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Author: César Brioso
Publisher: University Press of Florida
ISBN: 0813059526
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 284
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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.
Author: César Brioso
Publisher: University Press of Florida
ISBN: 0813059526
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 284
Get Book Here
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.
Author: Peter C. Bjarkman
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1538110318
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 400
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Book Description
Few political figures of the modern age have been so vilified as Fidel Castro, and both the vilification and worship generated by the Cuban leader have combined to distort the true image of Castro. The baseball myths attached to Fidel have loomed every bit as large as the skewed political notions that surround him. Castro was never a major league pitching prospect, nor did he destroy the Cuban national pastime in 1962. In Fidel Castro and Baseball: The Untold Story, Peter C. Bjarkman dispels numerous myths about the Cuban leader and his association with baseball. In this groundbreaking study, Bjarkman establishes how Fidel constructed, rather than dismantled, Cuba’s true baseball Golden Age—one that followed rather than preceded the 1959 revolution. Bjarkman also demonstrates that Fidel was not at all unique in “politicizing” baseball as often maintained, since the island sport traces its roots to the 19th-century revolution. Fidel’s avowed devotion to a non-materialist society would ultimately sow the seeds of collapse for the baseball empire he built over more than a half-century, just as the same obsession would finally dismantle the larger social revolution he had painstakingly authored. A fascinating look at a controversial figure and his impact on a major sport, this volume reveals many intriguing insights about Castro and how his love of the game was tied to Cuba’s identity. Fidel Castro and Baseball will appeal to fans of the sport as well as to those interested in Cuba’s enduring association with baseball.
Author: Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195349172
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 513
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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.
Author: César Brioso
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 1496205510
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 303
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Book Description
2020 SABR Baseball Research Award Last Seasons in Havana explores the intersection between Cuba and America’s pastime from the late 1950s to the early 1960s, when Fidel Castro overthrew Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. César Brioso takes the reader through the triumph of the revolution in 1959 and its impact on professional baseball in the seasons immediately following Castro’s rise to power. Baseball in pre?Castro Cuba was enjoying a golden age. The Cuban League, which had been founded in 1878, just two years after the formation of the National League, was thriving under the auspices of organized baseball. Throughout the first half of the twentieth century, players from the Major Leagues, Minor Leagues, and Negro Leagues had come to Cuba to play in the country’s wholly integrated winter baseball league. Cuban teams had come to dominate the annual Caribbean Series tournament, and Havana had joined the highest levels of Minor League Baseball, fielding the Havana Sugar Kings of the Class AAA International League. Confidence was high that Havana might one day have a Major League team of its own. But professional baseball became one of the many victims of Castro’s Communist revolution. American players stopped participating in the Cuban League, and Cuban teams moved to an amateur, state?sponsored model. Focusing on the final three seasons of the Cuban League (1958–61) and the final two seasons of the Havana Sugar Kings (1959–60), Last Seasons in Havana explores how Castro’s rise to power forever altered Cuba and the course of a sport that had become ingrained in the island’s culture over the course of almost a century.
Author: Lou Hernández
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476675260
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 219
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Book Description
Roberto "Bobby" Maduro (1916-1986) was a visionary baseball team owner and executive. His dedication to promoting the game internationally from the 1950s through the 1970s remains unrivaled. He headed Havana-based clubs in the Cuban Winter League and teams in the U.S. minor leagues, which helped brand Caribbean baseball in the eyes of North American fans. He co-built the first million-dollar ballpark in Latin America. His Havana stadium was confiscated by Castro's revolution, along with all his accumulated wealth. Maduro began a new life in exile in the U.S., first as a minor league owner, then as a front office executive. He founded the short-lived Inter-American League in 1979, composed of five Caribbean-basin teams and one U.S. entry from his adopted hometown of Miami. Commissioner Bowie Kuhn said of his many achievements, "No one was more dedicated, more knowledgeable or more concerned about the game than Bobby Maduro."
Author: Adrian Burgos, Jr.
