by the courts; his education fell short of high school equivalency.    

Baseball in Cuba started in the 1860s and it was frowned upon by the Spanish colonial government, considered a repudiation of everything from Spain and supportive of the new revolutionary mentality of the locals. It was and is the national sport of Cuba. Arias’s love for the game started very early and he took every opportunity to play the game with his friends. The equipment he had was crude indeed. The “ball” was a sphere tightly wound with black electrical tape until it took the shape and consistency of a baseball; the bat was simply a branch cut from a local hardwood tree, the guira, which was typically used to make the Latin American musical instrument known as the maracas. Rodolfo had no other real interests; it was, as he recalls, “what we kids did all day long.”1

Young Rodolfo was so good as a left-handed teenage pitcher that many of his friends wouldn’t play against him unless he played first base rather than pitch.

In the early ’50s, he played in the Habana Amateur League for a club formed by the Customs office, but the team was not that successful on the field. However, an opening in an amateur tournament on the island allowed him to join the Oriente Province San German club in the Pedro Betancourt League. The team finished in first place and continued on to take first place in the Popular National Amateur League, too. Winning that league enabled Rodolfo and his teammates to travel to the United States in 1953 to play in a double-elimination tournament in Michigan against U.S. amateur teams.

Before the team left Cuba for the United States, Joe Cambria, the Washington Senators’ legendary Cuban scout, tried to sign Arias, but Arias, after talking to Popular League president Pedro Tibanier, took Tibanier’s advice not to sign with anyone until he got to the United States. If he pitched well, perhaps he could command a better price. He left for the United States, but covered his bases by telling Joe Cambria that he would sign upon his return from the tournament.

From Habana the team traveled to Miami, where they got on a bus for the long ride to Michigan. In 16 days of baseball, they won just two games, both pitched by Arias. Although there were a couple of good players on the team, they were deemed too short by the scouts; Rodolfo, at 5-feet-10 and 155 pounds, cut the right figure to go along with his pitching abilities. Chicago White Sox scout Doug Minor signed him for $3,000. It’s his recollection that pitchers like Camilo Pascual and Pedro Ramos were each signed for only $75. Tibanier’s advice and his own decision had been correct.

Upon returning to Cuba, Arias was called by Miguel Angel Gonzalez (a former major-league player and coach with 17 seasons mostly as a catcher) of the Habana Lions for a tryout; they had heard of his pitching performance in Michigan. As he entered the park, he slipped on wet stairs and fractured his left arm. Rodolfo is still pained to recall how depressed he felt at the time.

During this period, he traveled to Las Villas Province, where he met his future wife, Olga; the couple fell in love and they were married in February 1954. Though Arias was from Camaguey, both his father and wife were from Las Villas. (Many sources say Rodolfo was from Las Villas, too, but he has not bothered to request a correction.)

During his professional career he alternated between playing in Cuba’s winter league, which began in late fall/winter, and the United States, where the seasons began in the spring. He never thought of or wanted to do anything but to play ball. He recalls thinking, “Why get a job when you can play ball?”2

Arias began his minor-league career in the United States in 1953 with the Madisonville (Kentucky) Miners of the Class-D Kitty League, appearing in 37 games, winning 16 and losing 10, and hitting .299. The White Sox advanced him to Class B the following year, and he pitched for the Waterloo White Hawks and had a record of 5-7 in 33 games.

His first year in the Cuban League was with the Habana Lions in ’54, playing for Adolfo Luque (who had pitched in the majors for 23 years, compiling a record of 194 wins and 179 losses). He describes Luque as a “warrior” who seemed to care for nothing more than winning baseball games, a demanding manager, perfectionist in his demeanor. Luque died three years later. Arias’s teammates included Don Blasingame at second and Ken Boyer at third. He pitched in six games with no wins or losses. He recalls with glee striking out the three “Americanos” of the Almendares team: Rocky Nelson, Gus Triandos, and Earl Rapp.

During 1955-57, Arias played for the Amarillo Gold Sox, the Colorado Springs Sky Sox, and the Toronto Maple Leafs with a combined record of 34 wins and 24 losses. In 1956, he played in the winter league for the Marianao team, winning two games. His son, Rodolfo (“Rudy”), was born during that year. He improved his record in 1957 with nine wins and five losses and in the winter played for the Caribbean Series championship representing Cuba (Marianao), which had five wins and only one loss. Their opponents were Mayaguez (Puerto Rico), Balboa (Panama), and Caracas (Venezuela). Arias was able to pitch in only one game for a total of one inning, giving up three hits with one strikeout.

The year 1958 had Rodolfo pitching in his homeland during the regular season. He was playing Triple-A ball in the International League for the Habana Cuban Sugar Kings with a record of 7-7 and a 3.80 ERA. One of his wins was the only no-hit, no-run game in the history of the team, on August 17 against the Rochester Red Wings. The only Rochester player to reach base was shortstop Roy Smalley, who drew a sixth-inning walk. Arias received $1,000 from Cuba’s Bohemia magazine for his feat that day. That winter, he returned to Cuba and played for Marianao again (3-7), returning to the Caribbean Series, where he made another brief appearance, giving up one hit and a walk. Marianao once again won the Series with a 4-2 record against the teams from Caguas (Puerto Rico), Carta Vieja (Panama), and Valencia (Venezuela).

During the 1959 season, at the age of 28, Arias was promoted to the Chicago White Sox. His first game saw him come on in the bottom of the ninth in the April 10 game against the Tigers in Detroit. The score was tied, with two outs and a runner on first. He gave up a single, but then recorded the third out, sending the game into extra innings. He was pinch-hit for in the top of the 10^th. Arias was used exclusively in relief by the White Sox in 1959, throwing 44 innings in all. He was 2-0, and allowed 49 hits and 23 runs, while walking 20 and striking out 28 batters. During the 34 games in which he appeared, he came to bat only four times, without a hit and striking out twice.

Rudy finished 13 games, his two wins coming on April 17 against the Tigers and on May 12, when he pitched the 11^th and 12^th innings of a 4-3 win over the Boston Red Sox in Fenway Park.

Arias’s last game in the majors was on August 26, 1959. He wound up with an ERA of 4.09, above the team’s collective 3.29 ERA. Arias was with the team the entire season and was a member of the Sox’ World Series roster. He received a full World Series share, though he saw no action in the Series.

Two hitters he feared the most were Ted Williams and Mickey Mantle. As he remembers, when pitching to Mantle in a spring training game he ran the count to 2 and 1, followed by a second strike with the count now at 2 and 2. The catcher asked for a changeup and Mickey took a mighty swing. According to Arias, who laughs as he tells the story, “That ball almost hit the sun.”3

Another time, Ryne Duren beaned Nellie Fox and when Arias took the mound, it was Duren’s turn to come up to bat. White Sox manager Alfonso Lopez called a time out and approached the mound. His message to Arias was “metele un pelotazo” or “bean him.” Arias said that is what you did in those days; there was no choice in the matter – you had to do it. So he reared back and threw at Duren who, knowing what was coming, jumped back and eluded the throw. Arias got him in the stomach with his next pitch. As a fight was about to break out, Earl Torgeson ran from first base and stood between Arias and everybody else. Torgeson was known to be handy with his fists, and nobody touched Arias that day.

His daughter Olga Cristina was born while he was pitching in Chicago. In fact, the White Sox were scheduled to be on a road trip to Washington when the daughter was about to be born but he was allowed to stay back in order to be with his wife. After the birth, he was driven to the airport by Bill Veeck himself, a gesture he appreciates to this day.

Arias returned to Cuba for its 1959 winter league and played for Marianao, where he had a record of 4-8, pitching 118 innings in 29 games with a 3.29 ERA.

He went back to Triple A in 1960, playing for the White Sox’ San Diego affiliate in the Pacific Coast League and the Miami Marlins, a Baltimore affiliate in the International League. He had a total of 10 wins and 10 losses in 174 innings. After the season, he pitched for Marianao, where he won 10 games and lost 9 during 150 innings of pitching with 93 strikeouts and 50 walks, and was selected for the All-Star team. On January 17, 1961, Arias set a Cuban League record by pitching a complete 18-inning game against the first team he had played for, the Habana Lions. He lost that game when Dan Morejon hit a single with a runner on second. Who was the winning pitcher in relief? Luis Tiant (Red Sox hurler of fame), who went on to win the Rookie of the Year award for his 10 victories. With the Castro regime fully in power, 1961 was the last season of professional baseball in Cuba.

In the spring of 1961, Arias pitched for the Jersey City Jerseys of the Cincinnati organization in the International League where his record was 8-9 in 157 innings. He returned later in the year to Cuba when he heard a rumor that the new government was starting the baseball league again. While there, he threw without practicing properly and without proper supervision and tore a tendon in his arm. Soon after, he learned that the rumors he had heard about baseball in Cuba were incorrect. Wanting to continue to play ball at the professional level, he left Cuba once more.

Arias pitched in 1962 for the Columbus Jets, a Pittsburgh affiliate in the International League, and San Diego, now part of the Cincinnati organization, but he threw only 15 innings because of his bad shoulder and didn’t record a win. The Cincinnati medical staff gave him a cortisone injection and the team sent him to the Macon Peaches, a Single-A affiliate in the South Atlantic League. He was 2-1 in 26 innings of work, but his arm was no longer able to respond to the demands of the game and the rigors of pitching, and so he retired.

It was hard to get baseball out of his blood, though, and after a few years, feeling his arm was better, he pitched in the Mexican League for the Poza Rica team in 1965 and 1966 and was able to put together a record of three wins and three losses, but a slide play at second base left him with a severe leg injury which became infected and prevented him from pitching any more. As he recalls, he was hardly able to walk but had also heard there were rumors that US teams might have an interest in him again. He returned to Mexico in 1967, but his arm had gone bad again. He stayed but one week before he was cut and retired for the last time from professional baseball.

Arias worked in construction in the Miami area but it proved to be too physically hard for him. He was playing softball in a Miami league for the Barnett Bank when a bank official offered him a job in security. He promptly accepted and worked security for 18 years until his retirement in 1995.

In addition to their two children, Arias and his wife Olga, who died in 2010, had four grandchildren and one great-grandchild. Their son, Rudy, was signed by Seattle in 1977 as a catcher but retired after suffering a broken jaw. Later he was a bullpen catcher in three major-league organizations for 11 years.

As for Rudy the elder: Living in the Miami area during his later years, his life was filled spending time with his family. He continued to receive mail from fans and collectors looking for autographs. After being hospitalized with respiratory problems, Rodolfo Arias died on January 12, 2018. He was buried alongside Olga at Woodland Cemetery in Miami.

An earlier version of this article originally appeared in SABR’s “Go-Go To Glory: The 1959 Chicago White Sox” (ACTA Books, 2009), edited by Don Zminda.

Sources

Interviews with Rodolfo and Olga Arias, July 6, 20, and 23, 2008

Echevarria, Roberto Gonzalez. The Pride of Habana (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999).

Figueredo, Jorge S. Cuban Baseball A Statistical History, 1878-1961 (Jefferson: McFarland & Company Inc., 2003).

