Download or read book Who s Who in Cuban Baseball 1878 1961 written by Jorge S. Figueredo and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2007-02-28 with total page 422 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: True professional baseball has not been played in Cuba since banned by the communist regime after the 1961 season, but there is a legacy of more than 70 years of continuous excellence by countless Cubans who played in the organized leagues of the island from 1878 to 1961. Scores of North Americans, white and black, and Latin Americans also played in Cuba during that time. Biographical and season-by-season statistical information for the many hundreds of Cuban, North American and Latin American players who took part in the Cuban leagues from 1878 to 1961 has been compiled in this work. The time period is divided into three eras. The first is from 1878 to 1899, the primitive years of the Cuban league; the second, 1900 to 1933, when the league opened its doors to welcome foreign players; and the third, from 1934 to 1961, the golden age that made Cuba then the second power in organized baseball. Birth and death dates for each player (if they could be determined) are provided. The statistical information for players includes the number of games played, at bats, hits, doubles, triples, home runs, and season average. The statistical information for pitchers includes the number of games pitched, complete games, win-loss record, and winning percentage.

Download or read book Cuban Baseball written by Jorge S. Figueredo and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2011-08-02 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In March 1999, the Baltimore Orioles played a team of Cuban all-stars, the first time a major league baseball team from the United States had played a Cuban team since 1959. Before communism, Cuba had a rich baseball history, fielding teams that often defeated U.S. major league opponents. This text presents basic statistical information and listings for every Cuban baseball team from 1878 until 1961, when the communist government of Fidel Castro shut down professional sports. The information for each season includes the final standings, team rosters, all-time records, individual statistics arranged by team, and background information. The appendix lists the Cuban players in the first three eras, all-time leaders for batting average, runs, hits, doubles, triples, home runs, RBI, stolen bases, pitching, completed games, wins, losses, MVPs, Rookies of the Years, and much more. The book is profusely illustrated with photographs.

Download or read book The Rise of the Latin American Baseball Leagues 1947 1961 written by Lou Hernández and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2011-10-10 with total page 414 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Major League Baseball today would be unrecognizable without the large number of Latin American players and managers filling its ranks. Their strong influence on the sport can trace its beginnings to professional leagues established south of the border and in the Caribbean nations in the 1940s. This narrative history of Latin American baseball leagues during the 1940s and 1950s provides an in-depth, year-by-year chronicle of seasonal leagues in the seven primary baseball-playing areas in the region: Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Venezuela, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico. The success of these leagues, and their often acrimonious competition with U.S. Organized Baseball, eventually ushered in a new era of contract concessions from owners and general labor advancements for players that forever changed the game.

Download or read book Baseball s Great Hispanic Pitchers written by Lou Hernández and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2014-11-19 with total page 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Baseball has had many outstanding Latin American pitchers since the early 20th century. This book profiles the greatest Hispanic hurlers to toe the rubber from the mounds of the major leagues, winter leagues and Negro leagues. The careers of the top major league pitchers to come from Central and South America and the Caribbean are examined in decade-by-decade portrayals, culminating with an all-time ranking by the author. The grand exploits of these athletes backdrop the evolving pitching eras of the game, from the macho, complete-game period that existed for the majority of the last century to the financially-driven, pitch-count sensitive culture that dominates baseball thinking today.

