To commemorate Cuba's professional baseball teams,
"Colecciones Militares Arguello" proudly introduces a sensational chess set featuring two of the three oldest
baseball teams in the history of Cuban Baseball: the Habana versus the Almendares.
The History of Baseball in Cuba (1)
The first professional team, the Habana Baseball Club, was founded in 1872, followed a year later by the
establishment of the Matanzas Baseball Club. In 1878 the Almendares Baseball Club was assembled. In the same
year the Habana, Matanzas, and Almendares clubs formally agreed to organize themselves professionally into the
Liga General de Baseball de la Isla de Cuba.
Baseball in the nineteenth-century Cuba presented one means of taking the measure of colonial society in transition
- baseball as an expression and as an agent of change. Cubans celebrated modernity and progress-implied baseball,
associated with the United States, and denounced the inhumanity and backwardness suggested by the bullfight,
associated with Spain.
When the War of Independence began in February of 1895, colonial authorities immediately banned baseball.
Spanish suspicious were confirmed: the sport was indeed subversive. Scores of Cubans abandoned the field of play
for the field of war. The ranks of the Liberation Army filled with ball players such as Major Eduardo Pichardo
(shortstop, Habana), Colonel Pedro Llania (pitcher, Almendares), Captain Juan Manuel Pastoriza (pitcher, Almendares),
Major José Dolores Amieva (outfielder, Matanzas) and Major Carlos Maciá (pitcher, Almendares). Baseball recaptured
public attention immediately after the War of Independence, when professional teams - Habana, Fe, Almendares,
Marianao, Santa Clara and Cienfuegos - resumed play.
The Cuban professional league was played during the off-season and became know in the United States as Winter-ball.
This league allowed North Americas to gain experience and perfect their skills on higher caliber teams. Some of the
most successful major leaguers played winter ball on Cubans teams, including, for Cienfuegos (Brooks Robinson, Carl
Erskine, Gene Mauch, Sal Maglie, Billy Herman, Don Zimmer, and Joe Black) for Marianao (Roy Campanella, Jim Bunning,
Charlie Lau and Don Newcombe), for Almendares (Tommy Lasorda, Willy Mays, Dick Williams, Bob Allinsom, Roger Craig,
Gus Triandos, Jim Grant, Bobby Bragan, Bob Skinner and Billy Hunter).
(1) Information taken from (On becoming Cuban, identity, Nationality & Culture) by Louis A. Pérez Jr.
(The Eco Press, An imprint of the HarperCollins Publishers)
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