Two additional notes on nineteenth-century Cuban baseball.
1) The first recorded baseball game in Cuban history, played between Habana and Matanzas on December 27, 1874, apparently featured nine men per side.
2) The Clipper printed two more Cuban box scores in the following issue (April 1, 1882), both showing ten-man teams (in the second game, Fe is mistakenly listed with two “right-shorts” and no right fielder):
I think it’s fairly clear that the “Championship” competition between Habana and Fe is what we now know as the 1882 Cuban League. The second game here, between Fe and Habana, took place on March 12, which Jorge Figueredo lists as the final day of the 1882 season. The championship series, moreover, started on January 22, which he gives as the season’s first day; and Fe won three games to Habana’s one, just as in the 1882 standings in Figueredo.
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