Publisher: Hill and Wang
ISBN: 1429961341
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 337
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Book Description
In Cuban Star, an interpretive account of Alejandro "Alex" Pompez's life in context, Adrian Burgos, Jr. follows Pompez's--and baseball's--path through the twentieth century's changing social and racial landscape. When the selection committee voted Alex Pompez into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2006, some cried foul. A Negro-league owner during baseball's glory days, Pompez was known as an early and steadfast advocate for Latino players, helping bring baseball into the modern age. So why was his induction so controversial? Like many in the era of segregated baseball, Pompez found that the game alone could never make all ends meet. To finance his beloved team, the New York Cubans, he delved headlong into a sin many baseball fans find unforgivable—gambling. He built one of the most infamous numbers rackets in Harlem, eventually arousing the ire of the famed prosecutor Thomas Dewey. But he also led his Cubans, with their star lineup of Latino players, to a Negro-league World Series championship in 1947. In this effervescent biography, the historian and sportswriter Adrian Burgos, Jr., brings to life the world of professional baseball during a time of enormous change. Following Pompez from his early days to the twilight of his career, Burgos offers a glimpse inside the clubhouse as both owners and players struggled with the new realities of the game. That today's rosters are filled with names like Rodriguez, Pujols, Rivera, and Ortiz is a testament to Pompez and his lasting influence.
Author: Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019028711X
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 513
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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.
Author: Ronnie Joyner
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786491450
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 341
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Book Description
This collection of more than 300 graphic biographies of baseball players is a throwback to the illustrated biographies or cartoons seen regularly in newspaper sports sections of the '30s, '40s and '50s. All manner of ballplayers are included from the Hall of Famers (the Legends), to the everyday players (the Journeymen), to the cup-of-coffee guys (the Short-Timers). Almost all of the bio-illustrations are of major league players, but there are interesting exceptions--minor leaguers, female players, entertainers... These bio-illustrations regularly appeared in the pages of Sports Collectors Digest from 1997 through 2011.
Author: Scott Simkus
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
ISBN: 1613748167
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 324
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Book Description
Outsider Baseball is the story of a forgotten world, where independent professional ball clubs zig-zagged across America, plying their trade in big cities and small villages alike. Included among the former and future major leaguers were mercenaries, scalawags, and outcasts. This is where Babe Ruth, Rube Waddell, and John McGraw crossed bats with the Cuban Stars, Tokyo Giants, Brooklyn Bushwicks, dozens of famous Negro league teams, and novelty acts such as the House of David and Bloomer Girls. Legends emerged in this alternate baseball universe and author Scott Simkus sets out to share their stories and use a critical lens to separate fact from fiction. Written in a gritty prose style, Outsider Baseball combines meticulous research with modern analytics, opening the door to an unforgettable funhouse of baseball history. Scott Simkus is the founder and editor of the Outsider Baseball Bulletin. He is the winner of a research award from the Society of American Baseball Research for his work on the Negro League Database.
Author: Roger Bruns
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1440830347
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 238
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Book Description
This book examines what it takes for Latino youngsters to beat the odds, overcoming cultural and racial barriers—and a corrupt recruitment system—to play professional baseball in the United States. Latin Americans now comprise nearly 30 percent of the players in Major League Baseball (MLB). This provocative work looks at how young Latinos are recruited—and often exploited—and at the cultural, linguistic, and racial challenges faced by those who do make it. There are exposés of baseball camps where teens are encouraged to sacrifice education in favor of hitting and fielding drills and descriptions of fraud cases in which youngsters claim to be older than they are in order to sign contracts. The book also documents the increasing use of steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs by kids desperately trying to gain an edge. In addition to discussing the hard road many Latinos follow to MLB, the work also traces the fascinating history of baseball's introduction in Latin American countries—in some cases, more than a century ago. Finally, there are the stories of great Latino players, of men like Roberto Clemente and Carlos Beltran who made it to the majors, but also of men who were not so lucky. Through their tales, readers can share the dreams and expectations of young men who, for better or worse, believe in "America's pastime" as their gateway out of poverty.
