agate type

josé del valle méndez, part ii

I’ve obtained a much better copy of the World War I draft card for José Méndez in Chicago, which confirms that he was employed by Rube Foster of 3242 Vernon Ave., and pretty much cinches the case that this is the Hall of Fame pitcher. In this copy you can make out his signature much more clearly, and it appears that he signed it “Jose del Valle y Mendez.”

This means that José Méndez himself signed a document that gives a totally different birthdate and name than what we have seen before.

Incidentally, I suspect the information here was probably itself drawn from another official document provided by Méndez. The registrar followed what I think was the standard practice of filling out the card herself, while the registrant—Méndez—simply signed it. She carefully included the accent marks in Méndez’s name, which Méndez himself did not bother with in his signature. While it’s possible she was fluent in or familiar with Spanish and knew where to put the accents, I think a more likely explanation is that she simply copied his name from some other source. This would work against any suspicion that the name or birthdate was a result of miscommunication between Méndez and the registrar.

cuban stars, 1915

Here’s another photo I don’t recall seeing before, from the Indianapolis Ledger (July 10, 1915, p. 4):

These, of course, are the Linares/Molina (western) Cuban Stars; that’s Tinti Molina in the suit and hat, between Pastor Pareda and Agustín Parpetti.

The photographer, J. C. Patton, was actually pretty well-known.  In 1915 he was the only African-American present at the National Photographers Association of America convention (held in Indianapolis), and samples of his work can be found on, for example, the Ohio Historical Society website.  He took this photograph of the 317th Engineers baseball team on July 31, 1918, at Camp Sherman, Chillicothe, Ohio:

While I’ve seen a few references to this team, I don’t think I have any box scores or names of players, so at this point I can’t identify any of these men.

the henriquez brothers

Louis Castro was not the only early twentieth-century baseball figure with Colombian origins.  The Long Branch Cubans, who played in minor leagues and independently from 1913 to 1916, were owned by a New York physician named Carlos Louis Henriquez, and managed by his brother, Richard Anthony Henriquez (pictured right), also the team’s first baseman in 1913 and 1914.  

Aside from Long Branch, the Cubans also based themselves at various times in Newark, Jersey City, Poughkeepsie, Harlem, and Newton, New Jersey.  Especially when they were in Long Branch, a seaside resort town, they played a large number of exhibitions against major league teams, according to David Skinner compiling a record of 10-24 in these games.  Most significantly, they helped funnel a number of players, including Adolfo Luque and Mike González, from the Cuban League to U.S. organized baseball.

Although the Henriquez brothers were usually assumed to be Cuban themselves, a number of records show a Colombian connection.  In June 1886, about ten months after “Master Louis Castro” and his father Néstor arrived in New York, another family arrived on board the S.S. Niagara from Colombia (via Mexico and Cuba):

The family remained in the United States, appearing in the 1900 census, where the father, Louis N. Henriquez, and children are all born in the “U.S. of Columbia”; the children’s mother, who had passed away by now (Louis is widowed) is shown as born in Cuba.

In the 1910 census the brothers, both married now, are living together on W. 88th Street, the same address later given on some passenger lists by Long Branch Cubans players.  Both give Colombia as their birthplace.

They filled out draft cards in 1918, only two years removed from the demise of the Long Branch Cubans.  Unfortunately their cards did not ask for birth place.  Both checked the space under “Citizen by Father’s Naturalization before Registrant’s Majority,” although Richard seems to have also written, below that, that he is a citizen of Colombia.

Both appeared in the 1920 census, Carlos as “Dr. Carl Henriquez,” listed for the first time as born in Cuba (his parents in South America).  Richard’s census entry, on the other hand, is consistent with earlier records, showing born in South America, his father in South America and mother in Cuba).  Both of Richard’s sons, one ten years old, the other “6 2/12” (to my eyes; Ancestry.com has recorded his age as 2 9/12), are listed as born in New Jersey.

The last sign of either brother I’ve found so far is Carlos in the 1930 census, living with in Yonkers, listing his employment as “none,” and supposedly born in New York.  The names of his wife (“Jeannette”), son (“Carlo” or “Carlos”) and his mother-in-law, Cora Long, establish this as Carlos Henriquez. His name, however, is oddly given as “Henry Carlos Henriquez,” a strong indication that the information here is probably not entirely trustworthy.

