As a follow up to David Skinner’s remarks on the significance of Luis Padrón’s appearance in the 1906 South Atlantic League, here are three articles pertaining to Padrón’s stint with the Mansfield Brownies of the Class D Ohio-Pennsylvania League in 1911. Thanks to Scott Simkus, who found this material first and let me know about it.
Some background: Padrón, along with another Cuban, pitcher Julián “Fallanca” Pérez, was brought to Mansfield by the Brownies’ new manager, former major leaguer Eddie Hahn. They had worked together before; Padrón had played for Hahn’s Red Sox in the 1910 Chicago City League, and Hahn had been in the White Sox outfield in 1909, when Padrón had tried out for the team.
On May 20, two weeks after Padrón’s first appearance with the club, the Mansfield News ran the following item in a column called “Stories of the Town and Times,” not on the sports page and evidently written by someone other than the paper’s usual sports reporter. Its representation of Padrón’s broken English is not all that convincing, but otherwise it’s an affecting portrait, and one that I think rings true. Among many other things, we learn that Luis Padrón was born in Mexico:
Padrón played well for Mansfield, mostly as an outfielder, and earned plaudits as the team’s best player. Here are his final statistics, as published by the Mansfield News (July 8, 1911):
Batting:
G: 60
AB: 221
H: 68
D: 10
T: 5*
HR: 7*
R: 37*
BB: 18
SO: 42*
SB: 22*
SH: 5
AVE: .308
(* = led team at time of release)
Pitching:
G: 4
W: 1
L: 1
HA: 26 (innings not given)
BB: 9
SO: 11
Meanwhile, the Mansfield club became embroiled in a dispute with the Chicago White Sox over the rights to manager Eddie Hahn. Comiskey still claimed Hahn, per the reserve clause, and demanded compensation for Hahn's services—more than Mansfield could afford to pay. The dispute dragged on for months, until finally, on July 10, the Mansfield News reported that Hahn had given up and left for his home in Nevada.
Not coincidentally, I’m sure, Padrón had been released shortly before, on July 7 (Pérez having been cut loose a few days before that). Padrón must have seen some bitter irony in the fact that his release came just three days after Armando Marsans and Rafael Almeida of the Cincinnati Reds became the first Cubans to play in the major leagues since Esteban Bellán in 1873.
This article ran in the Mansfield News on July 8 (the original is too faded to reproduce):
NO CUBAN PLAYERS NOW WITH MANSFIELD
Padrone is Handed Release and Joins Fallonca [sic]—Some New Players are to be SecuredNo longer are any Cuban players connected with the Mansfield baseball team. Padrone, the dark-skinned slugger from the sunny isle, joined the ranks of those who have played with the Brownies when he was handed his release Friday, following the return of the club from the trip abroad. It was really no surprise, as it appears that his release comes for the good of the club and baseball in Mansfield.
When he first came to Mansfield, Padrone took care of himself and also played a good game of ball. His hitting was his most valuable asset although he was likewise a good fielder and had a good arm. It took a little time for the pitchers of the league to find a weakness in his batting, but when they once did find it, the Cuban began to strike out as often as any player on the team, if not oftener. His popularity caused him to pull off stunts on the ball field that would not have been endured for a minute had any other player attempted them. He failed to keep in condition and thus tended to demoralize the team. It seems that the management has made a wise move in letting the Cuban go.
(“Failing to keep in condition” could be a euphemism for drinking.) My feeling is that these remarks, which merely continue what the paper’s sports page had been saying about Padrón for several weeks, reflect the opinions of some of the white players on the team. Who’s going to complain about special treatment for the “popular” player (who also happened to be the team’s best player)? Probably other players. Reading between the lines, it seems to me that a clique of players, possibly holdovers from previous seasons, resented Eddie Hahn, the former major leaguer brought in with some fanfare, and his “popular” Cuban import, and that they wasted few opportunities to badmouth Padrón to the local baseball reporter.
However, a newspaper in a rival Ohio-Pennsylvania League town, New Castle, Pennsylvania, adds a crucial ingredient that goes unmentioned in the Mansfield News. Here we have one of the most explicit contemporary discussions of how perceptions of Padrón’s racial identity hampered his career in the United States (New Castle News, July 12, 1911):
The important thing about Padrón is that his supposed blackness was openly discussed in the U.S., in print, over and over again during his career—and yet he still kept trying to get ahead in organized ball, and somehow kept making opportunities for himself, even in the South, where, as David said the other day, it could have been illegal for a black man to play baseball on the same field as whites.
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