Author: Adrian Burgos
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 0809094797
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 292
Book Description
Shares the story of Negro League team owner Alex Pompez's founding of a notorious Harlem numbers racket as part of his efforts to finance the New York Cubans, describing his role in retaining the team throughout integration, transitioning players to the majors, and achieving a Negro League World Series Championship.
Cuban Star
Author: Adrian Burgos
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 0809094797
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 292
Book Description
Shares the story of Negro League team owner Alex Pompez's founding of a notorious Harlem numbers racket as part of his efforts to finance the New York Cubans, describing his role in retaining the team throughout integration, transitioning players to the majors, and achieving a Negro League World Series Championship.
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 0809094797
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 292
Book Description
Shares the story of Negro League team owner Alex Pompez's founding of a notorious Harlem numbers racket as part of his efforts to finance the New York Cubans, describing his role in retaining the team throughout integration, transitioning players to the majors, and achieving a Negro League World Series Championship.
Isabel “Lefty” Alvarez
Author: Kat D. Williams
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 1496218825
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 203
Book Description
Kat D. Williams traces Isabel “Lefty” Alvarez’s life from her childhood in Cuba, where she played baseball with the boys on the streets of El Cerro, to her reinvention as a professional baseball player and American citizen. Isabel “Lefty” Alvarez gives the reader a look into Alvarez’s young life in Cuba during the turbulent years leading up to Castro’s revolution, as political differences tore families apart. Alvarez came to the United States at fifteen, speaking no English, and experienced the challenge of immigration as her mother pushed her to become a professional athlete in her newly adopted country. Through all the changes and upheaval, Alvarez found acceptance and success as a player in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, where she was called “the Rascal of El Cerro.” After the league ended, Alvarez struggled with an undiagnosed learning disability that limited her options. She persevered and reinvented herself as a factory worker but later battled alcoholism and depression until baseball returned to her life and she was able to reconnect with her former teammates and become part of the active community of former players. Alvarez’s life story illustrates the struggle and strength of a young Latina immigrant and the importance of sport to her transition to her new country and her enduring identity.
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 1496218825
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 203
Book Description
Kat D. Williams traces Isabel “Lefty” Alvarez’s life from her childhood in Cuba, where she played baseball with the boys on the streets of El Cerro, to her reinvention as a professional baseball player and American citizen. Isabel “Lefty” Alvarez gives the reader a look into Alvarez’s young life in Cuba during the turbulent years leading up to Castro’s revolution, as political differences tore families apart. Alvarez came to the United States at fifteen, speaking no English, and experienced the challenge of immigration as her mother pushed her to become a professional athlete in her newly adopted country. Through all the changes and upheaval, Alvarez found acceptance and success as a player in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, where she was called “the Rascal of El Cerro.” After the league ended, Alvarez struggled with an undiagnosed learning disability that limited her options. She persevered and reinvented herself as a factory worker but later battled alcoholism and depression until baseball returned to her life and she was able to reconnect with her former teammates and become part of the active community of former players. Alvarez’s life story illustrates the struggle and strength of a young Latina immigrant and the importance of sport to her transition to her new country and her enduring identity.
Havana Hardball
Author: César Brioso
Publisher: University Press of Florida
ISBN: 0813059526
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 284
Book Description
In February 1947, the most memorable season in the history of the Cuban League finished with a dramatic series win by Almendares against its rival, Habana. As the celebration spread through the streets of Havana and across Cuba, the Brooklyn Dodgers were beginning spring training on the island. One of the Dodgers' minor league players was Jackie Robinson. He was on the verge of making his major-league debut in the United States, an event that would fundamentally change sports--and America. To avoid harassment from the white crowds in Florida during this critical preseason, the Dodgers relocated their spring training to Cuba, where black and white teammates had played side by side since 1900. It was also during this time that Major League Baseball was trying its hardest to bring the "outlaw" Cuban League under the control of organized baseball. As the Cubans fought to stay independent, Robinson worked to earn a roster spot on the Dodgers in the face of discrimination from his future teammates. Havana Hardball captures the excitement of the Cuban League's greatest pennant race and the anticipation of the looming challenge to MLB's color barrier. Illuminating one of the sport's most pivotal seasons, veteran journalist César Brioso brings together a rich mix of worlds as the heyday of Latino baseball converged with one of the most socially meaningful events in U.S. history.