Figueredo, Jorge S. Who’s Who in Cuban Baseball, 1878-1961 (Jefferson: McFarland & Company Inc., 2003).

Torres, Angel. La Leyenda del Beisbol Cubano, 1878-1997 (Review Printers, 1996).

Notes

1 Interviews with Rudy Arias, 2008.

2 Arias interviews.

3 Arias interviews.

Earl Randolph Ashby Powbett led a fascinating baseball life. He was a backup catcher for the 1945 Negro champion Cleveland Buckeyes. He was given a chance to replace Josh Gibson as Homestead Grays catcher in 1947. He played in Canada, Mexico, Cuba, and the United States and perhaps other lands as well. 

But he also never stayed in one place for very long. Ashby had a temper and a habit of finding trouble. He never seemed to produce as much as he was expected to. Little is known of Ashby’s life outside of baseball. We do not even know when he died. What follows includes some speculation as Ashby played under multiple names throughout his career.

As the Negro Leagues disintegrated and Ashby and dozens of other players were left to find jobs playing baseball across North America, Ashby put together a career longer than a decade as a catcher, first baseman, and outfielder.

Very little is known of Ashby’s early life, past his birthday of May 16, 1921, in Havana, Cuba. He was close to his 24th birthday when he first came to the United States to play for the Cleveland Buckeyes. Prior to a tilt against the then first-place Memphis Red Sox on May 26, 1945, sportswriter Bob Williams said, “Two Cuban stars, Avelino Cañizares and Earl Ashby, will be seen at shortstop, or possibly catch or outfield, for the first time in the Buckeyes Lineup.”1 The pair were “Aces in the Hole” for Cleveland and Ashby “stars as an extra catcher when he isn’t strutting his stuff in and out field.”2

Ashby did not play much for Cleveland, who had star catcher-manager Quincy Trouppe taking most of the time behind the plate as well as Jesse Williams. For this reason, Ashby became an option in the outfield but was not considered a starter there either. For the season he hit .269/.345/.346, a 101 OPS+. Ashby mostly played during exhibitions, though he did have one highlight. In the second game of a doubleheader on July 1, Ashby hit a late double and scored a run as part of a late comeback in a 5-3 win over the Kansas City Monarchs to give the Buckeyes a sweep.3

Ashby’s and Jesse Williams’s roles were celebrated by the Cleveland Call and Post, the city’s African American newspaper: “[T]hese two boys have proven their worth both in the catching and hitting, and are to be given credit for aiding greatly in bringing the Buckeyes their new title.”4 In addition to winning the Negro American League pennant, the 1945 Buckeyes swept the Homestead Grays in four games in the Negro World Series. Ashby had a successful first season in the United States, even though he did not factor into the World Series victory.5

Ashby was not back with Cleveland after the 1945 season. It appears that he followed many other US-based players to Mexico in 1946, as Jorge Pasquel tried to build up the Mexican League. While there is no Earl Ashby listed in the records, there is an Edward Ashby who played with three teams: Mexico City, Veracruz, and Puebla.6

Ashby was back in the United States for the 1947 season. He began the year with the Birmingham Black Barons of the Negro American League but soon had the opportunity to replace the great Josh Gibson, who had died in January. Ashby had Gibson’s imposing size and strong arm, so it was probably a chance worth taking. He had some moments with Homestead with multihit games against the New York Black Yankees, Philadelphia Stars, and New York Cubans.7 Overall, Ashby hit .262 in 15 games for the Grays. Retrosheet shows 16 games, but none in which he appeared after July 20.8

That winter, a catcher named E. Randolph (who was likely Ashby though there is no definitive proof) played with Marianao of the Cuban Winter League, getting into one game and going 0-for-4.9 Ashby came back to the United States for the 1948 season with the Newark Eagles. He made an early impression with a two-hit game and a home run in separate exhibitions against the Atlanta Black Crackers.10 Reports were that Newark was excited to have Ashby as the starting catcher. One paper claimed, “Much is expected of Earl Ashby, who showed promise with the Grays last year”11 and another reporting that Eagles manager William Bell was impressed12 with the “hard working Cuban catcher.”13 

Ashby began the year as the starting catcher but played his last game for the Eagles on May 31. He would catch on with the defending champion New York Cubans, who had beaten the Buckeyes in the 1947 World Series, but according to Retrosheet he is known to have played in only one game for them, in August. For the season, Ashby hit .059 in 34 at-bats. His final line in the Negro major leagues was .196/.293/.284, a 61 OPS+.

From there, Ashby became one of numerous African American and Afro-Latino players who were baseball vagabonds. He spent 1949 playing for the Fulda (Minnesota) Giants of the semipro Centennial League.14 Ashby joined a Giants squad with future Hall of Famer Hilton Smith, then 42. The locals deemed that Ashby “was the character of the two.”15 It is here that we begin to see evidence of Ashby’s temper, which may explain his itinerant jumping around in the Negro leagues. Teammate Delly Koopman recalled, “Ashby could hit and he was a good catcher, but he had a temper. I stayed away from him. Sometimes, he would get mad at the pitcher, and he would take off the catcher’s gear and say he was going to pitch.”16 During a game in Iona, the away fans were taunting Ashby and he responded with an obscene gesture that led to his arrest.17 However, he had success in Fulda, with one source reporting that he hit .425.18

In 1978 columnist Patrick Reusse told the story of how Ashby caused a stir during a visit in Kinbrae, a hunting town near Fulda, when he showed up “dressed to the teeth.” As one resident said, “We haven’t seen a fellow that dressed up, before or since.”19 That a well-dressed Black man was remembered in that town three decades later is a window into how hard it was for Black players (to fit in) in the early years after integration. It also provides some context for Ashby’s disciplinary issues.

Ashby’s baseball journey continued in 1950 with Drummondville of the Class-C Provincial League. Ashby was celebrated as a three-time Negro League champion who had hit .312 for the famed Homestead Grays. This was all untrue. Ashby’s old manager and teammate Quincy Trouppe played for Drummondville the year before. Whether Trouppe recommended Ashby to Drummondville (or vice versa) is unclear but it appears that Drummondville thought they were getting Trouppe’s protégé when Ashby arrived. Ashby acquitted himself well, hitting .292 with 3 doubles and 2 home runs in 22 games. However, he was sent on a trial to the Bridgeport Bees of the Class-C Colonial League in June, probably due to his temper. There is a May 17 report of his being thrown out of a game for yelling at an umpire.20

He did not impress with Bridgeport,21 and Drummondville was forced to trade him to St. Jean for a player, Al Pajones, who did not play in the Provincial League that year. No statistics of his time in St. Jean have been found but there is a July 1 report that he was released after attacking teammate Rubén Gómez in a dispute that started over “unimportant stuff.”22

After he left St. Jean, Ashby becomes hard to follow. It appears that he caught on with the Paris Lakers of the Mississippi-Ohio Valley League using the name Earl “Chico” Randolph.23 However, he was suspended and released on August 3 for throwing his glove at an umpire in a disagreement on a catcher-interference call.24 This was apparently not his first infraction with an umpire while playing with Paris. He also had a collision with Mount Vernon first baseman Pete Milinkov while running out a grounder.25 It is unclear if the collision was anything out of the ordinary but given that he cannot have joined Paris until July, it was part of a pattern of ill-discipline and violence on the field.

Then on August 11, eight days after being released by Paris, Ashby was arrested and fined $15 in Fort Wayne, Indiana, for participating in a brawl and taking a swing at a police officer.26 He was described as 27 years old (he was 29 at the time) and a suspended member of the Homestead Grays. It does not appear he was on the Homestead roster at the time, though it is also unclear why he was in Fort Wayne. Homestead was a nonleague barnstorming club by 1950 and it is possible, though unlikely, that Ashby did catch on with them again.

Ashby is listed as having played with the Duluth of the Northern League in June of 1951.27 There is a report that he was assigned, on trial, to Mexican club Aguiles in 1952.28 No statistics have been found for his time there. In 1953, it appears, he was back in Illinois. A Jimmy R. Powell played with Hannibal of the Mississippi-Ohio Valley League, hitting .382 in nine games. However, the manager of the Paris team, Tom Sunkel, protested a game that Paris played against Hannibal, claiming that Powell was in fact the suspended Chico Randolph.29 Powell was released shortly after. This makes it possible that Randolph/Ashby’s suspension was a permanent one. There is also a report of Powell spiking Mount Vernon first baseman Roger Werner, though it is unclear if this is the same incident reported above.

In 1954 Ashby appears to have played in Mexico (though it is unclear what team he played with), hitting a reported 19 home runs.30 He was back in the United States in 1955, starting the season with the Port Arthur (Texas) Seahawks of the Big State League as a first baseman and utilityman. One report from this time said that he called New Orleans his home.31

However, his time in Port Arthur was short as The Sporting News reports that he was picked up by the Rochester Red Wings, the Triple-A club of the St. Louis Cardinals.32 He was signed on an emergency contract as a backup catcher in case of an injury to catcher Bob Rand following an injury to catcher Charlie White. He was apparently signed in Toronto but not put on the roster.33 Whether he was a free agent after his time in Port Arthur went sour or left directly from Port Arthur is unclear. It is also unclear why he was on the radar of the Rochester Red Wings, given his on-field demeanor.

Eventually Ashby was released on June 20 for disciplinary reasons. It appears that on the night of June 19, he was seen having drinks with a woman named Ive James. That night, James’s boyfriend, Tom R. Blythers, was found stabbed to death. James was arrested on a charge of murder and Ashby was brought in as a material witness and held for 12 days. He had left town for New York after the incident and was found and brought back to Rochester by two detectives. However, it appears that Ashby was never a suspect, and he was paid $36 for his inconvenience. He also got medical attention during his time in Rochester after he claimed that James bit him on the finger the night of the incident. It turns out that the DA failed to indict James and Blythers’ murder remains unsolved.34

After his release from Rochester, it was reported that Ashby’s friend Sandy Amorós, a few months before making a World Series-saving catch for the Brooklyn Dodgers’ only World Series title, got him a job playing in the Dominican League. The problem was that Ashby was still needed in Rochester so DA Harry L. Rosenthal called and vouched for him.35 That said, there is no statistical record of Ashby playing in the Dominican Republic, which had switched to a winter league that season.36 It is possible that if he did go down to the Dominican, he just did not get into any games. He was 34 at the time and was not playing in high-profile leagues.

This is where the trail on Earl Randolph Ashby Powbett runs cold. It is unclear what happened to him after he was released by the Rochester police. We do not even know when he may have died.

So what to think of Earl Ashby? First, he was a player with impressive physical traits who despite never putting it together as a star player kept getting chances based on those skills. Second, Ashby played at a time when many Black American and Latino players were given little choice but to be baseball nomads. The Negro leagues collapsed in the early 1950s and there were few opportunities in Organized Baseball as integration was slow and many teams, fearful of being “too Black,” had unofficial quotas for the number of Black players they would employ and play at any one time. In fact, in many of his stops, like Fulda in 1949, Ashby appears to have been viewed as much as a sideshow as a baseball player. Ashby’s ability to promote himself, use connections, and embellish his own credentials in the low-information environment of the times served him well. But it was still a challenging and entirely unnecessary situation.

