Courtesy of Brian Campf, here is a photograph of the 1902 Cuban Giants, from the pages of a 1903 issue of Tip Top Weekly, a publication aimed at kids and primarily known as the original vehicle for the Frank Merriwell serials.
Brian wondered what (if anything) I knew about these players. Here goes:
1) Green is probably not Pete Green, a Brooklyn high school graduate whom I’ve got born in 1891. However, there is some reason to think that Pete Green might have been several years older than that, in fact just old enough to be playing professionally in 1903, so stay tuned.
2) William “Hippo” Galloway, who as a third baseman for the Woodstock club of the Canadian League in 1899 was the last (known) black player in organized baseball until Jackie Robinson (give or take Charlie Grant in 1901, Jimmy Claxton in 1916, and any number of Cubans). It would probably be most accurate to say that Galloway was the last openly black player in organized baseball.
3) I don’t know anything about Day yet, but I have seen his name in plenty of box scores.
4) Sampson was evidently nicknamed “Clam Hand,” but other than that I’ve got nothing.
5) The outfielder “King” Kelly was supposed to be a “funny coacher,” but I don’t have his first name yet.
6) John García was a Cuban-born catcher who grew up in the United States. He would die from a heart attack suffered during a game in 1904. I wrote an article about him in the Outsider Baseball Bulletin in 2010.
7) John “Pop” Watkins was, of course, a very well-known coach who organized a number of second-tier teams up and down the east coast, most notably the Havana Red Sox. He discovered and developed a number of future stars, such as Phil Cockrell, Toussaint Allen, Dennis Graham, and George Dixon. I wrote a series of posts on him a few years ago.
8) I know nothing about the shortstop Bolan other than his name.
9) Wallace Clifford Gordon was an infielder from Painesville, Ohio. His career has been attributed to the catcher/first baseman Sam Gordon, who was from West Virginia. Wallace Gordon played for the Cuban Giants for many years. He was standing next to William Bedford when Bedford was killed by lightning at Inlet Park in Atlantic City in 1909. (That makes two Cuban Giants players who died in on-field incidents in the 1900s.) At the end of his career he played for the Indianapolis ABCs in 1914 and 1915, and published poetry in the Indianapolis Ledger.
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