Publisher: University Press of Florida
ISBN: 0813059526
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 284
Book Description
In February 1947, the most memorable season in the history of the Cuban League finished with a dramatic series win by Almendares against its rival, Habana. As the celebration spread through the streets of Havana and across Cuba, the Brooklyn Dodgers were beginning spring training on the island. One of the Dodgers' minor league players was Jackie Robinson. He was on the verge of making his major-league debut in the United States, an event that would fundamentally change sports--and America. To avoid harassment from the white crowds in Florida during this critical preseason, the Dodgers relocated their spring training to Cuba, where black and white teammates had played side by side since 1900. It was also during this time that Major League Baseball was trying its hardest to bring the "outlaw" Cuban League under the control of organized baseball. As the Cubans fought to stay independent, Robinson worked to earn a roster spot on the Dodgers in the face of discrimination from his future teammates. Havana Hardball captures the excitement of the Cuban League's greatest pennant race and the anticipation of the looming challenge to MLB's color barrier. Illuminating one of the sport's most pivotal seasons, veteran journalist César Brioso brings together a rich mix of worlds as the heyday of Latino baseball converged with one of the most socially meaningful events in U.S. history.
Dreaming in Cuban
Author: Cristina García
Publisher: Ballantine Books
ISBN: 0307798003
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 274
Book Description
“Impressive . . . [Cristina García’s] story is about three generations of Cuban women and their separate responses to the revolution. Her special feat is to tell it in a style as warm and gentle as the ‘sustaining aromas of vanilla and almond,’ as rhythmic as the music of Beny Moré.”—Time Cristina García’s acclaimed book is the haunting, bittersweet story of a family experiencing a country’s revolution and the revelations that follow. The lives of Celia del Pino and her husband, daughters, and grandchildren mirror the magical realism of Cuba itself, a landscape of beauty and poverty, idealism and corruption. Dreaming in Cuban is “a work that possesses both the intimacy of a Chekov story and the hallucinatory magic of a novel by Gabriel García Márquez” (The New York Times). In celebration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the novel’s original publication, this edition features a new introduction by the author. Praise for Dreaming in Cuban “Remarkable . . . an intricate weaving of dramatic events with the supernatural and the cosmic . . . evocative and lush.”—San Francisco Chronicle “Captures the pain, the distance, the frustrations and the dreams of these family dramas with a vivid, poetic prose.”—The Washington Post “Brilliant . . . With tremendous skill, passion and humor, García just may have written the definitive story of Cuban exiles and some of those they left behind.”—The Denver Post
Publisher: Ballantine Books
ISBN: 0307798003
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 274
Book Description
“Impressive . . . [Cristina García’s] story is about three generations of Cuban women and their separate responses to the revolution. Her special feat is to tell it in a style as warm and gentle as the ‘sustaining aromas of vanilla and almond,’ as rhythmic as the music of Beny Moré.”—Time Cristina García’s acclaimed book is the haunting, bittersweet story of a family experiencing a country’s revolution and the revelations that follow. The lives of Celia del Pino and her husband, daughters, and grandchildren mirror the magical realism of Cuba itself, a landscape of beauty and poverty, idealism and corruption. Dreaming in Cuban is “a work that possesses both the intimacy of a Chekov story and the hallucinatory magic of a novel by Gabriel García Márquez” (The New York Times). In celebration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the novel’s original publication, this edition features a new introduction by the author. Praise for Dreaming in Cuban “Remarkable . . . an intricate weaving of dramatic events with the supernatural and the cosmic . . . evocative and lush.”—San Francisco Chronicle “Captures the pain, the distance, the frustrations and the dreams of these family dramas with a vivid, poetic prose.”—The Washington Post “Brilliant . . . With tremendous skill, passion and humor, García just may have written the definitive story of Cuban exiles and some of those they left behind.”—The Denver Post
Sport in Cuba
Author: Paula J. Pettavino
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Pre
ISBN: 0822974592
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 319
Book Description
No aspect of Cuban life more clearly epitomizes their government's emphasis on image-building and individual participation than the system of physical culture and competitive athletics. Indeed the Cuban record in international athletics is the most universally recognized success of the communist revolution, as indicated by the Cuban arrival in the 1972 Olympics and the 1991 Pan-American Games, when Cuba beat the United States in the gold medal tally, dominating boxing, baseball, and winning the marathon. The fruits of the Cuban sports system were again in evidence at the Barcelona Olympics of 1992, despite the severe deprivation caused by the collapse of the island's socialist allies.In spite of the obvious success and political importance of sport in Cuba, very little has been written on the subject. Sport in Cuba closes this gap. In the first major study on the Cuban system of sports and physical culture, Paula J. Pettvino and Geralyn Pye analyze how sports was given such a high priority in Cuba, how the country became a world power by the mid-1970s, and the impact of sports on Cuban society. Moving from the early days when the government's approach to sports was loosely defined, through the construction of a complex system of physical culture, to the current years of uncertainty, Sport in Cuba utilizes both archival sources and personal interviews. It will be of interest to Latin Americanists and students of sports.
