agate type

josé méndez in cleveland 1912

Here’s a cool photo of José Méndez I hadn’t seen before, from the August 20, 1912, Cleveland Plain Dealer.  Just another example of how famous Méndez was in the U.S. around that time, surely the best-known ballplayer from outside organized baseball.  Not sure what that round thing growing out of his back is supposed to be.

Incidentally, as the article tells us, the Tellings semipro team was trying to get University of Michigan star George Sisler to pitch against Méndez in the next game.  But the marquee matchup did not come off.  Sisler didn’t show up, and Méndez was “attacked with acute indigestion” just before game time and couldn’t play.  So instead it was Luis “Chicho” González who took the mound and disposed of the Tellings 3 to 1.

black diamond 1912

On January 14, 1912, the Philadelphia Inquirer published a long, detailed feature on José Méndez, “El Diamante Negro” (“Black Diamond”), by the obviously pseudonymous “Jim Nasium,” who had evidently done his research.  It’s a very important source and, being published in 1912, is out of copyright, so I thought I’d make it generally available.  This is how it concludes:

“It is one of the pathetic instances of life to see this Cuban negro, possessing all the characteristics of a gentleman, and an ability that would make him one of the great figures in a great pastime—qualities that would bring him world-wide fame and popularity and wealth—barred from reaping the full benefits of these qualifications through the misfortune of birth.  Jose Mendez will always have to be content just to be Cuba’s ‘black Mathewson’.”

The version I’m posting is the Washington Post’s reprint of the story from a week later, as the layout makes it a little easier to handle.  As you can see, the Post had an artist do his own version of Jim Nasium’s portrait of Méndez.

You should be able to click on  it for the full-size, readable story.

And here is the original art that accompanied the Inquirer story:

josé del valle méndez, part iii

Here is Tito Rondon on the question of José Méndez’s real name:

“‘José del Valle y Méndez’ means his first last name is Valle (or del Valle, makes no difference; del is just a conjuction, which is why it is not capitalized, same as van or vander in dutch). And his second last name, or mother's maiden name, is Méndez.

“In conservative Latin societies, if at the time of your birth your mom was not married to your dad, you got her last name as your own. Then, maybe you would use your dad’s last name as your second last name, or maybe your adoptive father’s (maybe mom’s new hubby). And if she divorced the new guy, you could change yours too if you liked the new guy better.

“So the 1912 Ramos could be the appropriate second last name at the time, and Baez the appropiate one thereafter, and maybe he found out by 1918 that his father’s last name had been Valle, and used that on official documents trying to accommodate U. S. usage.

[…]

“Of course, de la Caridad is his middle name; in the draft card someone put his last name in the middle name spot by mistake, something that would be repeated for decades by ballplayers, like Latigo Gutiérrez being known as René Valdez in the U. S.

[…]

“Your research on his mom, Marcelina [see below], looks pretty definite to me, so it is clear he used her last name as his. And I guess he pretty much preferred to use Baez as his second last name during the latter part of his career. Which he has a right to. So it is José de la Caridad Méndez Báez.

“However, you have just revealed the true mystery. Who was José’s father? I'll ask some Cuban historians (as I am not one) and let you know.....”

A few additional notes from Tito and from my own research:

• Tito also disposes of the version of Méndez’s full name given by Roberto González Echevarría in The Pride of Havana, “José de la Caridad Méndez Arco de Tejada.”  There was, Tito says, a Cuban sportswriter “with a peculiar sense of humor, who gave ballplayers and famous people fanciful second last names based on Spanish noble names, usually compound last names. ‘Arco de Tejada’ is one such feeble attempt at humor; please disregard it.”

Incidentally, the longtime Pittsburgh Courier sportswriter and columnist, Wesley Rollo Wilson, had a very similar habit, often for example calling Judy Johnson (whose middle name was Julius) “Julius Caesar Johnson.”

• In a 1920 interview with the newspaper Diario de la Marina, the legendary slugger Julián Castillo refers to Méndez as “the celebrated Méndez-Colmenar del Valle.”  Tito’s comment: “It could very well be. Some people with compound names preferred to simplify, and dropped half of it. So Jose could very well be named Colmenar del Valle and refer to himself as ‘del Valle’ or even simply Valle.”

• On Méndez’s mother: the World War I draft card for José del Valle Méndez lists his nearest relative as “Marcelina del Valle,” of 38 Factoria, Habana, Cuba.  Marcelina was Méndez’s mother’s first name, and her address in 1917 was 38 Factoria in Havana.  Here is what’s entered as Méndez’s relative or friend in Cuba on passenger lists in the 1910s:

June 10, 1912: “Mrs. M. Mendez, mother”

May 7, 1914: “mother Marcelina Lugones”

April 22, 1916: “mother Marcelina Méndez” (Méndez crossed out,
actually traveled the next day)

April 23, 1916: “mother Marcelina Menendez [sic]”

May 9, 1917: “mother M. Mendez Lugore [sic], Factoria 38” (same
address she is given on Méndez’s draft card)

May 13, 1917: “mother M. Lugones, Factoria 38”

The image of Méndez above was snagged from somewhere on the internet (I’m forgetting where at the moment), but it is originally a detail from a team photo of the 1920 Kansas City Monarchs.

