Early U.S. Blackball Teams in Cuba

Before they were the stars of the Negro Leagues—before the Negro Leagues even began—outstanding African American players like Rube Foster, Charles Grant and Pop Lloyd competed against the leading players of Cuba. In the early years of the 20th century, winners of the “colored” championship in the United States traveled to Cuba to compete against the top Cuban League teams, amateur clubs, and All-Star squads. Part of the “American Series” that brought teams from the major, minor, and Negro leagues to the island nation for more than six decades, these games are arguably the most important in a baseball relationship that was vital to the game’s history.
Since the end of Cuban professional baseball in 1961, games like those of the American Series have become a distant memory. Scores and statistics are difficult to track down, and few could say who played in those long-ago contests.
Fortunately, dedicated baseball historian Severo Nieto has spent a lifetime accumulating and preserving the facts and figures of Cuban baseball. Here he presents box scores, statistics, rosters, and summaries of the games, as well as biographical information for the players, of the American Series from 1900 through 1945.

The late heralded Cuban sportswriter Severo Nieto was the vice president of Cuba’s National Commission for Sports History. In his 65-year career he received many honors and awards, including the “Gloria del Deport” award in 2004. He lived in Havana, Cuba.

Severo Nieto
Format: softcover (7 x 10)
Pages: 240
Bibliographic Info: tables, appendices, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2008
pISBN: 978-0-7864-1928-9
Imprint: McFarland

Foreword by Peter C. Bjarkman      1
Preface      9

1. 1900 Cuban X-Giants      11
2. 1903 Cuban X-Giants      15
3. 1904 Cuban X-Giants      26
4. 1905 Cuban X-Giants      35
5. 1906 Cuban X-Giants      45
6. 1907 Philadelphia Giants      56
7. 1908 Brooklyn Royal Giants      78
8. 1910 Chicago Leland Giants      92
9. 1912 Lincoln Giants of New York      104
10. 1914 Lincoln Stars of New York      116
11. 1915 Indianapolis ABCs      129
12. 1920 Bacharach Giants      148
13. 1925 All Yankees      155
14. 1938 Homestead Grays      164
15. 1939 Homestead Grays      172
16. 1945 New York Cubans      179

Epilogue      186
Appendix A: Batting Register for the American Series      187
Appendix B: Pitching Register for the American Series      201
Appendix C: 1916 Chicago American Giants in the Cuban League      206
Appendix D: 1920–1921 Bacharach Giants in the Cuban League      218
Bibliography      231
Player Index      233