This leads to the third story. Ashby had a temper and often found himself in trouble with umpires, players, and the authorities. It is nearly impossible to untangle this from the abuse he probably faced because of being a Black man in America in the late 1940s and early 1950s. This is no excuse for Ashby’s actions but an explanation. So Ashby, a Negro League champion who reportedly hit .300 a few times, had a very unusual career in the context of baseball history, though perhaps not unusual for a Black man in his era.

Sources

All Negro League statistics are from Seamheads.com as of the close of 2024. All game-level data is from Retrosheet.org unless otherwise noted. The author would like to thank Adam Darowski, Bill Nowlin, Gary Ashwill, Gary Fink, Christian Trudeau, Ruben Sanchez, and Sean Lahman for their help with this research.

Notes

1 Bob Williams, “Vastly Improved Buckeyes Strong in Every Field, May Bring Out Fans 10,000 Strong,” Cleveland Call and Post, May 26, 1945: 7B.

2 “Aces in Hole Are Bucks’ Cuban Stars,” Cleveland Call and Post, June 2, 1945: 6B.

3 Retrosheet (https://www.retrosheet.org/NegroLeagues/boxesetc/1945/B07012KCM1945.htm).

4 “Here Is Buckeyes’ Pitching Staff, Rated Peerless,” Cleveland Call and Post, September 9, 1945: 7B.

5 RetroSheet (https://www.retrosheet.org/NegroLeagues/1945PS.html).

6 Baseball Reference: https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=ashby-000edw. Negro League researcher Gary Ashwill told the author in an email exchange that he thinks Edward Ashby was Earl Ashby.

7 Retrosheet (https://www.retrosheet.org/NegroLeagues/boxesetc/1947/Bashbe1011947.htm).

8 That may be because no box scores have turned up. There is no record of his playing elsewhere that season.

9 Jorge S. Figueredo, Cuban Baseball: A Statistical History: 1878-1961 (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland Publishing, 2003). Ashby’s first two names were Earl Randolph and he was a Cuban catcher of the right age to be playing here. Ashby, as we will see later, had a habit of changing his name when it suited him as well.

10 Joel W. Smith, “Newark Eagles Sink Black Crackers By 19-2 Margin,” Atlanta Daily World, April 22, 1948: 5; Joel W. Smith, “Newark Eagles Squeeze Out 8-5 Victory Over Atlanta Black Crax,” Atlanta Daily World, April 27, 1948: 5.

11 “NNL Teams Begin Exhibition Contests,” Baltimore Afro-American, April 3, 1948: 8.

12 “Newark Eagles Sign Max Manning, Ace Hurler, to Contract,” Philadelphia Tribune, April 13, 1948: 10.

13 Joel W. Smith, “Newark Eagles, Black Crackers Clash Here Sunday,” Atlanta Daily World, April 23, 1948: 5.

14 Armand Peterson and Tom Thomashek, Townball: The Glory Days of Minnesota Amateur Baseball (Duluth: University of Minnesota Press, 2006), 50-1.

15 Patrick Reusse, “Once Upon a Time in Fulda, Folks Were Tuned Into Baseball,” Minneapolis Star Tribune, July 4, 1993: 1C, 7C.

16 Reusse, 1993.

17 Reusse, 1993.

18 “Les Cubs Auront un Bon Receveur en Earl Ashby,” La Tribune (Sherbrooke, Quebec), May 6, 1950: 18. Translated by Christian Trudeau. The source, a report from an interview with Ashby also claims that Ashby went 11-1 as a pitcher and led the team to the championship. However, it contains a lot of inaccuracies and may be an example of Ashby taking advantage of a low-information environment to embellish his résumé.

19 Patrick Reusse, “Reusse at Random: Frogs Destined to ‘Croak,’” St. Paul Dispatch, August 24, 1978: 59.

20 “Les sportifs de Drummondville demandent la tête de Murphy,” La Tribune, May 17, 1950: 20. Translated by Christian Trudeau.

21 “Bees Take Twin Bill From Kingston Colonial,” Bridgeport Post, June 5, 1950: 26; “Bees Triumph Over Kingston Club 9-6,” Bridgeport Telegram, June 7, 1950: 25.

22 Gerard Hebert, “Le Saint-Jean a perdu un excellent joueur avec R. Ste-Marie blessé,” Le Front Ouvrier (Montreal), July 1, 1950: 14. Translated by Christian Trudeau.

23 Earl Randolph, The Sporting News Baseball Player Contract Cards, maintained by the LA84 Foundation and SABR.  

24 “Paris Player Hits Ump,” Mt. Vernon (Illinois) Register-News, August 2, 1950: 8; “Paris Lakers Release Fiery Cuban Catcher,” Terre Haute Tribune, August 3, 1950: 20.

25 Email conversation between Gary Fink and Christian Trudeau handed to the author (and verified by both men) by Gary Ashwill. In the exchange Mr. Fink sources this from a Mount Vernon newspaper from July 24.

26 “Fined for Brawl,” Fort Worth Telegram, August 11, 1950: Second Section.

27 Earl Ashby, The Sporting News Baseball Player Contract Cards, maintained by the LA84 Foundation and SABR.  

28 “League Distributes Players of Pasquels’ Two Teams,” The Sporting News, March 12, 1952: 32.

29 Howard V. Millard, headline undecipherable, Decatur (Illinois) Daily Review, June 3, 1953:12.

30 “Les Cubs Auront un Bon Receveur en Earl Ashby.” Ashby had a track record of polishing his credentials and never showed that type of power before.

31 “Hawks Brave Wind to Hold Workout,” Beaumont Enterprise, March 28, 1955: 8.

32 “Deals of the Week,” The Sporting News, June 22, 1955: 24.

33 “Dugout Diggins,” Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, June 20, 1955: 19.

34 “Two Women Indicted on Murder Charges,” Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, July 27, 1950: 22.

35 “DA Goes to Bat for Catcher,” Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, July 6, 1955: 15.

36 Dominican League statistics can be found at: https://www.winterballdata.com/en.

José Joaquín (Lopez) Azcue was born on August 18, 1939, in Cienfuegos, Cuba, where he was raised. “When I was small, we lived a very hard life,” he said, “but there was always food to eat. My father worked in a sugar cane processing plant in Cienfuegos — my home town — all day and had another job with a gasoline distributor. When I was 6 or 7 he got a responsible position with the gasoline distributor and we lived what you would call an upper middle class life from then on — or until Castro came along.”1 

His father Joaquin worked for the Sinclair Corporation selling kerosene and alcohol as cooking fuels to grocery stores. The work was good enough that his mother Petra was able to keep house, taking care of Jose and his younger brother, Jorge, born in 1946. Now deceased, Jorge Azcue tried his hand at baseball, too, signing as a pitcher/first baseman with the Atlanta Braves organization. At one point, as he was starting out, he suffered a bad injury running to cover first base, tumbling over the bag, tearing up his left shoulder — his pitching shoulder. “In those days, there was no way to fix it.”2

Joe attended Champagnat High School in Cienfuegos where he played baseball, basketball, and soccer. He completed all but his senior year when he was signed to a professional baseball contract by Cincinnati Reds scout Camilo “Corito” Varona just before he turned 17. His bonus reportedly “included a catcher’s mitt and a $45 advance to be deducted from his monthly pay of $150.”3 Or as he later put it himself, “I got a glove and a Coca-Cola.”4

Champagnat was a private Catholic high school a half block from his house, run by the Marist Brothers, and Joe took English classes there, which made the challenge of acculturation less of a burden when he did come to the United States.

His first assignment was to play Class-D ball for the Douglas Reds in the Georgia State League in the summer of 1956. The team was managed to the pennant by Johnny Vander Meer. Azcue appeared in 57 games as outfielder and catcher, and hit .236. He also appeared in two games for the Moultrie Reds in the Georgia-Florida League.

In 1957, Azcue played in 123 games for the Palatka Redlegs (Class D, Florida State League), again under Vander Meer, where he hit .266. Azcue was catcher for the North team in the league’s North vs. South All-Star game.5

The 18-year-old Azcue trained with the Reds in the springtime of 1958 and was initially advanced to Class A. After 11 early-season games for Savannah, Georgia (he was 5-for-28), and a pulled back muscle, he spent most of the season catching in Wenatchee, Washington, playing for the Class-B Northwest League’s Wenatchee Chiefs. He hit for a .308 average in 84 games.  

Returning to Savannah in 1959 with another year of development under his belt, he was more productive, batting .262 and driving in a career-high 51 runs in 113 games.

In Cuban League winter ball, Azcue — in his third year playing for the Cienfuegos Elefantes — saw his team win the pennant by a 12-game margin and then win six games without a loss in that year’s Caribbean Series staged in Panama. He was 3-for-4 in the final game on February 15, 1960.

In the 1960 season, Azcue was already being tabbed a “sure-fire big leaguer in the making” by his manager, Tony Castano.6 He stood an even six feet tall and was listed at 195 pounds that summer when he played in the Triple-A International League for the Cuban (Havana) Sugar Kings; the franchise relocated to Jersey City on July 13 as the Cuban Revolution unfolded. Historian Peter Bjarkman says the “actual situation…remains clouded at best” and that we may never know what truly transpired, but that the Havana club “was spirited away” to Jersey City.7 Azcue’s record was .270 in 97 games and he also experienced his major-league debut.

On August 1 he was called up to the Cincinnati club and catcher Dutch Dotterer was sent down. Two days later, manager Fred Hutchinson asked Azcue to catch the second game of a doubleheader against the Cubs at Wrigley Field. He batted seventh in the lineup and was struck out by Dick Ellsworth his first time up. In the top of the fourth, he came up again, with runners on first and third and one out. He singled to left field off Ellsworth, driving in one run to tie the game, 2-2. He grounded out his third time up; the Cubs won, 4-2.

Azcue played in five more August games, and eight in September. He drove in two more runs. He was 3-for-31 (.097) at the plate. Behind the plate, he handled 72 chances without an error. He threw out three of the six baserunners who tried to steal on him.

Many of the newspapers at the time called him Joaquin “Jake” Azcue; one dispatch said he enjoyed trumpet as a hobby.8

On December 1 his contract was purchased by the Milwaukee Braves. That winter (1960-61), he played his last games for Cienfuegos in Cuba. He hit .289 in 228 at-bats, with six homers and 38 RBIs.9 The Elefantes repeated as champions. After the winter season, he left Cuba for good.

Azcue had difficulty getting out of Cuba in the spring of 1961, having to travel via Mexico City, but he made it and spent the full season in the Triple-A Pacific Coast League with the Vancouver Mounties. He played in 82 games, batting .297 with 43 RBIs. Being assigned to a Canadian team may have helped him bring his family from Cuba. “It took me about eight months to get my parents and brother out of Cuba in 1961…I got them a visa through the Canadian government. They flew to Venezuela and then to Puerto Rico, where they are now,” he explained in 1970.10

He has never returned to Cuba, he said in early 2018. “There’s no reason to go back. Been there, done that. Back then, we had everything over there that we have over here. We had the Bank of Boston over there, the First National Bank, a Canadian bank.”11 And, of course, his father worked for the American petroleum company, Sinclair. There isn’t any pull to visit Cuba. Azcue has been in the United States since 1956.