Download or read book The Year of the Blue Snow written by Mel Marmer and published by SABR, Inc.. This book was released on 2013-07 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Catcher Gus Triandos dubbed the Philadelphia Phillies' 1964 season "the year of the blue snow"a rare thing that happens once in a great while. The Phillies were having a spectacular season in which everything was going right. They held a 6 1/2 game lead at the conclusion of play on September 20. With just 12 games to play, they seemingly had it made. But the Cincinnati Reds and St. Louis Cardinals never gave up, and when the Phillies lost ten consecutive games, it became a thrilling pennant race for Cardinals and Reds fans, but a horrific collapse for Phillies fanatics. But wait a minute. When it was seemingly too late, the Phillies finally won a game—and the first-place Cardinals lost two games to the lowly New York Mets, so on the last day of the season there was the distinct possibility of a three-way tie for first place. It would have been a first in baseball history. On the final day of the season, the Phillies beat the Reds handily, 10-0. All eyes and ears were fixed on the Mets-Cardinals game. Could the Mets knock off the first-place Cardinals for a third straight game? The Mets carried a 3-2 lead into the bottom of the fifth inning, but finally succumbed, 11-5. But what a season for Phillies fans. Jim Bunning had thrown the first perfect game in the last 84 years of NL history. The hero of the 1964 All-Star Game was the team's right fielder Johnny Callison, who brought the National League victory with the third walk-off home run in the history of the All-Star Game. The team also boasted the electrifying NL Rookie of the Year - the team's slugging third baseman Richie Allen (later called Dick Allen). St. Louis won the pennant, and went on to beat the Yankees in the World Series. But in Philadelphia, the '64 campaign left an ache that lasted for years. The 1964 Phillies not only "lost" the pennant but, following 1964, they got steadily worse. This book sheds light on the facts for the reader to determine answers to lingering questions they may still have about the Phillies team in the 1964 season—but any book about a team is really about the players. A collaborative effort by 37 members of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR), this work offers life stories of all the players and others (managers, coaches, owners, and broadcasters) associated with this star-crossed team, as well as essays of analysis and historical recaps. Includes: Foreword by Mel Marmer Introduction by Mel Marmer Opening Day 1964 Dick Allen by Rich D’Ambrosio Rubén Amaro by Rory Costello The Amaro Chronicles by Rory Costello Two Gold Glove Shortstops by Rory Costello Jack Baldschun by Chip Greene Dave Bennett by Mark Armour Dennis Bennett by Mark Armour John Boozer by Andy Sturgill Johnny Briggs by John Saccoman Jim Bunning by Ralph Berger Johnny Callison by John Rossi Danny Cater by Brian Englehardt Pat Corrales by James Ray Wes Covington by Andy Sturgill Ray Culp by Mark Armour Clay Dalrymple by Rory Costello Ryne Duren by Gregory H Wolf Tony González by José Ramírez and Rory Costello Dallas Green by Gregory H Wolf John Herrnstein by Brian Englehardt Don Hoak by Jack V Morris Alex Johnson by Mark Armour Johnny Klippstein by Gregory H Wolf Gary Kroll by Neil Poloncarz Bobby Locke by Paul Geisler Art Mahaffey by Ralph Berger and Mel Marmer Cal McLish by Joe Wancho Adolfo Phillips by Rob Neyer Vic Power by Joe Wancho Ed Roebuck by Paul Hirsch Cookie Rojas by Peter Gordon Bobby Shantz by Mel Marmer Costen Shockley by Chip Greene Chris Short by Andy Sturgill Roy Sievers by Gregory H Wolf Morrie Steevens by Len Levin Tony Taylor by Rory Costello and José Ramírez Frank Thomas by Bob Hurte Gus Triandos by Neal Poloncarz Bobby Wine by Bob Bloss Rick Wise by Bill Nowlin Gene Mauch by John Vorperian Peanuts Lowrey by Dick Rosen George Myatt by John Green Bob Oldis by Dan Even Al Widmar by Gregory H Wolf Bob Carpenter by James Ray John Quinn by Rory Costello The Origins of the 1964 Phillies by Jim Sweetman How the 1964 Phillies Were Built by Mel Marmer Shibe Park/Connie Mack Stadium by James Ray Richie Ashburn by Seamus Kearney Bill Campbell by Curt Smith By Saam by Neal Poloncarz Jim Bunning’s Perfect Game by James Ray Johnny Callison’s All-Star Home Run by Mel Marmer In Defense of Chico Ruiz’s “Mad Dash” by Rory Costello Pennant Was Stolen by Clem Comly Beyond Bunning and Short Rest: An Analysis of Managerial Decisions That Led to the Phillies’ Epic Collapse of 1964 by Bryan Soderholm-Difatte Epilogue by Clem Comly

Download or read book Negro Leaguers and the Hall of Fame written by Steven R. Greenes and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2020-09-01 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since 1971, 35 Negro League baseball players and executives have been admitted to the Hall of Fame. The Negro League Hall of Fame admissions process, which has now been conducted in four phases over a 50-year period, can be characterized as idiosyncratic at best. Drawing on baseball analytics and surveys of both Negro League historians and veterans, this book presents an historical overview of NLHOF voting, with an evaluation of whether the 35 NL players selected were the best choices. Using modern metrics such as Wins Above Replacement (WAR), 24 additional Negro Leaguers are identified who have Hall of Fame qualifications. Brief biographies are included for HOF-quality players and executives who have been passed over, along with reasons why they may have been excluded. A proposal is set forth for a consistent and orderly HOF voting process for the Negro Leagues.

