Today I am posting statistics I compiled for the 1905 Premio de Verano (Summer Championship), a.k.a. the Cuban Summer League.
This league has occasionally been mentioned in English-language publications on Cuban baseball, but to my knowledge nobody has ever published statistics for it. The Cuban League, of course, held its main championship season in the fall and winter, usually from November or December through March or April, though the schedule varied greatly from year to year. During the years 1904 to 1906 (the only years I’ve looked at so far, but the summer league definitely operated in other years, going back at least to the 1890s), the Cuban League’s three clubs each entered a team in the summer championship.
Since at this time the summer usually saw the Almendares club tour the United States under the name “All-Cubans,” Almendares had to hire virtually a whole new team from the provinces or the amateur league. The other two clubs, Habana and Fe, fielded mostly their regular lineups, with the exception of one or two of their top pitchers. So the summer league was an interesting mix, sort of a minor league that also featured many of the “major leaguers” from the regular season.
In 1905, the Almendares summer squad was known as “Azul”; the team organized by Fe was known as “Alerta” (it was also referred to as “Carmelita,” Fe’s nickname); and the Habana club was called “Eminencia.” Eminencia was a cigar brand; it’s possible the cigar company was the team’s sponsor, though I don’t know that for certain.
The summer league meant that Cuban baseball was truly a year-round affair in those years. The summer season ran from July 9, less than two months after the 1904/05 winter season had concluded (May 14), to October 19, only four days before the Cuban X-Giants arrived to inaugurate the 1905/06 winter season. The schedule was only 20 games per team. All games (as far as I know) were played in Almendares Park.
Alerta took the pennant easily, winning their last 10 games to finish 15-5. A rookie pitcher named Luis González went 11-0 for Alerta; in the following winter season, he led Fe to the championship with a league-leading 10 wins.
The file I’ve posted is pretty much the same as other files, with one exception: a new tab, called simply “Games,” which contains all the game data I enter from the box scores. This is what I call the “source” file, from which I then compile statistics. Since this season is short, the file’s not prohibitively large; and I thought it might be interesting for people to see the games in detail. About the only thing that’s not here is the inning by inning line score.
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