That winter Azcue played in Venezuela for the Caracas Lions. Come mid-December, he was on the move again, traded by Milwaukee to the Kansas City Athletics on December 15 as part of a five-player deal.

This gave him the opportunity to get back to the big leagues and he spent the full 1962 season with the Athletics. Haywood Sullivan was manager Hank Bauer’s primary catcher that year, but Azcue got into 72 games, with 248 plate appearances. He hit .229 (.287 on-base percentage) with 25 RBIs, several of them in one-run games. One memorable game was on June 17 against Minnesota, a 10-6 win in which Azcue was 3-for-4 with two RBIs, and even stole home in the bottom of the fourth.

He began 1963 with Kansas City again, but after the first week of May — after going 0-for-4 in two major-league games — Azcue was optioned to Portland, back in the PCL. He played 10 lackluster games there, but then found himself traded on May 25 to the Cleveland Indians, with shortstop Dick Howser, for second-string catcher Doc Edwards and $100,000. Azcue settled in with the Indians and remained in Cleveland for six-plus seasons.

He caught most of the games for manager Birdie Tebbetts and the Indians once he reported at the end of May, taking over for catcher John Romano, who had suffered a broken hand, and had his best season in major-league baseball, hitting .284 with 46 RBIs in 94 games. He had a .992 fielding percentage, and even helped turn a league-leading 13 double plays as a catcher that year. He claimed his secret in handling pitchers was: “I tell ‘em, ‘Throw anything you want. I call it’.”12

He said that both general manager Gabe Paul and Tebbetts had known him since he was 15, and seen potential in him. He singled out Tebbetts: “He was a good manager. He was a philosopher. He came from the same school of catching as Mickey Cochrane, so all the stuff I knew about catching came from Cochrane and Tebbetts.”13

There were a couple of standout days.  On August 8 in Baltimore, during the seventh inning of a scoreless game between the Indians and Orioles, Azcue stole home for what proved to be the winning run, and on August 18 he hit two home runs and drove in three in a 7-4 win over the Boston Red Sox. Of his five career stolen bases, two were steals of home. He’d won over Tribe fans; beginning in July, Plain Dealer sportswriters began to refer to him as “the immortal Azcue” because of how he carried on catching despite a stretch catching with just one eye, due to an infection in the other eye. “In this day right now, you’d be out of the lineup for two months.”14 The nickname stuck. In a poll conducted by the Plain Dealer in February 1964, asking who should be the Indians’ first-string catcher, Azcue won 2,180 votes to Romano’s 1,827.15

During 1964, he started high school all over again. Because he couldn’t return to Cuba, he had no way to prove he had a high school diploma, so he began to take correspondence courses for a U.S. high school diploma, hoping to become an electrical engineer after going on to college.16 His personality, wrote Hal Lebovitz, was of “a character with character. He’s a laughing, bouncy catcher who appears to have as few cares as a beachcomber.” But he had no time for frivolities such as television; he was busy taking his courses. His American-born wife, Judy, helped him with his English.17 She also gave him a shortwave radio for his birthday and he was able to follow broadcasts of amateur baseball in Cuba. “You should hear the announcer,” he said. “He always talks about how amateur baseball is best because players play better when they’re not paid. It’s ridiculous. The Cuban people don’t swallow all that.”18   

How had they met? “She saw my picture in the paper when I got traded to Kansas City and said, ‘He’s going to be my husband.’ My brother told me there’s a girl who said that, and the first time I saw her, I said, ‘That’s it.’”19 As of the time of the 2018 interview, they have been married for 56 years.

During the offseason of 1964-65, Azcue worked for the publicity department of the Indians, even writing a humorous bylined column about the negotiations of Joe Azcue’s salary.20

His batting average dropped from .284 in 1963 to .273 in 1964, but then plunged to .230 in 1965. In early 1966, he said that Indians GM Gabe Paul seemed to pay too much attention to a player’s weight, but then said, “I agree with him. I was too fat last season.”21 He got up to a reported 212 pounds. Perhaps the saunas and other efforts paid off; after losing 20 or so pounds, he rebounded to hit .275 in ’66. He led the majors in baserunners thrown out stealing (28), cutting down 62% of the runners who attempted to steal on him.

As a catcher, he suffered all the usual bruised thumbs, and limbs, spikings, sore shoulders, and pulled muscles, as well as a couple of eye infections and other such maladies, but in his seasons from 1963 through 1970 he averaged just under 100 games per year.

He maintained a good sense of humor. The Wahoo Club — the Cleveland Indians booster club — had awarded him the “Golden Tomahawk” for 1966 as the most underrated player on the team. Not long before accepting the award in late April 1967, Azcue had been informed by manager Joe Adcock that Duke Sims would become the Indians’ first-string catcher for the ’67 season. “I’m still under-rated,” he cracked.22 As it transpired, the two shared duties during the season,

He had his best two seasons behind the plate defensively in 1967 and 1968, perhaps in part by taking advantage of the new video technology being introduced at the time. The cameras had been focused on hitters Vic Davalillo and Max Alvis but Azcue was catching in batting practice and saw that “when I went into my crouch before the pitch was delivered, I was OK. But when the ball was on the way, my seat dropped down. That blocked me from moving…if the pitch was in the dirt, I was sitting back instead of leaning forward to get my body in front of the ball.”23 Problem corrected, Azcue led all catchers in fielding percentage with .999 in 1967 and .996 in 1968. 

In 1968 he played in 115 games, the most in his career, and hit for a .280 average with 42 runs batted in. He was named to the American League All-Star team by manager Dick Williams, the one time in his career he was accorded the honor. Tom Seaver struck him out in his lone at-bat. There was one other notable event in Azcue’s 1968 season, one which he might prefer to forget: on July 29, 1968, he hit into an unassisted triple play executed by Ron Hansen of the Washington Senators, the first one in the major leagues since 1927.

Perhaps trading Azcue when his value was at its highest, the Indians found an opportunity to acquire Ken Harrelson, and so dealt pitchers Sonny Siebert and Vicente Romo, and “veteran catcher” Azcue to the Boston Red Sox on April 19, 1969, for pitchers Dick Ellsworth and Juan Pizarro, and Harrelson. It was primarily Siebert for Harrelson; in anger, Harrelson announced his retirement but three days later changed his mind.24 Azcue caught two no-hitters in his career; the first had been Siebert, on June 10, 1966. The second came in 1970 when he caught Clyde Wright of the Angels on July 3.

The Sox had Russ Gibson as their primary catcher and welcomed Azcue as a backup, but moved him less than two months later. In 19 games with Boston, he hit .216. But he jumped the club on June 11, returning home to Kansas in anger because he was not being used. He went over Dick Williams’s head to complain to higher-ups, which didn’t sit well, either. Azcue was suspended and Williams let it be known that the Red Sox had already started the process of trying to trade him.25 He declared he would quit the game if they did not.26 It didn’t take long; Azcue was traded to the California Angels on June 15, straight up for catcher/utilityman Tom Satriano. Harold Kaese of the Boston Globe wrote that the Red Sox “may have traded him because of Dick Williams’ attitude toward club jumpers. He doesn’t want them back.”27

With the Angels, Azcue caught in most of the remaining games — 80, but only hit for a .218 average.

The following year — 1970 — he was a holdout in the springtime, but returned in time — reportedly for the same salary —  and remained the Angels’ first-string catcher, appearing in 114 games, while getting his stroke back and batting .242. Though he again posted a very good .991 fielding percentage, he was charged with 10 passed balls by early June and was forced to cede first-string status for a while to younger catcher Tom Egan. By season’s end, Azcue had caught in many more games, but his 17 passed balls led the league. One of his best offensive games of the year was his 4-for-5 game against the Royals in Kansas City on June 26. He homered and drove in two; the Angels won, 5-4.

Azcue held out again in spring training. His contract was automatically renewed in early March, but because he didn’t sign his contract, he was placed on waivers on March 14.28 He’d been seeking a $5,000 raise, pointing out that only Thurman Munson and Ray Fosse had higher batting averages as catchers in the American League. He felt that Angels GM Dick Walsh had “blackballed’ him. “Walsh didn’t try to trade me, and I wasn’t about to play for a man who didn’t think I still had ability.” He started working as a life insurance salesman, but then spent the next nine months working on a construction crew for $6.50 an hour, and one of the jobs involved helping build what became Kauffman Stadium.29 “I was a laborer pouring concrete, cleaning up lumber. It was rough, all that snow and cold and ice.”30 Years later, he recalled some of the work. “You know, when you watch on TV, you know that wall in the Royals bullpen? We poured that wall one day, and the next day it was sagging so we had to tear it down again.”31  

Walsh was replaced by Harry Dalton as GM in October 1971. On January 29, 1972, the Angels announced that Azcue had signed a contract and would join the club for spring training as a non-roster player. “I may be in the best shape of my career,” he said. “Mentally, I have never felt better.”32 He acknowledged he was glad to be back in baseball, even if it might only be to work as a backup catcher. “I missed that (baseball) paycheck…a lot of players don’t realize what is going on in the outside world. I appreciate being a professional baseball player now.”33   

He made the club, but only as a backup. He pinch-hit in two games, making outs both times, and filled in defensively for one inning in a third game, on May 12. Four days later, he was sent to Salt Lake City, where he hit .319 in 45 games, sufficient to attract the interest of the Milwaukee Brewers who traded Ron Clark and Paul Ratliff for him and Syd O’Brien on July 28. He was only used in 11 games, and was 2-for-14 at the plate without a run batted in.

On November 15, 1972, he was released by Milwaukee. Just a few weeks later, the Cleveland Indians hired him to become a player/coach for their Double-A Texas League affiliate, the San Antonio Brewers. He had a very good year, playing in 105 games and leading the team with a .312 batting average and placing second in RBIs with 63. He was even named to the league’s All-Star team as the DH.

For 1964, the Indians asked him to become manager of their Single-A team in the California League, the Reno Silver Sox. “I wasn’t cut out to be a manager,” he readily admits. “Phil Seghi knew me since I was 16. I told Phil, ‘I’m sorry.’”34 He resigned in June. He took up selling automobiles in Kansas City for a while, and then as a salesman for Johnson’s Wax. For a while, he had his own company, providing janitorial services. Then he settled into a job where he worked for almost 30 years as a quality control manager for Molle Automotive Group. “When the cars came in, I would check them in. Make sure the cars were clean, and all that stuff.” It wasn’t an easy job, but he never let it consume him. He persevered until he turned 70 years old.

Azcue hasn’t followed baseball much since he retired from playing ball. He says he’s maybe gone to five games since then — despite a dozen years in the game and having helped build the ballpark.  He might watch a game for a couple of innings on television. “I’m not a fan.”35

The Azcues — Joe and Judy — have three daughters, seven grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren. Most remarkably, in this day and age, they all live within five blocks of each other, within a mile’s radius of the Azcues’ Shawnee Mission home, near Overland Park just southwest of Kansas City. “It takes me five minutes to go to each one.” In something of an understatement, he says, “We are kind of a close family.”36

Last revised: February 15, 2018

Sources

In addition to the sources noted in this biography, the author also accessed Azcue’s player file from the National Baseball Hall of Fame, the Encyclopedia of Minor League Baseball, Retrosheet.org, and Baseball-Reference.com.

