Pollock's Cuban Stars | |
---|---|
Information | |
League |
|
Location | South Florida |
Ballpark | No home ballpark |
Established | c.1927 |
Disbanded | 1936 |
Nickname(s) |
|
Pollock's Cuban Stars were a traveling Negro league baseball team that played from about 1927 to 1936 featuring players primarily from Cuba. [1]
Syd Pollock began booking opponents for the Havana Red Sox in 1927, [2] and bought the club from Ramiro Ramirez in 1928. [3] Ramirez stayed on as the manager and the team began barnstorming around Miami. [4] By 1929, Pollock introduced comic routines into the games and developed what was to become known as "shadow ball." [5] Shadow ball was when the infielders would mime throwing a ball around for between-inning warm-ups. [6] These routines would later be made famous in the 1940s by Pollock's Indianapolis Clowns and Abe Saperstein's Harlem Globetrotters basketball team.
In 1931, the club changed its name to the Cuban House of David, [7] which Pollock appropriated from the original House of David, a white commune known for their bearded baseball players. They were the only Cuban team permitted to enter the country in March by the United States Immigration Department. [8] That season, they were an associate team in the Negro National League [9]
The team joined the East–West League in March 1932 as Pollock's Cuban Stars. [10] [11] [12] They returned as an independent team still under the "Pollock's Cuban Stars" moniker from 1933 until 1936.
From 1927 until at least 1933, Ramiro Ramírez served as manager. [7] [13]
Oscar McKinley Charleston was an American center fielder, first baseman and manager in Negro league baseball and the Cuban League. Over his 43-year baseball career, Charleston played or managed with more than a dozen teams, including the Homestead Grays and the Pittsburgh Crawfords, Negro league baseball's leading teams in the 1930s. He also played nine winter seasons in Cuba and in numerous exhibition games against white major leaguers. He was posthumously inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1976.
The Brooklyn Royal Giants were a professional Negro league baseball team based in Brooklyn, New York. Formed in 1905 by John Wilson Connor (1875–1926), owner of the Brooklyn Royal Cafe, the team initially played against white semi-pro teams. They were one of the prominent independent teams prior to World War I before organized league play began.
José de la Caridad Méndez Báez was a Cuban professional baseball right-handed pitcher, shortstop, third baseman and manager in the Negro leagues. Born in Cárdenas, Matanzas, he died at age 43 in Havana. Known in Cuba as "The Black Diamond", he became a legend in his homeland. He was one of the first group of players elected to the Cuban Baseball Hall of Fame in 1939. He was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in 2006.
The Indianapolis Clowns were a professional baseball team in the Negro American League. Tracing their origins back to the 1930s, the Clowns were the last of the Negro league teams to disband, continuing to play exhibition games into the 1980s. They began play as the independent Ethiopian Clowns, joined the Negro American League as the Cincinnati Clowns and, after a couple of years, relocated to Indianapolis. Hank Aaron was a Clown for a short period, and the Clowns were also one of the first professional baseball teams to hire a female player.
The Cuban Stars were a team of Cuban professional baseball players that competed in the United States Negro leagues from 1907 to 1930. The team was also sometimes known as the Cuban Stars of Havana, Stars of Cuba, Cuban All-Stars, Havana Reds, Almendares Blues or simply as the Cubans. For one season, 1921, the team played home games in Cincinnati, Ohio, and was known as the Cincinnati Cuban Stars.
Valentín Dreke was a Cuban baseball outfielder in the Negro leagues. He played from 1919 to 1927, doing so with the Cuban Stars (East) and Cuban Stars (West). He also played winter ball with the famed Almendares team on three occasions. He led the Negro National League in batting average in 1924, hitting .389 in 46 games played. In his eight years of Negro league ball, he batted at least .296 in each season. He died of tuberculosis in 1929. He was elected to the Cuban Baseball Hall of Fame in 1945.
Felix Evans Jr. , nicknamed "Chin", was an American baseball pitcher in the Negro leagues. Known for his curveball, Evans played from 1934 to 1949 with several teams, most prominently for the Memphis Red Sox.
Luis Eleuterio Tiant Bravo, also known as Luis Tiant Sr., was a Cuban pitcher in Negro league baseball, as well as Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Mexico. He also performed with barnstorming teams.
Merven John "Red" Ryan, born Mervin Ferguson, was an American baseball pitcher in the Negro leagues. He played from 1915 to 1932 with several teams, playing mostly with the Hilldale Club.
The following is a timeline of the evolution of major-league-caliber franchises in Negro league baseball. The franchises included are those of high-caliber independent teams prior to the organization of formal league play in 1920 and concludes with the dissolution of the remnant of the last major Negro league team, the Kansas City Monarchs then based out of Grand Rapids, Michigan, in about 1966. All teams who played a season while a member of a major Negro league are included. The major leagues are the original Negro National League, the Eastern Colored League, the American Negro League, the East–West League, the second Negro National League and the Negro American League. Teams from the 1932 original Negro Southern League are also included which allows for the inclusion of the few high caliber minor Negro league teams.
Manuel Rivero, nicknamed "The Golden Flash", was an American football, basketball, and baseball player and coach.
Ramiro Ramírez Estenor was a Cuban professional baseball outfielder and manager in the Negro leagues and Cuban League.
Edward Rile, nicknamed "Huck", was an American professional baseball first baseman and pitcher who played in the Negro leagues and the Cuban League from 1918 to 1936.
Sydney S. Pollock was an American sports executive in Negro league baseball. Pollock worked as a booking agent for several clubs starting in the late 1910s before becoming an executive with the Havana Red Sox/Cuban House of David/Pollock's Cuban Stars from 1927 to 1933. Pollock served as the booker, general manager and eventual primary owner of the Ethiopian/Indianapolis Clowns from 1936 to 1965. He signed Hank Aaron to his first professional contract in 1952. In 1952 and 1953, he signed three females players, the only women to play in the Negro leagues full-time.
Lincoln Homer Jackson was an American baseball first baseman in the Negro leagues. He played with the Cuban House of David in 1932, Pollock's Cuban Stars in 1933 and the Baltimore Black Sox in 1934.
Elbert Williams was an American baseball pitcher in the Negro leagues. He played with several teams from 1929 to 1935.
Ervin Fowlkes was an American professional baseball shortstop in the Negro leagues. He played with the Homestead Grays in 1948.
Ramón Rojas Aranguren was a Cuban professional baseball outfielder and third baseman in the Negro leagues in the 1930s.
Edward Arnett Davis, nicknamed "Peanuts", was an American Negro league pitcher in the late 1930s, throughout the 1940s, and into the early 1950s. He sometimes used the pseudonym "Peanuts Nyasses" when playing baseball for iterations of the Clowns in Miami, Cincinnati, and Indianapolis. He was often called the "Clown Prince of Negro Baseball" by sportswriters who saw him play. But the sportswriters also acknowledged that in addition to clowning, he was considered "one of the top pitchers in Negro baseball;" in fact, many fans believed he was as talented as the much better-known Satchel Paige. Davis was also praised for his versatility. "He’s a brilliant hurler...and a standout also if stationed anywhere in the outfield or infield."
Cándido Gálvez was a Cuban professional baseball pitcher in the Negro leagues between 1929 and 1932.