The image of Richard Henriquez above is courtesy of David Skinner, but don’t blame him for the poor quality; I lifted it from a photocopied handout for his presentation on the L.B. Cubans.

baseball ages: armando marsans

The official baseball birth date for Armando Marsans is October 3, 1887.  This would have made him 17 when he played his first Cuban League game on April 3, 1905.

The same Washington Post article (February 4, 1912) I cited in the post about Almeida says this about Marsans: “He was born in Matanzas, 55 miles from Havana, in 1885, being the same age as Almeida.”  And Peter T. Toot writes in his biography of Marsans that he “was born in Matanzas, Cuba….on October 3, 1885” (p. 8), although on the same page he says Marsans was 18 when he debuted for Almendares in 1905 (consistent with a birth date of October 3, 1886).

Here are some ages and implied birth dates from passenger lists (assuming his birthday of October 3 is correct):

--Arriving in New York on May 20, 1905: listed as 21, thus born October 3, 1883
--April 17, 1908: 23, thus October 3, 1884
--December 15, 1908: 23, thus October 3, 1885
--April 21, 1911: 25, thus October 3, 1885
--June 25, 1911: 25, thus October 3, 1885
--March 17, 1913: 26…October 3, 1885
--July 24, 1914: 27…October 3, 1886
--April 7, 1915: 28…October 3, 1886
--March 25, 1916: 29…October 3, 1886
--February 5, 1917: 30…October 3, 1886
--July 11, 1923: 36…October 3, 1886
--March 5, 1924: 35…October 3, 1888

Also: according to the Post, both Marsans and Almeida had come to U.S. as children with their privileged families, temporarily fleeing the turmoil of the Cuban Revolution in the 1890s.  As it happens, I was able to find an Armando Marsans arriving in New York from Havana on February 5, 1897, traveling with his mother and two brothers, Raúl and Mario.  Armando is listed here as 10 years old (again, consistent with a birth date of October 3, 1886).

Image of Marsans from this site, again.

herrara, herrera

By the way: this guy (“Ramon Herrara”) is Ramón Herrera.  Herrera actually started the 1922 season on the Bridgeport Americans, also of the Eastern League, alongside Cuban Hall of Famer Joseíto Rodríguez, though it evidently didn’t show up in the guides.  He must have played very little with Bridgeport (fewer than ten games) before moving to Springfield.

Herrera and Claudio Manela thus joined the Eastern League from the Negro National League at the same time, though Manela didn’t stick.  Both were nicknamed “Mike,” for whatever reason.  (At least Mike González was actually named Miguel.)

Image of Herrera comes via Ryan Christoff’s Cuban Baseball Cards site.

baseball ages: rafael almeida

Another example of an early Cuban player in the U.S. who may have adjusted his age for professional purposes is Rafael Almeida, one of the pair of Cincinnati Reds (the other being Armando Marsans) who on July 4, 1911, became the first Cuban League products to play in the major leagues.

Almeida’s official baseball birth date is July 30, 1887.  This would have made him 16 when he made his first Cuban League appearance in the 1903/04 season (actually played in early 1904), and still 16 when he first traveled to the United States with the All-Cubans in April.  When Almeida was purchased by the Reds in 1911 at the supposed age of 23 (almost 24), he had already been playing professionally in the U.S., off and on, for seven years.

These are the ages recorded for Almeida on passenger lists I’ve found, with the birth date they imply (assuming the birthday July 30 is correct):

Arriving in the United States April 26, 1904: 22, thus July 30, 1881
November 17, 1904: 22, thus July 30, 1882
May 20, 1905: 23, thus July 30, 1881
April 19, 1907: 23…July 30, 1883
June 10, 1908: 23…July 30, 1883
December 15, 1908: 25…July 30, 1883
May 1, 1909: 24…July 30, 1884
July 15, 1910: 25…July 30, 1884
June 25, 1911: 26…July 30, 1884
April 4, 1912: 27…July 30, 1884
March 17, 1913: 27….July 30, 1885
May 17, 1915: 29…July 30, 1885
May 14, 1916: 29…July 30, 1886
March 19, 1920: 35…July 30, 1884

An article about Almeida and Marsans in the Washington Post (February 4, 1912) says that Almeida “was born in Havana in 1885.”