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Pre
ISBN: 0822974592
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 319
Book Description
No aspect of Cuban life more clearly epitomizes their government's emphasis on image-building and individual participation than the system of physical culture and competitive athletics. Indeed the Cuban record in international athletics is the most universally recognized success of the communist revolution, as indicated by the Cuban arrival in the 1972 Olympics and the 1991 Pan-American Games, when Cuba beat the United States in the gold medal tally, dominating boxing, baseball, and winning the marathon. The fruits of the Cuban sports system were again in evidence at the Barcelona Olympics of 1992, despite the severe deprivation caused by the collapse of the island's socialist allies.In spite of the obvious success and political importance of sport in Cuba, very little has been written on the subject. Sport in Cuba closes this gap. In the first major study on the Cuban system of sports and physical culture, Paula J. Pettvino and Geralyn Pye analyze how sports was given such a high priority in Cuba, how the country became a world power by the mid-1970s, and the impact of sports on Cuban society. Moving from the early days when the government's approach to sports was loosely defined, through the construction of a complex system of physical culture, to the current years of uncertainty, Sport in Cuba utilizes both archival sources and personal interviews. It will be of interest to Latin Americanists and students of sports.
Cuba's Baseball Defectors
Author: Peter Costa Bjarkman
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1442247991
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 388
Book Description
“Takes an inside look into the wave of player departures that has rocked the game both in Cuba and the U.S., while providing historical perspective.” —USA Today The stellar play and fascinating backstories of exiled Cuban sluggers and hurlers has become part of Major League Baseball history. On-field exploits by colorful Dodgers outfielder Yasiel Puig, AL rookie-of-the-year José Abreu, home run derby champion Yoenis Céspedes, radar-gun busting Cincinnati fast-baller Aroldis Chapman, and a handful of others have been further enhanced by feel-good tales of desperate Cuban superstars risking their lives to escape Fidel Castro’s communist realm and chase an American Dream of financial and athletic success. But a truly ugly underbelly to this story has also slowly emerged—one that involves human smuggling operations financed by Miami crime syndicates, operated by Mexican drug cartels, and conveniently ignored by ball clubs endlessly searching for fresh waves of international talent. Given rare access to Cuba and its ballplayers, Peter C. Bjarkman has spent over twenty years traveling to all corners of the island getting to know the top Cuban stars and witnessing their struggles and triumphs. In this book, Bjarkman places events in the context of Cuban baseball history and tradition before delving into the stories of the major Cuban stars who have left the island. He reveals their personal histories, explains the events that led them to defect from their homeland, and details their harrowing journeys to US shores. Players whose big-league dreams failed are also discussed, as are Cuba’s efforts to stem the defection tide through working agreements with the Japanese and Mexican leagues. Cuba’s Baseball Defectors will fascinate baseball fans, those interested in the history of US-Cuba relations, and those wanting to learn more about the unsavory story of human trafficking in the name of baseball glory. “A revelation . . . an original social history for sports enthusiasts and readers interested in past and future Cuba–U.S. ties.” —Library Journal Includes photos
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1442247991
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 388
Book Description
“Takes an inside look into the wave of player departures that has rocked the game both in Cuba and the U.S., while providing historical perspective.” —USA Today The stellar play and fascinating backstories of exiled Cuban sluggers and hurlers has become part of Major League Baseball history. On-field exploits by colorful Dodgers outfielder Yasiel Puig, AL rookie-of-the-year José Abreu, home run derby champion Yoenis Céspedes, radar-gun busting Cincinnati fast-baller Aroldis Chapman, and a handful of others have been further enhanced by feel-good tales of desperate Cuban superstars risking their lives to escape Fidel Castro’s communist realm and chase an American Dream of financial and athletic success. But a truly ugly underbelly to this story has also slowly emerged—one that involves human smuggling operations financed by Miami crime syndicates, operated by Mexican drug cartels, and conveniently ignored by ball clubs endlessly searching for fresh waves of international talent. Given rare access to Cuba and its ballplayers, Peter