Download or read book Baseball S Brotherhood Team written by Bryan Steverson and published by WestBow Press. This book was released on 2018-02-22 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the Book of Genesis, when Cain is confronted by God regarding the death of his brother, he replies, Am I my brothers keeper? Within these pages, players respond affirmatively to this centurys age old question. They took stands against prejudice during times in our country when it was not the norm. Their courage serves as a model for all of us today. These players lived the biblical challenge of loving your neighbor. This is the third book by the author of inspirational stories about players from our national pastime. Fifteen members of our National Baseball Hall of Fame are here as well as others of lesser fame. The examples include 19th century baseball, Babe Ruth and Pete Rose. Each player was special. Each story inspirational.

Download or read book Cuban Studies 35 written by Lisandro Prez and published by University of Pittsburgh Press. This book was released on 2005-02-01 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cuban Studies has been published annually by the University of Pittsburgh Press since 1985. Founded in 1970, it is the preeminent journal for scholarly work on Cuba. Each volume includes articles in both English and Spanish, a large book review section, and an exhaustive compilation of recent works in the field.

Download or read book Rube Foster in His Time written by Larry Lester and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2012-09-14 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although Andrew "Rube" Foster (1879-1930) stands among the best African American pitchers of the 1900s, this baseball pioneer made his name as the founder and president of the Negro National League, the first all-black league to survive a full season. In addition to founding this groundbreaking black-owned and -operated business, Foster also founded and managed the Chicago American Giants, one of the most successful black baseball teams of the pre-integration era. This definitive biography combines period editorials and correspondence with insightful narrative to provide a comprehensive portrait of this innovative Hall of Famer. From the unstructured early days of black baseball, when Foster gained glory as a hard-throwing pitcher, through his struggles to establish the NNL and the Giants, to his tragic death from complications of syphilis, this work pays overdue tribute to an authentic American baseball icon.