The upshot is that, so far, every age I’ve found reported for Almeida during his playing career shows him older than his official age.

UPDATE 1:02 p.m.  Image of Almeida added from this site.

baseball ages: ramón herrera

Adjusting one’s age is nothing new in baseball.  Consider the case of Ramón Herrera (known as “Mike” or “Paito”), a Cuban infielder for both the Boston Red Sox (in 1925 and 1926) and the Cuban Stars of the Negro National League (in 1920 and 1921).  Herrera is supposed to have been born on December 19, 1897.  This would have made him 27 and 28 during his time with the Sox.

Herrera’s first professional appearance (as far as I know) was at third base for Almendares against the Brooklyn Dodgers on November 8, 1913—when Herrera would supposedly have been only 15.   He played his first Cuban League game on December 11, 1913, still eight days before his sixteenth birthday, and then went on to be Almendares’s regular second baseman as the club won the 1913/14 pennant.

Fast-forwarding to the other end of his career: Herrera’s last appearance as a professional (again, as far as I know) was in the 1929/30 Cuban League.  He would have turned 32 about two-thirds of the way through the season.

But check out the ages given on passenger manifests for Herrera’s travels to the United States.  Assuming that his birthday—December 19—is accurate, even if the year isn’t, here are the years of birth implied by each entry:

Herrera’s arrival in the U.S. on 14 September 1913:  he’s listed as 23 years old, thus born December 19, 1889

7 June 1914: 21 years old; thus born December 19, 1892
7 March 1915: 22; thus December 19, 1892
2 June 1915: 22, thus December 19, 1892
5 April 1916: 23, thus December 19, 1892

(Herrera played for the Cuban Stars in 1920 and 1921, but I haven’t yet found him on any passenger lists for those years.)

10 April 1923: 30, thus December 19, 1892
5 April 1924: 30, thus December 19, 1893
11 April 1924: 30, thus December 19, 1893
7 April 1925: 32, thus December 19, 1892
28 February 1926: 33, thus December 19, 1892
14 March 1927: 34, thus December 19, 1892
23 April 1928: 33, thus December 19, 1894
19 March 1929: 34, thus December 19, 1894

It should be emphasized that I’m not offering absolute proof that Herrera’s official age is wrong, just a strong suspicion based on both his career shape and the passenger lists.  It’s hard to know how to interpret ages on passenger lists, because we don’t always know what the source of the information is.  I tend to assume that most of the time it is the passenger himself, simply being asked how old he is.  But this information, as you can see, varies from year to year for the same person.  On any given list, the age could represent a guess, or could have been supplied by a club or customs official or somebody else who may or may not have known how old the person in question was.  Although it should be pointed out that one piece of evidence that the ages generally come from the passengers themselves is that (surprise surprise) as the years go on, ballplayers tend to shave years off.

In Herrera’s case, it seems significant that every single age given on the passenger lists is considerably older than his official baseball age.  Even the ages reported in 1928 and 1929 are still three years older than what we thought before.  It’s hard to think of any explanation other than the obvious one: his baseball age was wrong.  Herrera (or perhaps somebody else) slashed five years or so off his age.

If we take the most common implied birthdate here—December 19, 1892, which appears on 8 of 13 passenger lists—then Herrera was already 30 (rather than 25) when he joined organized baseball in the U.S. (with Springfield of the Eastern League in 1923), and 32 (rather than 27) when he finally made the Red Sox in 1925.  It isn’t exactly a mystery why it would have helped his career to lie about his age.  In fact, it probably made his career possible in the first place.  In addition, such an adjustment obviously alters any evaluation of Herrera as a player, since he was almost certainly in decline by the time he reached the majors, rather than at his peak.