Acknowledgments

This biography was reviewed by Norman Macht and fact-checked by Warren Corbett.

Notes

1 Earl Gustkey, “Azcue: From Cuba to the Big Leagues,” Los Angeles Times, August 11, 1970: E16C.

2 Author interview with Joe Azcue on January 26, 2018. In his professional career, he has always pronounced his name “Ahz-cue” rather than the Spanish “Ahz-coo-AY.” Jorge Azcue worked with his uncle in Puerto Rico, but then moved to Miami and started a very successful business rebuilding truck engines for American Airlines and other big customers.

3 Ross Newhan, “Azcue Banks on Bat to Win Back Angels Catching Job,” Los Angeles Times, May 25, 1972: E1.

4 Ron Rapoport, “Ex-Angel Azcue Still Bitter, Quits,” Los Angeles Times, April 15, 1971: D1.

5 “Palatka First-Half Champs,” The Sporting News, June 26, 1957: 41.

6 “Meet Four of Jersey’s Top Players,” Jersey Journal (Jersey City, New Jersey), July 12, 1960: 3.

7 Peter C. Bjarkman, A History of Cuban Baseball, 1864-2006 (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2007), 104. One contemporary news story regarding the International League departing from Cuba came from UPI. “International League Pulls Out of Havana,” Los Angeles Times, July 9, 1960: A5.

8 “Trumpeting Catcher,” Tacoma Daily Ledger, October 9, 1960: 31.

9 Jorge S. Figueredo, Cuban Baseball: A Statistical History, 1878-1961 (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2003), 476.

10 Earl Gustkey. They first settled in Kansas City, where Jose was at the time (and still remains.) His parents found the language barrier difficult, and Joaquin soon joined his own brother rebuilding engines in Puerto Rico. Joe volunteered that he wasn’t particularly close with his father, saying in the 2018 interview, “I was always a rebel.”

11 Author interview on January 26, 2018.

12 Hal Lebovitz, “Azcue Lets Hurlers Choose the Pitches,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, August 29, 1963: 53.

13 Author interview.

14 Author interview. Azcue added, “I don’t have nothing against the athletes of this generation but — goddamn — they’re like a piece of paper. They’d get a finger blister and say, ‘I can’t bat.’”

15 “Azcue Holds Lead,” Plain Dealer, February 21, 1964: 30.

16 Hal Lebovitz, “Joe Goes by Book — On Field or Off,” Plain Dealer, March 5, 1965: 37.

17 Ibid.

18 Earl Gustkey.

19 Author interview.

20 Jose (Joe) Azcue, “Azcue Touches Publicity Bases,” Plain Dealer, January 8, 1965: 29.

21 Russell Schneider, “Azcue Reduces, Does ‘Research’,” Plain Dealer, January 7, 1966: 29.

22 Russell Schneider, “Batting Around,” Plain Dealer, April 25, 1967: 34.

23 Russell Schneider, “Azcue Back in School,” Plain Dealer, March 7, 1967: 33, 36. He was charged with 17 passed balls in 1967, however, more than any other catcher.

24 Will McDonough, “Hawk Gives In, Goes to Cleveland,” Boston Globe, April 23, 1969: 1.

25 “Azcue Jumps Sox, Suspended,” Boston Herald, June 12, 1969: 39, 41.

26 UPI, “‘I’ll Quit Baseball’ — Azcue,” Boston Record American, June 15, 1969: 26.

27 Harold Kaese, “Sox Too Proud to Keep Azcue?” Boston Globe, June 19, 1969: 51.

28 Associated Press, “Angels Purchase Catcher Torborg,” The Advocate (Baton Rouge), March 15, 1971: 26.

29 Ross Newhan.

30 Associated Press, “Azcue’s Angels Job In Nowhere Near Concrete,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, April 18, 1972: 25.

31 Author interview.

32 Ibid.

33 Hy Zimmerman, “A Striking View of Baseball Pay,” Seattle Daily Times, March 28, 1972: 43.

34 Author interview.

35 Author interview. That said, he has maintained friendships from baseball days and had just spoken with Rocky Colavito the day before the January 2018 interview.

36 Author interview.

Barros was born on November 14, 1945 in the provincial capital city of Santiago de Cuba, the second largest city in the nation. It is in the eastern province also called Santiago de Cuba, part of the province known as Oriente before 1976.

His father, a banker and a local radio announcer, and his mother, a hair stylist, were both educated through the Cuban system.

As a child, Sigfredo studied at the elementary school Escuela Activa in Santiago de Cuba and attended the Frank Pais Institute for high school. A good student, Sigfredo left his home province to attend the University of Physical Culture and Sports Science Manuel Fajardo in Havana. “Manuel Fajardo” is known internationally for providing sports education and training to teachers, coaches, and sports specialists in Third World nations.

Like most youngsters in Cuba, he remembers his father giving him a glove and ball when he was 4 or 5 years old. He also recalls his father taking him to a game at Estadio Guillermón Moncada in his home town of Santiago. The matchup was between Havana’s Almendares and the Elefantes de Cienfuegos. Sigfredo recalls seeing the great Cienfuegos pitcher Camilo Pascual and says that he “will never forget Pascual’s curveball.”

He also has been a lifelong New York Yankee fan, but, he says, his father never did like the Yankees. He was impressed with the history of the team. Mickey Mantle was his favorite player. Barros recalls that Mantle could run, field, and hit with tremendous power.

A friend from his hometown encouraged Sigfredo to consider journalism as a career. He was and is still an avid reader, a student of both news and sports, and these interests continue to serve him well in his work as a journalist.

Barros started working at the Granma newspaper in 1971. He started out covering a variety of sports for Granma including swimming, water polo, cycling, fencing, and rowing. It was not till later that he started covering Cuba’s favorite game – baseball. There is nothing equivalent to the BBWAA (Baseball Writers Association of America) in Cuba. For years, Barros had been the primary baseball writer at Granma, along with a shifting series of baseball writers at Juventud Republic.

His daily entry in Granma is essentially a recap of all eight games played in the Cuban National Series. The daily column includes the daily line scores. The newspaper costs one Cuban peso, or about five cents. Only one game is televised each night; he picks up the information about the games over the telephone.

He does write occasional essays, including a memorable and loving tribute to Conrado “Connie” Marrero on the occasions of his 100th birthday and his passing just before his 103rd birthday in April 2014.

As a journalist in socialist Cuba, he faces challenges unknown to his contemporary American counterparts. He has very limited access to the Internet. He works the phone for information. He does not own a car, so his visits to the ballparks are brief as he returns home in the early innings to meet his deadline for the morning paper.

Granma is the organ of the Communist Party of Cuba, so Barros must carefully consider what he can write. His journalistic style is a clear and simple narrative, but devoid of the commentary and analysis that one finds in the US media.

The passion that he has for baseball comes through in his conversations more than in print. He is an astute observer of the politics of Cuban baseball and often critical of decisions informed more by political interests than the need to field the best team to represent his country.

In 45 years, Sigfredo Barros has covered a lot of baseball. He regards Omar Linares, the legendary Cuban third-baseman, as the best player he has seen. He also liked Orestes “Minnie” Miñoso and the passion with which he played. He wonders why Miñoso, who died in 2015, has not made it into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Covering baseball has allowed him to travel outside the island, visiting countries including Japan, South Korea, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Holland, Spain, and Panama.

One of his favorite stories is about the first World Baseball Classic (2006), when Cuba made it to the finals against Japan. He shares that “it was a big surprise for everybody, because it was the first time since 1959 that Cuba played against stars in the big leagues. To beat the Dominican Republic, in the semifinals, against Bartolo Colón on the mound, and Papi Ortiz and Albert Pujols at the plate was really great.” His friend and Cubaball “jefe,” Kit Krieger, recalls visiting with “Siggy” at the Palacio O’Farrill hotel on the eve of his departure for Puerto Rico, where the first games were played. Everyone in Cuba was worried that the Cubans would not be competitive against Japan, the Dominican Republic, the U.S., and Venezuela, but Barros told Krieger that the team was a good one and had a chance to win the tournament.

Barros wants his readers to understand the game more deeply and he writes with that goal in mind. His challenge is to write honestly and impartially, not favoring one team. His readers will ask him “which is your team?” because he never writes about one team in particular. He writes about the 16 teams in the National Series. His favorite part of being a journalist is writing a story about the game or tournament, commenting on all that happened, good and bad. His least favorite stories are when he has to go to the airport to meet the team on its return to Cuba, because all the players and team are anxious to be at home, and nobody wants to talk.

One of his favorite players to interview is Yulieski Gourriel, National Team star infielder and widely considered the most talented player in Cuba. Yulieski, one of three sons of Lourdes Gourriel, a star in the Cuban National Series in 1980, played with his home province of Sancti Spiritus until moving to Havana’s Industriales team beginning in the 2013-14 season. Barros compliments him for being very polite and for “knowing how to talk with a journalist.”

Barros covered the historic visit of Cuban major-league players to Havana in December 2015. He relates that Jose Abreu told him, “I am still a Cuban farmer kid” and that it was great to be able to come home to visit. He also visited with Joe Torre, who told him that he was very happy to visit “the country of baseball.”

In Havana, the Parque Central hosts the Esquina Caliente (the “Hot Corner”), a local gathering spot for passionate fans who spend hours discussing baseball, both local and international. Barros is something of a local celebrity and “something like a rock star.”1 He often drops by to visit with La Peña de Parque Central (Havana’s society of baseball historians) only a few blocks from his modest apartment in Central Havana and talk about the current state of béisbol de Cuba.

For him, the current state of baseball in Cuba is uncertain. In 2015, over 100 players emigrated to the Dominican Republic, or the U.S., to play for more money. But that has led to the deterioration of the Cuban teams. He hopes that the “blockade will end, and that Cuban players can play in the big leagues, and then return to Cuba as well.” Barros would like baseball fans outside of Cuba to “know that baseball in Cuba is a sport, it is a religion, a problem of state.” He goes on to say, “We, the Cubans, talk in baseball terms: if you are ‘in 3 and 2’ that means you are in a difficult situation. If ‘she takes you out on the bases’ your wife has seen you with another woman. In Cuba, baseball has colored all aspects of life.”

Barros has two adult children, who are very proud of their father and his work as a journalist. His son Alejandro is a graduate in Language and English literature. His daughter Anelore is a lawyer, who studied international diplomacy and speaks Chinese. Ani spent two years studying and working in Beijing. Barros tells us that they both enjoy baseball and watch the games on television.

What would he do if he were not a sportswriter? Barros replied that he would be an engineer, as he loves to work with numbers and statistics.

He makes a fine sportswriter. You can find his stories on the Granma website.

He also appears as himself in Stealing Home: The Case of Contemporary Cuban Baseball, commonly known as Stealing Home, a 2001 PBS television documentary about Cuban baseball defectors directed by Robert Anderson Clift and Salomé Aguilera Skvirsky.