Download or read book The National Pastime Summer 2015 Issue written by The Society for American Baseball Research and published by SABR, Inc.. This book was released on with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since 2009, The National Pastime has served as SABR's convention-focused publication. Published annually, this research journal provides in-depth articles focused on the respective geographic region where the national convention is taking place in a given year. The SABR 45 convention took place in Chicago, and here are 25 articles on baseball in and around the bat-and-ball crazed Windy City. Contents Introduction by Stuart Shea Sputtering Towards Respectability: Chicago’s Journey to the Big Leagues by Brian McKenna The Windy City – Collar City Connection:The Curious Relationship of Chicago’s and Troy (NY)’s Professional Baseball Teams (1870–82) by Jeff Laing Mike González:The First Hispanic Cub by Lou Hernández Bibb Falk: The Only Jockey in the Majors by Matthew M. Clifford Ted Lyons: 300 Wins—Closer with a Closer? by Herm Krabbenhoft Mel Almada: The First Hispanic to Homer at Several Historic American League Stadia by Lou Hernández Andy Pafko: Darling of the 1945 Cubs by Joe Niese Bill Murray’s Prediction by Rob Edelman The Top 10 Chicago White Sox Games of the 1950s by Stephen D. Boren Mr. Cub by Joseph Wancho How Good Was the White Sox’ Pitching in the 1960s? by Brendan Bingham The ’67 White Sox: “Hitless” Destiny’s Grandchild? by Bryan Soderholm-Difatte The Chicago White Sox, 1968–70: Three Years in Hell by Sam Pathy Black Sox on Film by Rob Edelman If Gil Hodges Managed the Cubs and Leo Durocher the Mets in 1969, Whose “Miracle” Would it Have Been? by Mort Zachter Split Season 1981, Chicago Style by Jeff Katz Palmer House Stars by Leslie Heaphy The Peculiar Professional Baseball Career of Eddie Gaedel by Eric Robinson When They Were Just Boys: Chicago and Youth Baseball Take Center Stage by Alan Cohen Stories of the White Sox: Farrell, Lardner, and Algren by James Hawking Curse of the Billy Goat: An Adaptive Coping Strategy for Cubs Fans by Jeremy Ashton Houska, Ph.D. Of Black Sox, Ball Yards, and Monty Stratton: Chicago Baseball Movies by Rob Edelman Memories That Will Never Go-Go by Francis Kinlaw Chicago Goes Hollywood: The Cubs, Wrigley Field, and Popular Culture by David Krell Buying the White Sox: A Comic Opera Starring Bill Veeck, Hank Greenberg, and Chuck Comiskey by John Rosengren William Hulbert: Father of Professional Sports Leagues by David Bohmer The Western Baseball Tours of 1879 by Brock Helander The Legacy of the Players League’s 1890 Chicago Pirates by Gordon Gattie There Was Almost No World Series in 1905, Too: How Charlie Comiskey Could Have Ended the Fall Classic Before it Started by Chuck Hildebrandt The Last Best Day: When Chicago Had Three First-Place Teams by Mark S. Sternman Why did Wrigley, Lasker, and the Chicago Cubs Join a Presidential Campaign? by Mark Souder Silas K. Johnson: An Illinois Farm Boy Who Made Baseball History by Matthew M. Clifford A Fall Classic Comedy, Game Six, 1945 by John Rosengren Bears, Cubs, and a Moose, Oh My by Joseph Wancho Dean of Chicanery: Jerry Reinsdorf’s Plan to Enlist Hank Greenberg to Umpire the Northwestern Law School Student-Faculty Game and How it Backfired by John Rosengren “Don’t Tell Them Any Different”: ‘Don Kessinger Night’ Caps a Long Career by Mark Randall Lasting Impressions of Harry Caray by Suzanne Wright The Game That Was Not: Philadelphia Phillies at Chicago Cubs, August 8, 1988 by Steven Glassman The Chicago History Museum’s Baseball Photo Treasure Trove: The Chicago Daily News Glass Plate Negative Collection by Mark Fimoff From the North Side to the Deep South by Francis Kinlaw

