The great Cuban shortstop and manager Pelayo Chacón, a defensive wizard, Cuban League star, and mainstay of many Cuban Stars teams in the 1910s and 1920s, had two sons who grew up to be ballplayers. Pelayo Jr. played in Venezuela and Mexico in the 1950s, and Elio Chacón (of “yo la tengo” fame) was a shortstop for the Mets in that team’s early years. Both Elio and the younger Pelayo were born in Venezuela (Elio in 1936, Pelayo in 1933), where their father moved in the early 1930s.
Chacón may really have had three ballplaying sons, though.
In 1930, Pelayo Chacón was player-manager of the Stars of Cuba, a team that played on the east coast of the U.S., more or less taking the place of Alejandro Pompez’s disbanded Cuban Stars team. On Sunday, September 14, 1930, the Stars split a doubleheader at Yankee Stadium with the Lincoln Giants. According to the New York Amsterdam News, “Manager Chacon, who has been one of the best shortstops in the country for twenty years, had his son playing third base.” In the first game the elder Chacón hit 1 for 3 and scored three runs while his son went 1 for 4 and contributed seven assists. The Stars walloped the Lincolns (a very good team that year) 13 to 3. In the second they each contributed a single as the Stars fell 5 to 1.
(New York Amsterdam News, September 17, 1930, p. 12)
A few days later the Baltimore Afro-American printed the same article under a headline about the Chacóns’ father-son teamup:
(Afro-American, September 20, 1930, p. 15)
Clearly this Pelayo Jr. cannot be the one born in Venezuela in 1933. So who was he?
Unfortunately I haven’t been able to locate him in any records. Here is the Stars of Cuba team arriving in Key West from Cuba on April 14, 1930, with only the one Chacón. Of the other players, I’ve found no indication that any of them might be Chacón’s son (although Jesús Tuero is not known to me apart from this list).
It does, however, seem that the elder Chacón was probably married twice. For years leading up to 1930, passenger lists give his nearest relative or contact as his wife (and she also travelled with him from Cuba to the United States a couple of times). Her name is usually given as Beatriz Chacón, although she is once listed as “Beatrice Guerra Chacon,” which may indicate that “Guerra” was her maiden name.
(Pelayo Chacón’s “friend or relative” on 1915 passenger list)
(Beatriz and Pelayo traveling together from Havana to Key West in 1925)
On September 25, 1940, the following family arrived in Puerto Rico from Venezuela aboard the SS Cuba:
The 29-year-old Corina was evidently Pelayo’s wife and the mother of the children listed below her, which include young Pelayo and Elio. (“De Chacon” would be a way of indicating that Corina was married to Chacón. Since the children’s matronym is Rodríguez, Corina’s name might be more formally rendered as Corina Rodríguez de Chacón.)
So it looks like Pelayo Chacón had two marriages, to Beatriz Guerra and then to Corina Rodríguez, and it may well be that the first “Pelayo Jr.” was the son of Beatriz (thus a much older half-brother of Elio and the second Pelayo Jr.). That makes sense. Still, I would really like to find more information on him, beyond the reporting on that 1930 doubleheader.
Recent Comments