Last revised: February 23, 2016

Sources

Correspondence with Sigfredo Barros, March, 2015 through February 2016.

Correspondence with Kit Krieger, December 2015 through February 2016.

Havana Times.org

Peter Bjarkman, “Cuban baseball authorities are facing a most difficult situation”, Bjarkman’s Latino and Cuban League Baseball Page, MLB blogs, September 23, 2014.

Notes

All of Bauta’s 97 appearances in the majors came in relief. He also pitched mainly out of the bullpen in the U.S. minors, where he appeared as late as 1973. Yet Bauta also found success as a starter in the Mexican Pacific League (winter ball) and the Triple-A Mexican League (summer). His best season came in 1973 for the Poza Rica Petroleros: 23-5, 23 complete games, seven shutouts. He also had a magnificent Caribbean Series in February 1974, as both starter and reliever.

Until he died in 2022, Bauta still got fan mail and baseball card autograph requests mentioning two notable moments in Mets history. He pitched in the final regular season game at the Polo Grounds (September 18, 1963) and was the losing pitcher as the Mets christened Shea Stadium (April 17, 1964). In between, he also became the last big-leaguer to hurl at the Polo Grounds, getting the final three outs for the National League in the Latin American Players’ Game (October 12, 1963).

Eduardo Bauta Gálvez was born in Florida, Cuba, on January 6, 1935. He was the first child of Pablo Bauta and Alicia Gálvez de Bauta. His siblings included Eneida, Pablo, and Norma. Eduardo’s birthday is Three Kings Day, a national holiday in many Spanish-speaking lands.

The work ethic that helped propel Bauta to the majors came from long hours of farming and sugar cane cutting in his homeland. Florida is in Camagüey Province, which is known for production of livestock, sugar cane, and other agricultural products. Pablo Bauta Sr. worked in the cane industry, ensuring that oxen did their work along six lanes. Ed Bauta dropped out of school at 10 to help his father, and did this until age 20. Bauta also picked yuca, the root of the cassava plant.

Bauta recalled, “I played baseball when time allowed. I would cry when it rained and my baseball games were called off.” He never played either Little League baseball or the equivalent of American Legion ball. Rather, he pitched in pickup and community-based games.2

Bauta’s favorite team in the Cuban winter league was the Almendares Blues, a.k.a. the Alacranes (Scorpions). “I was an almendarista de rabia [rabid Almendares fan],” he remembered. “I listened to their games on the radio at night.” Bauta never saw a game in this league while he was growing up, because his hometown of Florida was too far from Havana, where the circuit was based. Bauta never set foot in Havana until he pitched winter ball in Cuba. In the 1940s, it took 10 hours to drive from his part of the country to the capital city, mostly on two-lane roads. Even with the modern highway, it’s still a six-hour trip.

Almendares became champion of the Cuban league in the 1948-49 season. The Blues went on to win the first Caribbean Series in February 1949, defeating three other regional winter-ball champs. The team’s leader was Fermín “Mike” Guerra, whom Bauta called “a good catcher and a fine manager.” His favorite player, however, was slugger Roberto Ortiz. He was six years old when Ortiz made his big-league debut for the 1941 Washington Senators. Ortiz was a native of Central Senado, a plantation in a different part of Camagüey. Bauta called the 6-foot-4, 200-pound outfielder un guajiro grandísimo (one huge peasant).3 Ortiz later starred in a 1951 film about his life titled Honor y Gloria that was shown in Cuba’s best movie theaters.

In his teens, Bauta was in demand as a pitcher in Camagüey province. His big break came in December 1955, when Howie Haak, a Pittsburgh Pirates scout in the Caribbean, and Napoleón Heredia, his Cuban translator, watched him in a two-day tryout in the province’s main city, also called Camagüey. “I was in the (sugar cane) fields with an Afro-Cuban co-worker, and he asked me to pitch an amateur game against Camagüey…I struck out 14,” stated Bauta. “A midweek money collection was set up by the guajiros in Florida; I got $6 by Wednesday to go.4 Bauta hitched a ride to Florida, then took the bus 28 miles northwest to Camagüey city. He had a glove, but borrowed a uniform and cleats from a neighbor for his tryout. Bauta caught the first day and pitched the second day, standing out in a group of 153 prospects. Weeks later, a telegram came in notifying Bauta of a $500 bonus and his 1956 pro contract. Roberto Ortiz translated the pact into Spanish, a gesture of sentimental value to Bauta.

Bauta’s first two minor-league seasons were with the 1956 Clinton Pirates of the Midwest League (Class D) and the 1957 Grand Forks Chiefs of the Northern League (Class C). He got $3 in daily meal money; managers and players rode in vans to the games. As a part-time starter, Bauta’s stats were not imposing – yet he was the only prospect from either club to make the majors.

Bauta’s first experience in his homeland’s league came in the 1957-58 winter season, when he joined the practice squad of the Marianao Tigres. He remembered star pitcher Bob Shaw (Cuban League MVP that year), outfielder Solly Drake, as well as local hero Minnie Miñoso, who had the adjoining locker. “Minnie was very nice to me, a real gentleman,” said Bauta. Marianao repeated as league champion, but Bauta did not pitch in any regular season or postseason Cuban League games, nor did he travel to Puerto Rico for the Caribbean Series in February 1958.5

The Lincoln Chiefs of the Western League (Class A) came next. Bauta roomed with Dominican second baseman Julián Javier. “Big Ed” (as his teammates called him) pitched 74 innings in 48 games, all but one in relief. He went 7-6 with a 3.04 ERA. He recalled Al Jackson and Dave Wickersham as fine starters and U.S. Virgin Islander Elmo Plaskett as a talented hitter, but a bit lazy. Monty Basgall, the team manager, was a good baseball man, said Bauta.

Bauta advanced in 1959 to Triple-A Salt Lake City of the Pacific Coast League, where meal money was $5/day. The Bees went 85-69 under Larry Shepard to win the PCL title outright, with no postseason. Bauta put up numbers of 7-8, 3.86 in a campaign that included 10 starts, 29 relief appearances, and 112 innings. He bonded immediately with his roommate, Carlos Bernier, who had dropped out of school by age 11 and cut sugar cane in Puerto Rico. Another interesting teammate was pitcher Dick Hall, fluent in Spanish from playing winter ball in Mexico and marrying a lady from Mazatlán. Hall had an accounting degree and did the taxes for all his Latin American teammates, including Bauta and Bernier.

Bauta had pitched in just one game for Marianao in the winter of 1958-59 (striking out two in two innings). During the 1959-60 season, however, he really emerged: 6-4 with a 2.00 ERA in 103 innings across 25 outings, including three complete games. Bauta recalled that the entire team had a good laugh when Marianao manager Napoleón Reyes had a tantrum following a loss. Reyes, who weighed close to 280 pounds, kicked the team’s dirty uniforms in the clubhouse and fell down. By 1959, Bauta was married to his first wife. His son, Ed Bauta Jr., was born in 1960.6

Bauta started the 1960 season with another Pirates Triple-A club, the Columbus Jets, managed by Cal Ermer. Late that May, however, Jets GM Harold McKinley Cooper called Bauta with the news that he and Julián Javier had been traded to St. Louis for pitcher Vinegar Bend Mizell and utilityman Dick Gray The Pirates had Bill Mazeroski at second and were in need of a starting pitcher.

Bauta was actually a “player to be named later” and did not officially join the Cardinals organization until the second week in June. Just before the trade, he got hurt while swinging the bat on a lark. He’d accepted a dare from Columbus teammate Pidge Browne that he could hit at least one ball out of the infield if Browne made 10 pitches – and on the second pitch, he wrenched his right knee while taking a big cut. Bauta said, “June was spent in the St. Louis Cardinals training room with Bob ‘Doc’ Bauman.”7

Had he stayed with Pittsburgh, Bauta might have been able to pitch for a World Series champion that year, but once his fluid-filled knee got well enough, the move to St. Louis led to his major-league debut. It came at Chicago’s Wrigley Field on Wednesday, July 6, 1960 – and was a rough outing. George Altman hit three-run homers off Bauta in the seventh and eighth innings. Bauta stated “me cayeron a palos,” – i.e., “I was shelled.” He added that manager Solly Hemus told him not to worry, that it was his first game and that “tomorrow is another day.”8 Bauta pitched scoreless ball in his next six outings, but he gave up five runs in two subsequent appearances to finish with a 6.32 ERA (he received no decisions). He did not pitch again after September 2.

The 1960-61 season in Cuba was the last for Bauta and the nation’s professional league because Fidel Castro dismantled it and focused on amateur baseball. Bauta pitched in 24 games for Havana, going 4-4 with a 3.53 ERA in 95 innings for manager Tony Castaño.9

Bauta became angry when his winter salary was slashed from $1,000/month to $500/month. “The [Cuban] government cut our salaries in half, claiming their half would go to revolutionary causes,” said Bauta. “This was not right. I saved money by living in the same Havana house with José Tartabull. We took the bus together to the Gran Estadio, where all league teams played.”10

Bauta began 1961 at Portland in the PCL. A teammate, pitcher Dick Hughes, observed that the Cuban’s funny throwing motion made him effective. Off the field, the “very hairy” Bauta was “loosey-goosey, a happy-go-lucky type.”11

Portland was a significant stop for Bauta because he roomed with Craig Anderson, who became his longest-lasting friend from baseball, and played for Vern Benson, his favorite manager. They originally bonded because of Benson’s small-town North Carolina roots (Bauta called the skipper “un buen guajiro”) and because Benson had helped Havana win the 1952 Caribbean Series.

“I had the utmost respect for [Benson],” said Bauta, and the skipper returned the feeling by helping the pitcher get back to the majors. In 35 games for Portland, Bauta was 9-1 with a 1.95 ERA in 60 innings. After the Cardinals replaced Solly Hemus as manager with Johnny Keane in early July, Benson was promoted to the big-league coaching staff and put in a good word for Bauta.12

In two-plus months with St. Louis in 1961, Bauta was second on the club with five saves, behind Lindy McDaniel’s nine. He got his first win in the majors at home against the Dodgers on August 23. His longest effort was five scoreless innings at Crosley Field on September 9. He finished 2-0 for St. Louis with a 1.40 ERA in 19.1 innings.

In the winter of 1961-62, Vern Benson became manager of the Santurce Cangrejeros in the Puerto Rican Winter League. Under a working agreement with St. Louis, he brought Bauta, Bob Gibson, and Craig Anderson to Santurce. Benson’s own experience playing in Venezuela and Cuba helped determine which imports could be most helpful to the Crabbers.