Using this revised birthdate would also have made Herrera eight days shy of 19 21 when he played his first game in the Cuban League, and 36/37 during his final season there. This age progression just makes a lot more sense to me than one where he started his career at 15 and ended it at 32.  In the end, of course, it would probably take research in Cuban sources to establish whether I’m right or not.

You can make similar cases for a couple of other early Cuban players, which I’ll get to in the next few days.

josé del valle méndez

When Patrick Rock and I were searching for Negro Leaguers and Cuban ballplayers with World War I draft cards, one player we didn’t find at the time was José Méndez—even though he was in the United States in September, 1918, when a man of his age would have been required to register, citizen or not.  At the time he was playing for the Chicago American Giants, having been brought in to replace the shortstop Bobby Williams, lost to the draft.  (This was during the period when Méndez did very little pitching, and made his living as an infielder.)

I’ve continued research on the World War I cards over the past year, making occasional finds, but Méndez was always a low priority, as I assumed we pretty much knew everything there was to know about him.  Then, a few weeks ago, it dawned on me that I had seen several full names given for him:

“José Méndez Ramos,” from a roster list published in La Lucha (January 26, 1912);

“José de la Caridad Méndez Arco de Tejada,” from Roberto González Echevarría’s The Pride of Havana (p. 130);

“José Méndez Baez,” from James Riley’s Biographical Encyclopedia (p. 545).

“José de la Caridad Méndez Baez,” from his Hall of Fame plaque.

So I went looking for Méndez in the World War I draft again, to see what name he used there.  Of the 211 men named José Méndez who registered, only three lived in Chicago.  Of them, two were listed as white (one a Mexican citizen); the other, the only black man named José Méndez to register for the draft in Chicago, was this one:

                                    (click to enlarge)

So we have José del Valle Méndez, born January 2, 1885, whereas the official birthdate for the Hall of Famer José Méndez is March 19, 1887. He is listed as “negro” and a Cuban citizen.  His occupation, cigar maker, is in fact the one tradition assigns Méndez (see González Echevarría, p. 131), and one that’s given for him on some early passenger lists to the United States (in 1910 traveling with the Stars of Cuba, for example).  He is not listed as a professional ballplayer, but then neither were José Méndez’s teammates Pete Hill and Bruce Petway, who registered on the same day in the same city and who had been professionals for many years (both Hill and Petway listed themselves as civilian workers for the Army, as it happens).  General Crowder’s “work or fight” order had classified sports as a non-essential occupation and led to the suspension of organized baseball on September 2.  Independent and semipro baseball continued (Hill, Petway, and Méndez were all playing for the American Giants on days surrounding the September 12 registration day), but the players who had to register at that time often (though not always) put other occupations (as did some major league players, for example Burt Shotton, Hal Chase, and Jack Coombs).

José del Valle Méndez may have been a cigarmaker, but his employer looks very much like…Rube Foster.  The microfilm from which the Ancestry.com scan was made, however, was flawed and streaked, so it could be “Robt. Foster,” or something else.  The employer’s address is 3242 Vernon Ave., although the “Vernon” is obscured by another streak.  Rube Foster’s address on that same date (September 12, 1918), as well as in the 1920 census, was 3242 Vernon Avenue.

                                    (click to enlarge)

Returning to the Méndez card, it appears that in the box reserved for checking one’s “native born” status, he wrote “Cardenas, Cuba,” probably misunderstanding the purpose of the box.  Cárdenas, of course, is where José Méndez was born.

(I love it, btw, that Méndez’s physical condition is, like the werewolf’s hair, pronounced “perfect.”)

So, what do you think?  If my interpretation of the handwriting on the card is correct (it would be immensely useful to see the actual card), and this José Méndez worked for Rube Foster at 3242 Vernon Avenue, Chicago, then we have both a different birthdate and a different name for Méndez than any we have seen before—and in his own handwriting, which would grant it a particular authority.

UPDATE 8:06 p.m. I think I can add another strong point in favor of José del Valle Méndez being our man.  On the card his nearest relative is one “Marcelina del Valle,” living on Factoria street in Havana.  José Méndez’s mother, as evidenced by a number of passenger lists on which she was listed as his relative or contact in Cuba, was named Marcelina, and in 1917 at least she lived at No. 38 Factoria street in Havana.  Her name was evidently Marcelina Méndez Lugones; she appears under both last names and also at least once as “M. Mendez Lugones.”

revenge

I wanted to pull this find by John Thorn out of the comments section for this post on Luis Padrón (he posted it back on May 12).