Download or read book Who s on First written by Mark Z Aaron and published by SABR, Inc.. This book was released on 2015-03-19 with total page 423 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a book about baseball’s true “replacement players.” During the four seasons the U.S. was at war in World War II (1942-1945), 533 players made their major-league debuts. There were 67 first-time major leaguers under the age of 21 (Joe Nuxhall the youngest at 15 in 1944). More than 60 percent of the players in the 1941 Opening Day lineups departed for the service. The 1944 Dodgers had only Dixie Walker and Mickey Owen as the two regulars from their 1941 pennant-winning team. The owners brought in not only first-timers but also many oldsters. Hod Lisenbee pitched 80 innings for the Reds in 1945 at the age of 46. He had last pitched in the major leagues in 1936. War veteran and former POW Bert Shepard, with an artificial leg, pitched in one game for the 1945 Senators, and one-armed outfielder Pete Gray played for the St. Louis Browns. The war years featured firsts and lasts. The St. Louis Browns won their first (and last) pennant in 1944 — a feat made more amazing by the fact that they had not finished in the first division since 1929. The 1944 team featured 13 players classified as 4-F. The Chicago Cubs appeared in the 1945 World Series but have not made it back since. Some 53 members of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) have contributed to this volume. We invite you to sit back and relax as you learn Who's on First? Includes contributions by: Alan Cohen, Ashlie Christian And Armand Peterson, Bill Nowlin, Bob Brady, Bob Lemoine, Bob Mayer, Bob Webster, Charles Faber, Charlie Weatherby, Chris Rainey, Cort Vitty, David Finoli, David M. Jordan, David Raglin And Barb Mantegani, David W. Pugh, Don Zminda, Duke Goldman, Greg Erion, Gregg Omoth, Gregory H. Wolf, J. G. Preston, James D. Smith, Iii, Jay Hurd, Jeff Marlett, Jeff Obermeyer, Jim Sweetman, Joanne Hulbert, John Shannahan, Leslie Heaphy, Lyle Spatz, Marc Lancaster, Marc Z Aaron, Mark S. Sternman, Mel Marmer, Merrie A. Fidler, Michael Huber, Michael Huber And Rachel Hamelers, Mike Mcclary, Peter C. Bjarkman, Rex Hamann, Rich Bogovich, Richard Cuicchi, Richard Moraski, Rory Costello And Lou Hernández, Seamus Kearney, Sidney Davis, Steve Smith, Thomas Ayers, Tom Hawthorn, Walter Leconte Table of Contents: Introduction MARC Z AARON The Business of Baseball During World War II JEFF OBERMEYER “But Where is Pearl Harbor?” Baseball and the Day the World Changed, December 7, 1941 BOB LEMOINE The Tri-Cornered War Bond Baseball Game MICHAEL HUBER AND RACHEL HAMELERS NATIONAL LEAGUE Boston Braves How the Boston Braves Survived the War But Lost the Battle for Boston BOB BRADY Ben Cardoni BY MARK S. STERNMAN Buck Etchison BY ALAN COHEN Butch Nieman BY SIDNEY DAVIS Mystery Member of the ‘45 Braves BOB BRADY Brooklyn Dodgers The Brooklyn Dodgers in Wartime MICHAEL HUBER John “Fats” D’Antonio RICHARD CUICCHI Bill Hart BOB LEMOINE Lee Pfund BOB WEBSTER Chicago Cubs The Cubs in Wartime THOMAS AYERS Jorge Comellas RICH BOGOVICH Billy Holm BILL NOWLIN Walter Signer GREGORY H. WOLF Cincinnati Reds The Cincinnati Reds During World War II JAY HURD Tomás de la Cruz PETER C. BJARKMAN Buck Fausett J. G. PRESTON Dick Sipek CHARLES FABER New York Giants The New York Giants in Wartime BOB MAYER Al Gardella CHARLIE WEATHERBY Frank Seward JEFF MARLETT Roy Zimmerman JOANNE HULBERT Philadelphia Phillies The Phillies in Wartime SEAMUS KEARNEY Chet Covington STEVE SMITH Hilly Flitcraft JIM SWEETMAN Lee Riley MEL MARMER Pittsburgh Pirates The Pirates in Wartime DAVID FINOLI Xavier Rescigno DAVID FINOLI Len Gilmore DAVID FINOLI Frankie Zak DAVID FINOLI St. Louis Cardinals The Cardinals in Wartime GREGORY H. WOLF Jack Creel GREGORY H. WOLF Gene Crumling GREGORY H. WOLF Bob Keely GREGORY H. WOLF AMERICAN LEAGUE Boston Red Sox The Red Sox in Wartime BILL NOWLIN Otey Clark BILL NOWLIN Ty LaForest BILL NOWLIN Stan Partenheimer JOHN SHANNAHAN The Frostbite League: Spring Training 1943 - 1945 BILL NOWLIN The 1944 Red Sox: What Could Have Been DUKE GOLDMAN Chicago White Sox The White Sox in Wartime DON ZMINDA Vince Castino DAVID RAGLIN AND BARB MANTEGANI Guy Curtright DON ZMINDA Floyd Speer REX HAMANN Cleveland Indians World War II and the Cleveland Indians DAVID W. PUGH Otto Denning CHRIS RAINEY Jim McDonnell ASHLIE CHRISTIAN AND ARMAND PETERSON Mickey Rocco GREGG OMOTH Detroit Tigers The Tigers in Wartime MIKE MCCLARY Chuck Hostetler MARC LANCASTER Bobby Maier MARC LANCASTER Charlie Metro TOM HAWTHORN New York Yankees The Yankees in Wartime MARC Z AARON Joe Buzas MARC Z AARON Mike Garbark MARC Z AARON Bud Metheny MARC Z AARON Philadelphia Athletics The Wartime Philadelphia Athletics DAVID M. JORDAN Orie Arntzen GREGORY H. WOLF Jim Tyack ALAN COHEN Woody Wheaton ALAN COHEN St. Louis Browns The St. Louis Browns in World War II GREG ERION Milt Byrnes GREG ERION Charley Fuchs GREG ERION Pete Gray MEL MARMER Washington Senators The Washington Senators in Wartime RICHARD MORASKI Ed Butka CORT VITTY Jug Thesenga BOB LEMOINE Tony Zardón RORY COSTELLO AND LOU HERNÁNDEZ Senators Who Died in Combat RICHARD MORASKI OTHER ESSAYS The All-Star Games in the War Years LYLE SPATZ Wartime Baseball: Minor Leagues, Major Changes (San Diego to Buffalo) JAMES D. SMITH, III Impact of WWII on the Negro Leagues LESLIE HEAPHY Baseball’s Women on the Field During WWII MERRIE A. FIDLER In-season Exhibition Games During Wartime WALTER LECONTE The Double Victory Campaign and the Campaign to Integrate Baseball DUKE GOLDMAN