C. Bjarkman has spent over twenty years traveling to all corners of the island getting to know the top Cuban stars and witnessing their struggles and triumphs. In this book, Bjarkman places events in the context of Cuban baseball history and tradition before delving into the stories of the major Cuban stars who have left the island. He reveals their personal histories, explains the events that led them to defect from their homeland, and details their harrowing journeys to US shores. Players whose big-league dreams failed are also discussed, as are Cuba’s efforts to stem the defection tide through working agreements with the Japanese and Mexican leagues. Cuba’s Baseball Defectors will fascinate baseball fans, those interested in the history of US-Cuba relations, and those wanting to learn more about the unsavory story of human trafficking in the name of baseball glory. “A revelation . . . an original social history for sports enthusiasts and readers interested in past and future Cuba–U.S. ties.” —Library Journal Includes photos
The Pride of Havana
Author: Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019028711X
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 513
Book Description
From the first amateur leagues of the 1860s to the exploits of Livan and Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez, here is the definitive history of baseball in Cuba. Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria expertly traces the arc of the game, intertwining its heroes and their stories with the politics, music, dance, and literature of the Cuban people. What emerges is more than a story of balls and strikes, but a richly detailed history of Cuba told from the unique cultural perch of the baseball diamond. Filling a void created by Cuba's rejection of bullfighting and Spanish hegemony, baseball quickly became a crucial stitch in the complex social fabric of the island. By the early 1940s Cuba had become major conduit in spreading the game throughout Latin America, and a proving ground for some of the greatest talent in all of baseball, where white major leaguers and Negro League players from the U.S. all competed on the same fields with the cream of Latin talent. Indeed, readers will be introduced to several black ballplayers of Afro-Cuban descent who played in the Major Leagues before Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier once and for all. Often dramatic, and always culturally resonant, Gonzalez Echevarria's narrative expertly lays open the paradox of fierce Cuban independence from the U.S. with Cuba's love for our national pastime. It shows how Fidel Castro cannily associated himself with the sport for patriotic p.r.--and reveals that his supposed baseball talent is purely mythical. Based on extensive primary research and a wealth of interviews, the colorful, often dramatic anecdotes and stories in this distinguished book comprise the most comprehensive history of Cuban baseball yet published and ultimately adds a vital lost chapter to the history of baseball in the U.S.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019028711X
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 513
Book Description
From the first amateur leagues of the 1860s to the exploits of Livan and Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez, here is the definitive history of baseball in Cuba. Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria expertly traces the arc of the game, intertwining its heroes and their stories with the politics, music, dance, and literature of the Cuban people. What emerges is more than a story of balls and strikes, but a richly detailed history of Cuba told from the unique cultural perch of the baseball diamond. Filling a void created by Cuba's rejection of bullfighting and Spanish hegemony, baseball quickly became a crucial stitch in the complex social fabric of the island. By the early 1940s Cuba had become major conduit in spreading the game throughout Latin America, and a proving ground for some of the greatest talent in all of baseball, where white major leaguers and Negro League players from the U.S. all competed on the same fields with the cream of Latin talent. Indeed, readers will be introduced to several black ballplayers of Afro-Cuban descent who played in the Major Leagues before Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier once and for all. Often dramatic, and always culturally resonant, Gonzalez Echevarria's narrative expertly lays open the paradox of fierce Cuban independence from the U.S. with Cuba's love for our national pastime. It shows how Fidel Castro cannily associated himself with the sport for patriotic p.r.--and reveals that his supposed baseball talent is purely mythical. Based on extensive primary research and a wealth of interviews, the colorful, often dramatic anecdotes and stories in this distinguished book comprise the most comprehensive history of Cuban baseball yet published and ultimately adds a vital lost chapter to the history of baseball in the U.S.