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.

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.”

what was josé méndez’s full name?

I recently realized that I have seen at least three versions of José Méndez’s full name:

“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 Pride of Havana (p. 130);

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

Does anybody have any idea what the story is here?

UPDATE  3:50 p.m. His Hall of Fame plaque reads “José de la Caridad Mendéz Baez.”  Yes, the accent mark on “Méndez” was wrongly placed.

foster and méndez, 1924 world series

Regarding the decisive Game 10 of the 1924 World Series, in which the Monarchs’ 37-year-old player-manager José Méndez made a surprise start and shut out Hilldale on three hits despite suffering from a “viral infection” (Larry Lester, Baseball’s First Colored World Series, p. 175), John Holway wrote the following:

In the final game the Monarch manager, 38-year-old Jose Mendez, one of Cuba’s greatest pitchers 15 years earlier, had no one left to start on the mound.  “Well, Darling,” Foster smiled, “how do you feel yourself?”  Mendez gulped.  “If you say so,” he said, “I do it.”  Foster called every pitch for him from the bench and Mendez hurled a three-hitter to beat young Holsey “Scrip” Lee 5-0, and take the series. (Blackball Stars, p. 32)

I’d always thought this story sounded somewhat unlikely, given that Méndez was himself the veteran of many big games and hardly seemed the type to “gulp” at the prospect of a high-pressure situation.  I suspected (though of course without knowing for sure) that it emanated from Foster himself.  I haven’t checked every contemporary newspaper thoroughly to see if this story, or some hint of it, made it into print at the time.  But I did just run across this passage in the Philadelphia Tribune (November 22, 1924), from an article entitled “‘Rube’ Foster Comments on the World’s Series”:

So Foster himself didn’t claim it was his idea for Méndez to start, nor did he claim to have called pitches the whole game.  And I’m pretty sure that, had those things really happened, Foster would not have hesitated to take credit for them.

It’s entirely possible that there’s some truth to it: maybe, for instance, Méndez consulted Foster about how to pitch to certain Hilldale hitters.  This, of course, is hardly the same thing that the original story claims.  Plus it’s not clear that Foster would have known the Hilldale lineup all that much better than Méndez; two of the starting lineup that day had been teammates of Méndez’s recently (George Carr with the Monarchs, 1920-1922, and Frank Warfield with Santa Clara in the previous winter’s Cuban League).  Warfield, Clint Thomas, and Biz Mackey had all played in the NNL for multiple seasons fairly recently, so Méndez would have had as much chance to see them as Foster.  Maybe Foster would have known more about his fellow Texans Louis Santop and George Johnson.  On the whole though, the notion that Foster babysat Méndez through the Series-clinching victory is probably exaggerated.

donlin vs. méndez

Here’s a note from W. Rollo Wilson’s “Eastern Snapshots” column in the Pittsburgh Courier (October 11, 1924), writing on José Méndez, manager of the Kansas City Monarchs, just before the World Series vs. Hilldale:

I thought I’d check to see how Mike Donlin fared against Méndez in Cuba.  Turns out he only faced him there once, during the Giants’ visit in 1911.

On November 30, 1911, in the second Almendares/Giants game, came the big matchup everyone was waiting for:  Méndez vs. Christy Mathewson.  Mathewson came out on top, 4 to 0.  In the first inning, Donlin was safe on a fielder’s choice and scored when Beals Becker tripled.  In the third Donlin grounded out to Méndez.  In the sixth inning, Gene Paulette hit for Donlin, the only substitution made by the Giants in the game.

On December 10, Méndez lost an 11-inning game to Otis Crandall, 6 to 3.  Donlin stayed in the whole game and hit 2 for 6 (both singles), but struck out three times.

On December 14, Méndez replaced Pedroso in the sixth inning with Almendares leading 5 to 3, the bases loaded (including Donlin on first), and nobody out.  Méndez gave up a sac fly to Beals Becker, scoring Buck Herzog.  Fletcher grounded to third baseman Rafael Almeida, who forced Donlin at second, then Gervasio González gunned down Fletcher trying to steal—and Méndez was out of the inning.  He coasted through the last three innings, allowing a single hit (to Larry Doyle), and Almendares won comfortably, 7 to 4.  Donlin only faced Méndez once, popping to the shortstop in the eighth.  Altogether, Méndez faced the miminum twelve batters in the four innings he pitched.  And, by the way, Christy Mathewson went the whole way on the other side, so Méndez did actually pitch four strong innings in a winning effort against Mathewson.

On December 18, Méndez lost to the Giants for the third time.  He pitched eight innings, giving way to Pedroso in the ninth with the score 3 to 1, Giants.  Unfortunately, I don’t have a play-by-play account of this game.  The Giants scored one run in the ninth; the description of the scoring begins with Becker, who batted after Donlin, and it seems very likely Becker was the first batter in the inning.  That would mean all of Donlin’s plate appearances were against Méndez—and he went 0 for 4.

