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fourth of july 1911

One hundred years ago today, Rafael Almeida and Armando Marsans debuted for the Cincinnati Reds against the Cubs in the first game of a doubleheader at West Side Park, Chicago.  The Cubs won, 8 to 3, but both Cubans hit 1 for 2.   

The significance of the Cubans’ appearance is sometimes only vaguely understood.  They were not the first players of Latin American heritage to appear in the big leagues, or the first Cubans (Esteban Bellán and Chick Pedroes were both born in Cuba, and Louis Castro was born in Colombia).  They were the first products of a Latin American professional league, the Cuban League, to get to the majors.  

Cuban Leaguers had been appearing in the North American minors regularly since Juan Violá joined the Jacksonville Jays of the South Atlantic League in 1904, and of course Cuban professional teams that included black players had been a standard feature of the barnstorming circuit for even longer.  Luis Padrón had very nearly beaten Almeida and Marsans to the punch by two years, trying out for the White Sox on July 22, 1909.

While the arrival of white Cubans in the majors was a major event, it was not as earthshaking as some hoped it would be.  Here’s Lester Walton of the New York Age (September 28, 1911), outlining a strategy for stealth integration that resembles Dave Wyatt and Charlie Grant’s scheme back in 1901:

 

Of course it did not turn out this way.  However - just the previous summer the Indianapolis Freeman had printed a rumor concerning Pete Hill being approached by a major league manager to pass as an Indian or Cuban.

As it happens, on the very same Fourth of July, 1911, while Almeida and Marsans were playing on Chicago’s West Side, the South Side witnessed another doubleheader between professional teams—Frank Leland’s Chicago Giants versus Rube Foster’s brand-new Chicago American Giants, at the old White Sox Park, only recently rechristened Schorling’s Park.  Batting third and playing center field for the American Giants was none other than Pete Hill, who grabbed a home run, a double, and a single in the second game.

Hill, like Almeida and Marsans, was a veteran of the Cuban League, having at this point played four full seasons there.  Here’s how Almeida, Marsans, and Hill hit in the Cuban League from 1906/07 (Hill’s first season) through 1910/11:

•Almeida: 111 games, .211/.242/.242
•Marsans: 126 games, .245/.326/.295
•Hill: 117 games, .307/.411/.404

Here’s how the trio hit against major league teams in Cuba from 1908 through 1910:

•Almeida: 25 games, .286/.343/.308
•Marsans: 26 games, .194/.262/.235
•Hill: 24 games, .351/.462/.468

Combining Cuban League and major league exhibitions, here are their full batting lines in Cuba against roughly similar opposition from the 1906/07 through 1910/11 winter seasons.  Keep in mind that all games counted here were played in the same ballpark, Almendares Park:



And Hill was not the only black American player who was clearly superior to Almeida and Marsans at the time, based on their records in Cuba.  In fact, nobody who knew anything about Cuban baseball would have thought that Almeida and Marsans were even the best Cuban players or prospects.  Certainly in 1911 José Méndez, Julián Castillo, Carlos Morán, Regino García, Eustaquio Pedroso, and Gervasio González, at the very least, would have been ranked ahead of them.  But they, like Hill and the other Negro league stars, were all too dark to be considered for organized baseball in the U.S.  So, while Fourth of July 1911 can be considered a milestone of sorts, it also stands as a monument to opportunities lost and denied, and injustice perpetuated.

NOTE: Images of the 1909 Cuban baseball cards for Almeida, Marsans, and Hill are from Cubanball.com’s fantastic page showing the cards from the Cabañas set commemorating the Detroit Tigers’ visit to Havana that fall.

baseball ages: armando marsans

The official baseball birth date for Armando Marsans is October 3, 1887.  This would have made him 17 when he played his first Cuban League game on April 3, 1905.

The same Washington Post article (February 4, 1912) I cited in the post about Almeida says this about Marsans: “He was born in Matanzas, 55 miles from Havana, in 1885, being the same age as Almeida.”  And Peter T. Toot writes in his biography of Marsans that he “was born in Matanzas, Cuba….on October 3, 1885” (p. 8), although on the same page he says Marsans was 18 when he debuted for Almendares in 1905 (consistent with a birth date of October 3, 1886).

Here are some ages and implied birth dates from passenger lists (assuming his birthday of October 3 is correct):

--Arriving in New York on May 20, 1905: listed as 21, thus born October 3, 1883
--April 17, 1908: 23, thus October 3, 1884
--December 15, 1908: 23, thus October 3, 1885
--April 21, 1911: 25, thus October 3, 1885
--June 25, 1911: 25, thus October 3, 1885
--March 17, 1913: 26…October 3, 1885
--July 24, 1914: 27…October 3, 1886
--April 7, 1915: 28…October 3, 1886
--March 25, 1916: 29…October 3, 1886
--February 5, 1917: 30…October 3, 1886
--July 11, 1923: 36…October 3, 1886
--March 5, 1924: 35…October 3, 1888

Also: according to the Post, both Marsans and Almeida had come to U.S. as children with their privileged families, temporarily fleeing the turmoil of the Cuban Revolution in the 1890s.  As it happens, I was able to find an Armando Marsans arriving in New York from Havana on February 5, 1897, traveling with his mother and two brothers, Raúl and Mario.  Armando is listed here as 10 years old (again, consistent with a birth date of October 3, 1886).

Image of Marsans from this site, again.

baseball ages: rafael almeida

Another example of an early Cuban player in the U.S. who may have adjusted his age for professional purposes is Rafael Almeida, one of the pair of Cincinnati Reds (the other being Armando Marsans) who on July 4, 1911, became the first Cuban League products to play in the major leagues.

Almeida’s official baseball birth date is July 30, 1887.  This would have made him 16 when he made his first Cuban League appearance in the 1903/04 season (actually played in early 1904), and still 16 when he first traveled to the United States with the All-Cubans in April.  When Almeida was purchased by the Reds in 1911 at the supposed age of 23 (almost 24), he had already been playing professionally in the U.S., off and on, for seven years.

These are the ages recorded for Almeida on passenger lists I’ve found, with the birth date they imply (assuming the birthday July 30 is correct):

Arriving in the United States April 26, 1904: 22, thus July 30, 1881
November 17, 1904: 22, thus July 30, 1882
May 20, 1905: 23, thus July 30, 1881
April 19, 1907: 23…July 30, 1883
June 10, 1908: 23…July 30, 1883
December 15, 1908: 25…July 30, 1883
May 1, 1909: 24…July 30, 1884
July 15, 1910: 25…July 30, 1884
June 25, 1911: 26…July 30, 1884
April 4, 1912: 27…July 30, 1884
March 17, 1913: 27….July 30, 1885
May 17, 1915: 29…July 30, 1885
May 14, 1916: 29…July 30, 1886
March 19, 1920: 35…July 30, 1884

An article about Almeida and Marsans in the Washington Post (February 4, 1912) says that Almeida “was born in Havana in 1885.”

The upshot is that, so far, every age I’ve found reported for Almeida during his playing career shows him older than his official age.

UPDATE 1:02 p.m.  Image of Almeida added from this site.