Here’s one of the passenger manifests for ships from Cuba to the United States that Patrick Rock has been working with. This ship, the S.S. Merida, departed just after the close of the 1907 Cuban League season, and carried both African-American players (Foster, Hill, Johnson, Buckner, McClellan, plus the wives of Foster, Hill, and Johnson) returning home and Abel Linares’s Cuban Stars club, on its way to a summer of barnstorming across the U.S. The ship arrived in New York on April 19, 1907.
(click to enlarge)
Here’s a detail of the Cuban ballplayers:
And the African-American players:
This gives us a roster for the 1907 Cuban Stars, to go along with the ones Jerry Kuntz has put together for the 1899-1905 All-Cubans:
Luis Padrón (listed as manager, interestingly)
Pedro Medina
Ezequiel Ramos
Rafael Almeida
Rafael Figarola
Luis Bustamante
Francisco Morán
Bernardo Carrillo
Luis González
Inocencio Pérez
José Magriñat
Neither Patrick nor I can make out the final player’s surname, except that it seems to start with a “V.” His first name seems to be Luciano; that doesn’t match any Cuban player of the time I’m aware of. See what you think. (I’ll check the Chicago Tribune for 1907 Cuban Stars’ box scores, to see if that helps, but won’t be able to get to that for a few days.)
They also list ages, heights, and places of birth (though that’s half-obscured). Rafael Almeida, the future major leaguer, is the tallest, at 5’10”. Also notice his age, given as 23. According to his official baseball age, he was supposed to have been 19 at this time. However, Patrick notes that these ages (like the heights) could be guesses or approximations by somebody else, possibly a club official or even a customs officer.
UPDATE 10:19 p.m. Sorry, I can’t seem to upload the image large enough to be readable. I’ll see what I can do tomorrow. OK, added details of the names (4/20/07).
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