Here is a disquieting item about how a minor Cuban player evidently came to a bad end (La Lucha, March 21, 1910):
It’s possible I have Augusto Franqui’s entire professional baseball career documented: he played all of two games in the Cuban League proper (for Habana in 1905); I’ve also got him as a pitcher/outfielder in the 1904, 1905, and 1906 summer leagues. He didn’t appear in the 1907 summer league (unpublished).
In the winter league he hit 0 for 4 as a right fielder in two games. In the summer league, he went 5-12 as a pitcher with 42 walks and 61 strikeouts in 146 innings, and hit .100 (8 for 80), with no extra base hits and more walks (11) than hits.
I don’t have any other news about what became of Franqui’s apparent victim, Florencio Rodríguez, or the ultimate fate of Franqui himself. I didn’t find Spanish-language coverage of the incident (though I can’t say, when I copied this, that I was looking specifically for it).
Comments