Before arriving in Puerto Rico, Bauta met with fellow Cuban players in Miami to discuss whether they should remain in the U.S. or return to Cuba. Tony Taylor led this group, which included Tony González, Cookie Rojas, Luis Tiant, and Zoilo Versalles. Bauta remembered it as an emotional meeting. Attendees felt that the Cuban government was more interested in establishing the amateur Cuban National League after Castro had abolished the professional winter league. By 1962, the Castro regime required Cuban pro baseball players who wished to travel home to do so via Mexico. There were other political complications too: the U.S. had embargoed trade with Cuba and banned travel there. The Cuban big-leaguers continued their baseball careers in the U.S., along with winter ball in various Latin American circuits.13

Bauta was reunited with Julián Javier when the second baseman joined Santurce (the Dominican winter season was cut short in October 1961, in the aftermath of Rafael Trujillo’s assassination). Bauta made $1,100/month in Puerto Rico and his hotel across from Sixto Escobar Stadium was fine. However, he pitched only through Three Kings Day 1962 for the Crabbers, going 4-3 with a 3.92 ERA in 25.1 innings. He left after developing a sore/tired arm, and Benson sent him to St. Louis for treatment. Bauta affirmed that muscle problems in his pitching arm stemmed from getting up and warming up “so many times in the majors and minors.” He thought his sinker, which had good movement, would have been more effective had he been used strictly as a starter from age 21 on.14

Bauta’s roster spot was taken by Orlando Peña, whom Santurce claimed after he’d been released by San Juan. Bauta noted that his fellow Cuban threw a spitball, which was never part of his own repertoire. Santurce won the league title and 1962 Inter-American Series behind the pitching of Anderson, Gibson, and Peña.

Bauta’s arm bounced back in the spring, and he spent the first half of 1962 with St. Louis. He won his only big-league decision that year on May 26, when Curt Flood’s game-ending single gave the Cardinals a 4-3 win over Milwaukee. Bauta’s ERA was 1.04 after this game, but it soared in June and reached 5.01 after allowing six earned runs in two innings versus Pittsburgh on June 30. He gave up two home runs by Smoky Burgess_top and was sent to Triple-A Atlanta.

Joe Schultz, Atlanta’s manager, was the right tonic for Bauta. Both drank a lot of beer on the team bus during July and August. “I really liked him (Schultz),” said Bauta. “Joe got in trouble for drinking beer on the bus and allowing players to drink beer! He bought beer for himself, and the players chipped in for part of the expenses.”15

Bauta called his catcher with the Crackers, Tim McCarver, “the best I ever pitched to, no question. He knew how to frame a pitch…very smart, easy to work with.” Atlanta also had Valmy Thomas, who’d caught Bauta with Santurce.16

Harry Fanok was with Atlanta that year too and had another colorful memory of Bauta from a visit to Columbus. Several players, all casually dressed, were outside the hotel when out the door strolled “ole Eddie, dressed to kill! He had a suit and tie that was outstanding, Versace, or damned close, and a shiny pair of Florsheims going on as well…looking like the first coming of Antonio Banderas!”17

Bauta’s 5-2 ledger, with a 1.96 ERA in 46 innings, helped Atlanta get to the postseason. The Crackers won the International League title in 1962, and Bauta got a ring and a gold watch. They also beat Louisville in the Little World Series. Yet the success was bittersweet for Joe Schultz because news of his firing broke before the season ended.

Ahead of the 1962-63 winter season, Commissioner Ford Frick issued a mandate that prevented Latinos from playing winter ball in countries other than their own. This unfairly hampered Cubans, including Bauta, who worked instead in the men’s clothing department of a Sears Roebuck store in Boise, Idaho.18 Several years later, the policy was relaxed under Frick’s successor, William Eckert – most likely through the efforts of Cuban baseball man Bobby Maduro, whom Eckert hired in December 1965. The edict had been loosely enforced, however; Bauta pitched one winter in the Dominican Republic (1963-64) and another in Nicaragua (1965-66).

The 1963 season was Bauta’s only full one in the majors. With St. Louis, he was 3-4 with a 3.93 ERA in 38 games for Johnny Keane. Bauta roomed with Julián Javier and enjoyed pitching to Tim McCarver. Bauta’s third save, on May 30, lowered his ERA to 1.69. On June 19, he pitched four-plus scoreless innings against the Mets for his third win.

On July 28, however, Bauta blew a save at Wrigley Field. Three days later versus Cincinnati, he allowed three earned runs in two innings. That sealed his fate. On August 5 (an off-day), Bing Devine told him he was traded to the Mets for lefty Ken MacKenzie.

Bauta felt that he should start for the Mets, but this was not to be. He hinted that the Mets management treated him like a commodity – someone to warm up frequently and use infrequently. Even so, he greatly admired his new manager. “I adored Casey Stengel,” said Bauta. “He knew more [baseball] than anyone else in baseball. Sometimes, on the plane, he was drinking vodka and spoke to me. He spent most of his time with the 40 (New York) writers after home games.”19 After the trade, Bauta had a 5.21 ERA in 19 innings across nine games, with no decisions.

The only Met fluent in Spanish besides Bauta was a U.S. Virgin Islander, Joe Christopher. Bauta was most comfortable with Latinos such as Bernier; in particular, he missed Javier. When his good friend Craig Anderson rejoined the team that September, though, it was a positive for Bauta. Anderson started the Mets’ final game in the Polo Grounds on September 18, and Bauta relieved in the sixth after Christopher pinch-hit for Roger Craig. He pitched two scoreless innings in a 5-1 loss to the Phillies attended by 1,752.

The following month, Bauta was one of 16 Cubans present at the Polo Grounds for the stadium’s baseball finale: the charity game pitting Latin American players from the AL, with manager Héctor Lopez, versus the NL squad, managed by Roberto Clemente. “I was married, living in New York City, at an apartment near the Polo Grounds,” said Bauta. As for his performance that day, he was still remorseful 55 years later. “I did not pitch well – we were up 5-0 in the ninth; I gave up two runs; felt like I LOST it for the National League…wanted to shut out the American League.”20 Orlando Cepeda may have said it best: “It didn’t matter that it was for charity and that it wasn’t a ‘real’ all-star game. When you put on your uniform, you played hard and tried even harder to win. And that’s what everybody did in that game.”21

Bauta spent the 1963-64 winter season playing for Estrellas Orientales in the Dominican Republic, where he’d had his car shipped from New York. He showed he had the mettle to start, which he did 14 times in 18 appearances. He threw six complete games, including three shutouts, and finished with a 2.94 ERA in 107 innings. His 7-5 record was notable because Estrellas (24-35) finished last. Bauta visited with Dick Hughes (Licey), Julián Javier (Aguilas Cibaeñas), and Minnie Miñoso (Escogido). He also got together with Vern Benson, who was Licey’s manager. “He loved to fish on a boat. When we played at San Diego [in 1961] and Santo Domingo, we fished. I got seasick and vomited both times!”22

Bauta was again part of history on April 17, 1964, when Shea Stadium had its grand opening in front of 50,312 fanatics. He relieved Jack Fisher in the seventh and gave up RBI singles to Donn Clendenon and Bill Mazeroski in the Pirates’ 4-3 win. History repeated itself on May 3, when Bauta blew a one-run lead at Cincinnati, allowing two eighth-inning runs. Stengel summoned Bauta from the bullpen for the final time in the majors on May 9, at Shea. He allowed three inherited runners to score, and gave up another run on three hits in one and two-thirds innings. Tim McCarver, the last big-league hitter he faced, grounded out. Bauta (0-2, 5.40 in eight games) kept it simple: “I lost two in relief; Casey called me into his office and sent me to Buffalo.”23

Bauta won eight of 12 decisions with Buffalo, starting once in 42 games, with a 3.00 ERA. Whitey Kurowski’s team made the IL playoffs, though the Bisons lost to Syracuse in seven. Craig Anderson also pitched for Buffalo in 1964. Winter-league coverage in The Sporting News showed no action for Bauta in 1964-65.

Bauta’s 1965 summer season began with Buffalo, but after appearing in 35 games (2-6, 3.52), he was loaned to Triple-A Rochester in the Baltimore system. He enjoyed Rochester, going 3-1, 3.24 in 12 games. He noted that manager Darrell Johnson “made an effort to know me, but got mad when I did not try to hit a batter after two of our guys were drilled, and took me out of the game.” Bauta said that he never threw at a hitter and tried to tell Johnson he was not sure how to do it. He bore no malice on the field.24

Bauta then pitched in Nicaragua in the winter of 1965-66. “Oriental de Granada was the military (Somoza’s) team,” said Bauta, referring to the nation’s future dictator, Anastasio Somoza Debayle, then commander of the National Guard. “I met him before one of our home games.” There were two teams in Managua – Bóer and Cinco Estrellas – plus Leones de León and Oriental. “A lot of Cubans played in Nicaragua; Angel Scull was my teammate,” said Bauta. “My manager was Cuban Wilfredo Calviño. I loved Granada.”25 Though many Cubans plied their trade in Nicaragua, Bauta did not socialize with them, opting to enjoy a new country and its amenities on his own.

However, Bauta suffered severe arm fatigue in early January 1966, which he attributed to constant warming up in 1964 and 1965.26 After taking 1966 off, in 1967 he pitched for Triple-A Jacksonville (0-1, 6.50 ERA) and Double-A Williamsport. He enjoyed Jacksonville’s nightlife too much, but performed superbly at Williamsport: 4-3, 0.77 ERA. By then 32, Bauta watched Mets prospects Gary Gentry, Jon Matlack, and Jim McAndrew being groomed.

Bauta’s first foray into Mexico was in 1967-68 with the Ostioneros de Guaymas of the Sonora-Sinaloa Winter League (renamed the Mexican Pacific League or LMP in 1970-71). Miguel “Pilo” Gaspar, Guaymas manager, and Francisco “Gallo” Rodríguez, the GM, picked Bauta up in Tucson, Arizona, for the 325-mile trip south to Guaymas. The border patrol agent in Nogales, Arizona, was demanding about letting vehicles cross. José “Chepe” Velarde, a Mexican umpire, suggested that the group rent a Red Cross ambulance, and put Bauta on a stretcher. The GM and manager put on male nurse outfits, for an authentic look. They activated the ambulance siren before arriving in Nogales. A mentholated balm covered Bauta’s neck and chest. When the Nogales agent opened the ambulance door, he saw Bauta in a cadaver-like state, and yelled, “Continue on your way, this man is gravely ill!” Further down the road, the group moved into their other vehicle, which was being driven by a real male nurse!27 Guaymas (58-26) won the 1967-68 league title with Ronnie Camacho, who replaced Gaspar, at the helm.

The Mets asked Bauta to take another step down in 1968, to Class A. For Visalia in the California League, he posted marks of 11-6 with a 2.16 ERA. Unusually for him, he struck out 128 in 96 innings, while allowing just 13 walks.

From 1969 to 1974, Bauta pitched in the Triple-A Mexican League with Poza Rica Petroleros. He stayed in Mexico for winter ball with the Culiacán Tomateros, 1969-70 league champions. He also returned to the U.S. for two stints with the Triple-A Eugene Emeralds in 1972 and 1973.

With Poza Rica in 1969, Bauta went 8-16, though he posted a sharp 2.67 ERA thanks to five shutouts. For the Petroleros in 1970, skipper Dave Garcia used Bauta 46 times in relief and gave him eight starts; he ended up at 9-8, 3.13. Bauta made 21 relief appearances for Poza Rica in 1971, going 3-1, 2.50.