Download or read book Cuba written by Louis A. Pérez and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2015 with total page 497 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Spanning the history of the island from pre-Columbian times to the present, this highly acclaimed survey examines Cuba's political and economic development within the context of its international relations and continuing struggle for self-determination. The dualism that emerged in Cuban ideology--between liberal constructs of patria and radical formulations of nationality--is fully investigated as a source of both national tension and competing notions of liberty, equality, and justice. Author Louis A. Pérez, Jr., integrates local and provincial developments with issues of class, race, and gender to give students a full and fascinating account of Cuba's history, focusing on its struggle for nationality.

Download or read book Drama and Pride in the Gateway City written by Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2020-02-17 with total page 866 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By 1964 the storied St. Louis Cardinals had gone seventeen years without so much as a pennant. Things began to turn around in 1953, when August A. Busch Jr. bought the team and famously asked where all the black players were. Under the leadership of men like Bing Devine and Johnny Keane, the Cardinals began signing talented players regardless of color, and slowly their star started to rise again. Drama and Pride in the Gateway City commemorates the team that Bing Devine built, the 1964 team that prevailed in one of the tightest three-way pennant races of all time and then went on to win the World Series, beating the New York Yankees in the full seven games. All the men come alive in these pages--pitchers Ray Sadecki and Bob Gibson, players Lou Brock, Curt Flood, and Bobby Shantz, manager Johnny Keane, his coaches, the Cardinals' broadcasters, and Bill White, who would one day run the entire National League--along with the dramatic events that made the 1964 Cardinals such a memorable club in a memorable year.

Download or read book Last Seasons in Havana written by César Brioso and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2019-03-01 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book Historical Dictionary of Baseball written by Lyle Spatz and published by Scarecrow Press. This book was released on 2012-12-21 with total page 505 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dating back to 1869 as an organized professional sport, the game of baseball is not only the oldest professional sport in North America, but also symbolizes much more. Walt Whitman described it as “our game, the American game,” and George Will compared calling baseball “just a game” to the Grand Canyon being “just a hole.” Countless others have called baseball “the most elegant game,” and to those who have played it, it’s life. The Historical Dictionary of Baseball is primarily devoted to the major leagues it also includes entries on the minor leagues, the Negro Leagues, women’s baseball, baseball in various other countries, and other non-major league related topics. It traces baseball, in general, and these topics individually, from their beginnings up to the present. This is done through a chronology, an introductory essay, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 900 cross-referenced entries on the roles of the players on the field—batters, pitchers, fielders—as well as non-playing personnel—general managers, managers, coaches, and umpires. There are also entries for individual teams and leagues, stadiums and ballparks, the role of the draft and reserve clause, and baseball’s rules, and statistical categories. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about the sport of baseball.

Download or read book Fidel Castro and Baseball written by Peter C. Bjarkman and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2018-12-07 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book Chronology of Latin Americans in Baseball 1871 2015 written by Lou Hernández and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2016-07-13 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This combination reference book and history covers the inroads and achievements made on professional ball fields by Latin American athletes, the Major Leagues' greatest international majority. Following an "on this date in Hispanic baseball history" format, the author takes a commemorative look at generations of players from Mexico, the Caribbean and Central and South America, from the earliest pioneers through the well-known stars of today. There are two appendices: first Latinos by franchise; and an extensive chronological listing of Latino milestones by country. The book is fully indexed by players, teams, ballparks, and other contributors to Latino baseball history.