Overall, Donlin hit 2 for 13 against José Méndez in the 1911 series (or possibly 2 for 12, if he came to bat once against Pedroso in the last game)—either .154 or .167, with no walks or extra base hits, and at least three strikeouts.  Of course, Donlin probably faced Méndez in exhibition games in the United States, possibly a number of times (I haven’t checked).  Maybe Méndez was referring to one of those games.  But the fact remains that Donlin hit poorly against him in Cuba, and was lifted for a pinch-hitter in his first appearance.

UPDATE 8:28 p.m.  I forgot to mention that overall Donlin hit .333/.367/.422 (series averages .224/.283/.303), 15 for 45 with 2 triples and a team-leading 8 RBI.  He was the second-best hitter on the Giants, behind only Art Wilson (.382/.425/.471).  So he did have a specific problem with Méndez in this series.

1909 josé méndez

David Skinner wrote in about José Méndez’s record for the 1909 Cuban Stars:

Hi Gary,
NLRAG has him at 8-3 in 12 games for the “New York Cuban Stars” in 1909, obviously incomplete.  In the book José Méndez: El Diamante Negro by the late Severo Nieto Fernández (La Habana, Editorial Científico-Técnica, 2004), the author repeats the 44-2 claim but only lists his 9 shutouts for the 1909 “All Cubans.”  Scott Simkus will want to know that he beat Ohio Northern U. 7-0 on May 25 and Weidermanns 5-0 on May 30. I too am skeptical of him going 44-2.  But if Nieto is right that the team went 94-35-2 in 1909, with 31 consecutive wins from May 10 through June 13, it is possible he won that many games.  I have never heard similar claims of gaudy records for Joséito Muñoz and General Sagua Rodríguez.  If José won 44 that would leave 50 wins for them to split, which seems reasonable.

Best,
David

He later sent this postscript:

Now that I’ve actually looked at Scott's 1909 Stars stats, I have more reason to doubt 44 wins for José, seeing that there was a full staff, not the 3-man rotation indicated by Nieto.

early méndez sighting

Here is José Méndez’s early career, according to Roberto González Echevarría:

By 1905 [Méndez, then 18 years old,] was in Sagua la Grande, farther east of Havana, playing for a club significantly named Patria (Fatherland).  Patria was involved in a championship that included Remedios and Caibarién, towns, like Sagua la Grande, on the southern northern coast of the old Las Villas Province [my mistake, not in the original]….In 1907 Bebé Royer, Marsans, Armando Cabañas, Jabuco Hidalgo, and other Almendares players went to earn a few extra dollars by playing in that provincial championship (professionals continued to do this throughout the forties and fifties).  Royer was charged with looking at a Remedios pitcher who was being touted by people as a phenom.  Bebé repoted back to Pájaro Cabrera, who was then managing Almendares, that there was a scrawny black kid playing short (he was apparently 5 feet, 9 inches and 150 pounds) who, when he pitched in relief, showed speed, uncanny control, and a snapping curve.  Méndez was signed at once by Almendares… (The Pride of Havana, pp. 129-30).

So Méndez started his professional career in a league we’ve seen before.  In 1915, it was referred to in La Lucha as La Liga Federal Cubana, and its champion team then was none other than Remedios.  David Skinner has pointed out that I misinterpreted the description “celebrado en las Villas,” which certainly refers specifically to Las Villas Province. 

It so happens that on November 9, 1907, La Lucha printed a box score of a Las Villas championship game.  The contest involved Sagua and Remedios, and playing third for the latter team is one “Méndez”:

There are several other well-known names here, notably the Remedios battery of (Gonzalo) Sánchez and (Juan) Violá, both well-known Cuban League players (as the game story points out).  Interestingly, Sagua boasted an Irish double play combination.  The story also says that this game is part of the “‘champion’ concertado entre las novenas Caibarién, Camajuaní, Sagua y Remedios.”

The English page of La Lucha has this note, on November 7, 1907:

A Cuban Island League has been formed, and it looks as though the whole country has gone baseball mad.  Several of the Havana star players, such as Viola, Carillo, Perez, and others have gone to the interior, and cast their fortunes with different clubs.

On December 17, 1907, La Lucha reported these records for “El Campeonato de Las Villas”:

Caibarién: 5-1
Remedios: 5-2
Canajuani: 2-4
Sagua: 1-6

On December 30, 1907, La Lucha mentioned these players as members of the Caibarién team who were leaving to take part in the campeonato nacional: Conrado Rodríguez (nicknamed “General Sagua”), Juan Quiveiro, and Pedro Olave.

On January 4, 1908, La Lucha reported two games as “los últimos juegos celebrados en las Villas en opción al campeonato de la provincia”: an 11-5 victory by Remedios over Sagua on December 29, and a 1-0 win by Caibarién over Sagua on January 1.  I assume this means these were the last games of the season.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t looking for this particular league, so I cut off the final standings in my photocopy (though I can easily check the next time I’m at the library).