A fine 1972 season with the Petroleros followed – 12-10, 1.91 ERA, six shutouts. Thus, Bauta earned a minor-league contract with the Philadelphia Phillies that August. The chance came courtesy of Rubén Amaro Sr., who had played with and managed Bauta at Culiacán and had recently become a scout for the Phillies. According to Bauta, Amaro (whose father, Santos Amaro, was Cuban) had a soft spot for him.28

Bauta was assigned to Philadelphia’s top farm club, Eugene, and he pitched in 12 games for the Emeralds in 1972 (2-3, 3.24). Mike Schmidt was the Phils’ top prospect at Eugene, and Bauta remembered him as “very serious.” The Cuban vet socialized with three Puerto Rican pitchers: Jesús Hernaiz (then aged 27), Manny Muñiz (24), and Luis Peraza (30).29

After pitching in the PCL playoffs, Bauta then took part in the Kodak World Baseball Classic at Honolulu Stadium in Hawaii. He was a member of the winning team, the Caribbean All-Stars, and was the tournament’s busiest pitcher, going 1-1 with a save in five games. Attendance was very poor, though, so the competition was not held again.30

Bauta went 23-5 in 30 starts for the Petroleros in 1973, completing 23, with seven shutouts sparking a 2.25 ERA. His 228 innings were the most he ever pitched. Bauta and George Brunet led Poza Rica (79-53) to their first postseason in years. They were also best friends and drinking partners. “I loved it in Mexico,” Bauta said. “Started out earning $500 a month; increased to $1,500 a month in 1973 when I kept winning. Flames from oil fields would get very hot…kept cool by drinking beer.”31

Bauta bested the Mexico City Diablos Rojos and their ace, Pedro Ramos, 1-0, in Game One of the first-round playoff series. Ramos and Bauta were both 38 when they faced each other that postseason. Ramos was from Pinar del Río, in the westernmost part of Cuba, known for tobacco growing. The veterans shook hands at game’s end.32 Mexico City then won three in a row to advance to the semi-finals, behind the pitching of Julio Navarro, Aurelio López, and Ramos.33

Bauta returned to Eugene in August 1973 (along with Brunet) and pitched well again: 3-0, 3.13 ERA in 23 innings. Jim Bunning, Eugene’s manager, told him he might join the Phils, but the call never came because they were the only team in the NL East that September to fall out of the hunt for the division title.

With Culiacán in the 1973-74 winter season, Bauta was 6-5 with a 2.00 ERA in 108 innings across 15 games. He joined the Ciudad Obregón Yaquis as a reinforcement for the Caribbean Series, hosted by Hermosillo, in February 1974. On February 1, he pitched 7.2 scoreless innings in relief versus Puerto Rico’s representative, Caguas, in a 2-1 loss. The Criollos, boasting a very strong lineup, went on to win the tourney. They had two Hall of Famers: Mike Schmidt and catcher Gary Carter (then a 19-year-old prospect). Their outfield had Jay Johnstone, Jerry Morales, and Otto Vélez. Their infield included Willie Montañez, Félix Millán, and Rudy Meoli.

Two nights later, Bauta went the distance in a 5-1 win. He threw a four-hitter against the defending champion Licey Tigres, managed by Tom Lasorda. After a first-inning run and three hits, Bauta allowed only a Bill Buckner single the rest of the way. On February 6, he pitched two relief innings, allowing an unearned run after a Steve Garvey infield hit and two errors.34

Bauta enjoyed drinking with Mexican slugger Héctor Espino during that Series. “Héctor was my Hermosillo roommate,” he said. “He drank a lot, but was a tremendous hitter. I was drunk before and after each of the [1974] Caribbean Series games.35 Nonetheless, Bauta was named to the All-Star team of that series as the right-handed pitcher: 1-0, 0.48 ERA, 11 strikeouts, one walk, and 18.2 innings. Espino was the All-Star first baseman and series MVP.36

Bauta pitched one final summer season with Poza Rica in 1974, going 9-15 with a 2.99 ERA in 26 starts and six relief outings.37 He pitched with Culiacán in the LMP in 1974-75, and retired after a season of semi-pro ball with El Mante, Mexico, in 1975.

Bauta relocated to Paterson, New Jersey, in 1975. While living in New Jersey, Bauta hooked up with Carlos Bernier, and in 1978 they attended a Jersey City A’s home game. The Class AA club featured Rickey Henderson, then an A’s prospect.

Bauta worked in the moving business – transporting furniture – until 1988. “This was tough on my knees,” he noted. “Had both knees replaced, got tired of the cold, and moved to Daytona Beach in 1988; have lived there ever since.”38

As of his 80s, Bauta no longer followed major-league ball. He was content to work out three times a week and walk his very special beagle, Puchi. He periodically visited Alicia Janeth, his daughter, in Cancún. He liked it that Craig Anderson was living in Dunnellon, Florida, 100 miles west of Daytona Beach. Bauta was content with his baseball achievements, knowing he pitched with dedication, honor, and dignity until age 40.

Bauta’s last few years were spent in assisted living at the Benton House, Port Orange, Florida, prior to relocating to Manahawkin, an unincorporated community in Ocean County, New Jersey, in the final portion of his life. Bauta passed away in Manahawkin, on July 6, 2022, at age 87.

Acknowledgments

Grateful acknowledgment to Ed Bauta for May-September 2018 phone interviews. Craig Anderson had input as Bauta’s teammate with St. Louis, New York Mets, Santurce Cangrejeros, Portland and Buffalo. Dick Hughes shared memories on Bauta as his Portland/Atlanta teammate. Harry Fanok, St. Louis/Atlanta Crackers teammate, had colorful Bauta insights. Jorge Colón Delgado furnished Bauta’s Santurce pitching stats. Daimir Díaz Matos, Palma Soriano, Cuba, provided Roberto Ortiz research. Eduardo Almada shared a 1974 Caribbean Series summary, Bauta’s 1973-74 Culiacán stats, and the fabulous story on Bauta’s initial foray into Mexico. Monte Cely, Rogers Hornsby SABR Chapter, put Almada in touch with the author.

This biography was reviewed by Rory Costello and fact-checked by Alan Cohen.

Sources

Articles

Markusen, Bruce. Cooperstown Confidential: The wild life of George Brunet, April 26, 2013. https://www.fangraphs.com/tht/cooperstown-confidential-the-wild-life-of-george-brunet.

Books

Figueredo, Jorge S. Who’s Who in Cuban Baseball, Jefferson, North Carolina, McFarland Publishers, 2007.

Johnson, Lloyd and Miles Wolff (editors), Encyclopedia of Minor League Baseball, Durham, North Carolina: Baseball America, Third Edition, 2007.

Treto Cisneros, Pedro (editor), Enciclopedia del Béisbol Mexicano, Mexico City: Revistas Deportivas, S.A. de C.V.: 11th edition, 2011.

Van Hyning, Thomas E. The Santurce Crabbers, Jefferson, North Carolina, McFarland Publishers, 1999.

Internet

http://history.winterballdata.com/?view_page=team&season_id=11&phase_id=1&team_id=4&s_ok=Ver+Equipo

https://martindihigoelmejor2013.cubava.cu/files/2015/12/Anuncio-del-filme-Honor-y-Gloria.jpg

https://supercuba.wordpress.com/2011/07/14/roberto-ortiz-el-guajiro-gigante/

https://www.statscrew.com/minorbaseball/roster/t-cj11031/y-1960

Notes

1 E-mail, Harry Fanok to Rory Costello, July 16, 2018.

2 Ed Bauta, phone interview with Tom Van Hyning, May 30, 2018.

3 Ed Bauta, phone interview with Tom Van Hyning, July 13, 2018.

4 Ed Bauta, phone interview with Tom Van Hyning, May 30, 2018.

5 Ed Bauta, phone interview with Tom Van Hyning, May 30, 2018.

6 Ed Bauta, phone interview with Tom Van Hyning, June 2, 2018. Bauta did not provide the names of his ex-wives (one Cuban, one American). Bauta told the author he has “fathered a number of children, at least five or six unofficially.”

7 Neal Russo, “Bauta Takes Bows as Boss of Redbirds’ Busy Bull Pen,” The Sporting News, June 15, 1963, 34. Ed Bauta, phone interview with Tom Van Hyning, May 30, 2018.

8 Ibid.

9 His final Cuban Winter League record: 10-8 with a 2.70 ERA in 200 innings across 50 appearances, including five complete games.

10 Ed Bauta, phone interview with Tom Van Hyning, July 13, 2018.

11 Dick Hughes, phone interview with Tom Van Hyning, July 14, 2018.

12 Ed Bauta, phone interview with Tom Van Hyning, July 13, 2018.

13 Ibid.

14 Ed Bauta, phone interview with Tom Van Hyning, June 29, 2018.

15 Ed Bauta, phone interview with Tom Van Hyning, June 5, 2018.

16 Ibid.

17 E-mail, Harry Fanok to Rory Costello, July 16, 2018.

18 Russo, “Bauta Takes Bows as Boss of Redbirds’ Busy Bull Pen.”

19 Ed Bauta, phone interview with Tom Van Hyning, June 2, 2018.

20 Ibid.

21 Robert Dominguez, “The forgotten all-star game,” New York Daily News, July 10, 2013.

22 Ed Bauta, phone interview with Tom Van Hyning, May 30, 2018.

23 Ed Bauta, phone interview with Tom Van Hyning, June 2, 2018.

24 Ed Bauta, phone interview with Tom Van Hyning, June 5, 2018.

25 Ibid.

26 Ed Bauta, phone interview with Tom Van Hyning, July 13, 2018. The Sporting News, January 15, 1966 edition mentioned that Oriental signed pitcher Scott Seger to replace Bauta.

27 E-mail, Eduardo B. Almada to Tom Van Hyning, August 13, 2018. Eduardo is the son of Mel Almada, first major-league player born in Mexico.

28 Ed Bauta, phone interview with Tom Van Hyning, September 27, 2018.

29 Ed Bauta, phone interview with Tom Van Hyning, June 5, 2018.

30 “Classic Comments,” The Sporting News, October 7, 1972, 31.Joe Marcin, “World Baseball Classic a Financial Fizzle”, Sporting News Baseball Guide, 1973.

31 Ed Bauta, phone interview with Tom Van Hyning, June 5, 2018.

32 Ibid.

33 Tommy Morales, Cápsulas históricas, Mexican League News (/LMB/NEWS), August 3, 2015. Accessed at https://www.milb.com/lmb/news/calvi241o-y-el-diablos-rojos-de-1973/c-140736076, on July 31, 2018.

34 Eduardo B. Almada, Summary of “XVII Serie del Caribe 1974,” e-mailed to Tom Van Hyning, August 11, 2018.

35 Ed Bauta, phone interview with Tom Van Hyning, June 29, 2018.

36 Summary of “XVII Serie del Caribe 1974.”

37 Bauta’s 1969-1974 Mexican Summer League record: 209 games, 112 starts, 59 complete games, 21 shutouts, two saves, 64-55, 2.55 ERA, 973.1 innings, 939 hits allowed, 475 strikeouts and 187 walks.

38 Ed Bauta, phone interview with Tom Van Hyning, June 2, 2018.