FROM: Sporting Life, July 22, 1905:

On the 9th, at Newburgh, Padron of the Poughkeepsie team, gave an exhibition of batting seldom seen in any game. He went to bat and the Newburgh rooters began to hurl the epithet of "nigger" at him time and again. Padron is very dark, being a full-blooded Cuban, but has no negro blood. This seemed to make him mad, and with two men on bases, he hit the first ball pitched for a home run. Several innings later he again went to the bat with two men on bases. The crowd called: "The nigger can't do it again." At this Padron hit the first ball pitched for another home run in almost the identical spot, scoring six runs and winning the game for Poughkeepsie.

rafael de la rúa, 1868 lansingburgh unions

Breaking news!

I just got this note from César González, about an important discovery made by Peter Morris and John Thorn:

When Esteban Bellán left St. John's College in 1868 to pursue a career in baseball (with the Unions of Morrisania) he was not the only Cuban to do so.

Rafael de la Rúa, a native of Matanzas, Cuba, played 12 games for the Unions of Lansingburgh of the National Association in that same year of 1868. He was a pitcher, with a good screwball but some control problems.

De la Rúa joins Bellán as the first Latin player in an organized and highly competitive league. The National Association would not be considered a Major League until it became professional in 1871, and still that is debatable. But what is clear is that they are the first Latin ballplayers to compete at the highest level of baseball in the United States.

This was a discovery made by the great investigators Peter Morris and John Thorn, and I have been helping in the last couple of days trying to figure out some aspects of his biography.

This is what we have at the moment:

Rafael Julián de la Rúa was born on January 28th, 1848 in Matanzas, Cuba.

In 1860, he appears with an age of 12 in an official United States census living in Newton, Massachusetts. He was studying in a small school directed by R.B. Blaisdell in Newton. There is also a Finomen Rua in that census, 18 years old, apparently Rafael’s brother.

In June 1864, he was one of the passengers of the steamship Havana that arrived at New York from La Habana, according to a note published by The New York Times. Rafael was about to start his preparatory education at St. John’s College (Fordham) on September 1864, and he stayed there until July 1867. He studied there at the same time as Bellán. In the official student catalogues of St. John’s College he is listed as Julian R. Rua from Matanzas, Cuba.

In the academic year of 1868-69. he is listed studying at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, under the name of Rafael J. Rua, from Matanzas, Cuba. He stayed there only for one year and did not graduate.

It was in that same town of Troy that the Unions of Lansingburgh, members of the National Association, were based. De la Rua played for them in 12 games, mostly as a pitcher. At that time, the National Association was still officially an amateur competition. There is in existence an image of the 1868 Unions of Lansingburgh.  You can see it in the book Smoke by Peter Bjarkman and Mark Rucker, though one of the players is mistakenly identified as Bellán (he didn’t play for Lansingburgh until 1869). However, we are working to try to identify De la Rua in that same image.

Official documents were found for Rafael de la Rúa in which he applied for U.S. citizenship on September 23, 1874, declaring himself a merchant. When naturalization was granted he applied for his first American passport, filing as Rafael de la Rúa, living on 15th and 32nd streets in New York, born on January 28th, 1848, in Matanzas, Cuba. His height, according to these documents, was 5 ft. 9 in.

According to encyclopedias with early Cuban League listings by Jorge Figueredo and Severo Nieto, Rafael de la Rúa never played in the Cuban League.

Without a doubt, a very important piece of Latin American baseball history.

César González Gómez

Union of Lansingburgh (a village adjacent to Troy) is the same club that would later become known as the Troy Haymakers, members of the professional National Association in 1871 and 1872.  “Rua” with no first name appears on the Lansingburgh roster in Marshall Wright’s book The National Association of Base Ball Players, 1857-1870.  Esteban Bellán would join the Lansingburgh club in 1869, though De la Rua was evidently done with high-level baseball by then (Wright only has him on the 1868 club).