Invisible Men
Author: Donn Rogosin
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 1496224248
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 233
Book Description
On Feb. 13, 1920, a group of independent black baseball team owners held a meeting at a YMCA in Kansas City, Missouri. While they couldn't have known at the time that they were about to change the course of American history, it was out of that meeting that the Negro National League was born. The league flourished throughout the 1920s and beyond, becoming the first successful, organized professional black baseball league in the country. By providing a playing field for African American and Hispanic baseball players to showcase their world-class baseball abilities, it became a force that provided cohesion and a source of pride in black communities. Among them were the legendary pitchers Smokey Joe Williams, whose fastball seemed to "come off a mountain top," Satchel Paige, the ageless wonder who pitched for five decades, and such hitters as Josh Gibson, Buck Leonard, and Oscar Charleston, whose talents as players may have even been surpassed by their total commitment to their profession and hardiness. Leading the leagues were memorable characters like Gus Greenlee of the Pittsburgh Crawfords and Effa Manley of the Newark Eagles. Although their games were ignored by white-owned newspapers and radio stations, black ballplayers and their teams became folk heroes in cities such as Chicago, Kansas City, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, New York, and Washington DC, where the teams drew large crowds and became major contributors to the local community life, with influence extending far beyond the baseball fields. This memorable narrative, filled with the memories of many surviving Negro League players, pulls the veil off these "invisible men" who were forced into the segregated leagues. What emerges is a glorious chapter in African American history and an often overlooked aspect of our American past.
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 1496224248
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 233
Book Description
On Feb. 13, 1920, a group of independent black baseball team owners held a meeting at a YMCA in Kansas City, Missouri. While they couldn't have known at the time that they were about to change the course of American history, it was out of that meeting that the Negro National League was born. The league flourished throughout the 1920s and beyond, becoming the first successful, organized professional black baseball league in the country. By providing a playing field for African American and Hispanic baseball players to showcase their world-class baseball abilities, it became a force that provided cohesion and a source of pride in black communities. Among them were the legendary pitchers Smokey Joe Williams, whose fastball seemed to "come off a mountain top," Satchel Paige, the ageless wonder who pitched for five decades, and such hitters as Josh Gibson, Buck Leonard, and Oscar Charleston, whose talents as players may have even been surpassed by their total commitment to their profession and hardiness. Leading the leagues were memorable characters like Gus Greenlee of the Pittsburgh Crawfords and Effa Manley of the Newark Eagles. Although their games were ignored by white-owned newspapers and radio stations, black ballplayers and their teams became folk heroes in cities such as Chicago, Kansas City, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, New York, and Washington DC, where the teams drew large crowds and became major contributors to the local community life, with influence extending far beyond the baseball fields. This memorable narrative, filled with the memories of many surviving Negro League players, pulls the veil off these "invisible men" who were forced into the segregated leagues. What emerges is a glorious chapter in African American history and an often overlooked aspect of our American past.
American Shipping
Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 582
Book Description
Publisher:
ISBN:
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Languages : en
Pages : 582
Book Description
Escape from Castro's Cuba
Author: Tim Wendel
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 149622292X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 264
Book Description
In this visionary sequel to Castro’s Curveball, former Minor League catcher Billy Bryan finds himself back in Havana in 2016 with a small film role. He soon realizes that this place and his past remain as star-crossed as when he played winter ball in the Cuban capital decades before.
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 149622292X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 264
Book Description
In this visionary sequel to Castro’s Curveball, former Minor League catcher Billy Bryan finds himself back in Havana in 2016 with a small film role. He soon realizes that this place and his past remain as star-crossed as when he played winter ball in the Cuban capital decades before.