Cuban Giants
Cuban Giants | |
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Information | |
League |
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Location | Trenton, New Jersey |
Established | 1885 |
Disbanded | c. 1915 |
Nickname(s) |
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![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9c/Cuban_Giants_baseball_team.jpg/220px-Cuban_Giants_baseball_team.jpg)
The Cuban Giants were the first fully salaried
History
Name
Early newspaper accounts mention John Lang (the team's early financial backer) and refer to the team alternately as "Lang's colored giants" In terms of skin color, virtually every player, not to mention the ones who played in organized baseball, was a light-skinned black. Thus, the name 'Cuban' could have referred to their mulatto status, a stage name exemplifying their vaudevillian flair on the diamond instead of signifying their racial or ethnic heritage.[10]
In 1896, unhappy with the ownership of J. M. Bright, several players left the team and were signed by E. B. Lamar Jr. of Brooklyn. This new team of ex-Cuban Giants was christened the "Cuban X-Giants". After the split, Bright's team would often be referred to as the Genuine Cuban Giants or Original Cuban Giants.[11]
Early years
In July 1885, the Keystone Athletics of
By the time the Argyle closed for the season on October 1, 1885, the Cuban Giants had won six out of nine games played, losing two and tying one.[17] They headed out on the road and faced their first major league opponent, the New York Metropolitans of the American Association, losing 11–3.[18] On October 10, they faced off against another major league team: the Philadelphia Athletics. Once again the Giants fell short, losing 13–7, but the final score had little to do with the quality of play according to a correspondent with the Sporting Life:
Had it not been for Johnny Ryan, who officiated as umpire, the Athletics would have stood a good chance of being defeated by nine colored players, or the Cuban Giants as they are called. Lack of experience, weak attempts at running the bases, and the umpire's very partial decisions contributed to the defeat of the colored aggregation.[19]
The Giants may, or may not, have played in Cuba their first year, but they did make it to Florida; At that time salaries were according to position. Mr. Cook gave pitchers and catchers, $18.00 per week and expenses; infielders, $15.00 per week and expenses; outfielders, $12.00 per week and expenses.[28]
Although Cook financed the team, S. K. Govern (and club secretary George Van Sickle) ran the day-to-day operations. Govern "signed players to one-year contracts, utilized the press to schedule games, and was even responsible for selling season tickets."
In July 1886, the
J. M. Bright purchased the Cuban Giants from Cook in June 1887. Bright was able to get them into the Middle States League in 1889, as joining a league was something the team had been trying to do for some time. However, Bright was not nearly as well-liked as Cook, and had to deal often with renegade players. This would be the team's last year in Trenton. In 1890 the entire team fled and played as the Colored Monarchs of York, Pennsylvania. In 1891, the heart of the team fled to their rival, Ambrose Davis’ Gorhams of New York City, then called the Big Gorhams. This dismantling and reassembling of the team became routine year after year until 1896, when E.B. Lamar Jr. from Brooklyn bought the team from Bright, renaming them the Cuban X-Giants. Bright responded by putting together an inferior team calling them the "Genuine Cuban Giants" or the "Original Cuban Giants". The Cuban X-Giants had a successful ten-year run as one of the best black teams in the East.
Ponce de Leon Hotel
In the summer of 1885, around the same time the Cuban Giants were being formed, Henry Flagler made the decision to build the Ponce de Leon Hotel in St. Augustine. Flagler, a founder of Standard Oil, envisioned the hotel as a place where "he and his wealthy friends could find princely shelter from the harsh winters of the North."[38] The hotel opened three years later on January 10, 1888. Osborn D. Seavey was the manager of the hotel, and had previously been the manager of the San Marco where he likely crossed paths with Frank Thompson. Through this connection with Seavey, Thompson was able to incorporate the Cuban Giants and black baseball into the "integrated network of leisure activities"[39] offered by the hotel. The players were hired as waiters (just as the Athletics had been at the San Marco), but "their primary responsibility was to entertain the guests with their skills on the diamond".[40] An 1889 article from the St. Augustine Weekly News puts it this way:
The colored employees of the Hotel Ponce de Leon will play a game today at the fort grounds with a picked nine from the Alcazar. As both teams possess some of the best colored baseball talent in the United States [,] being largely composed of the famous Cuban Giants, the game is likely to be an interesting one.[38]
On one occasion, unable to schedule a game with a local club, the team played a squad made up of tennis players staying at the hotel.[41] On another occasion, a game played against some of the hotel's guests was attended by ex-President Grover Cleveland at the invitation of Govern. If they could not find a worthy opponent the Giants would play intra-squad games amongst themselves.[42]
In 1889 while at the Ponce de Leon, Thompson put together an organization called the Progressive Association of the United States of America (PAUSA). Thompson was elected president of the organization, and Govern was elected secretary. Ben Holmes, the team's third baseman, was also an active member of the group. Thompson used his position to preach against "the unpardonable sin of racial prejudice practiced in the dining room of the Ponce de Leon"[43] and the Cuban Giants served as an example of the doctrine of racial solidarity and self-help that the group espoused. The racially integrated PAUSA also promoted the idea of black-white cooperation for practical, as well as ideological, reasons: Thompson and Govern's efforts to eliminate racial barriers simultaneously created jobs for their players during the winter, while also promoting "the black game to the white spectator."[44]
Cuba
"The Giants … played a number of winters in Havana, Cuba".[45] The Giants had discovered that the key to being financially stable was to play baseball all year round. Cuba was a perfect place for them to play their winter seasons, because they could avoid the cold temperatures that were common in New Jersey in the winter, and they drew huge crowds when they played in Havana. They were so popular in fact that they played "in front of as many as 15,000 fans".[45] By comparison, the average attendance per game for the Philadelphia Baseball Grounds, a popular baseball venue at the time, in 1890 was 2,231 per game.[46]
Players
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/87/1887-1888_Cuban_Giants.jpg/200px-1887-1888_Cuban_Giants.jpg)
Some of the prominent players were:
- Ben Boyd
- Frank Grant, infield
- Abe Harrison, shortstop
- Andrew Jackson
- Oscar Jackson
- William Jackson
- John Nelson, pitcher
- John "Pat" W. Patterson, third base
- William Selden, pitcher
- Arthur Thomas
- Sol White, infield
- Clarence Williams, catcher
- George Williams, infielder and captain
Among them Boyd, Harrison, Selden, Thomas, Williams, and Williams were members of the team by 1886, its first full season.
Timeline
- May 1885: Keystone Athletics formed in Philadelphia.
- July 1885: Keystone Athletics relocated to Babylon, Long Island.
- August 1885: The Keystone Athletics join the Manhattans of Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia Orions, creating the Cuban Giants.
- Fall 1885: Giants recorded as playing the major league New York Metropolitans (lost 11–3) and Philadelphia Athletics (lost 13–7). Both games are pitched by Shep Trusty
- Winter 1885-86: Cuban Giants play in Cuba
- Spring 1886: The team is bought by Walter E. Simpson who sets up home base at the Chambersburg Grounds in St. Louis Browns, a major league team (May 28, 1886).
- Summer 1886: Team sold to Walter I. Cook. First full season of summer baseball for the Giants begins.
- June, 1886: S.K. Govern signs George Washington Stovey to the Cuban Giants. On the 25th, in his first and only game with the Giants, he struck out eleven batters from Bridgeport of the Eastern League, losing 4–3.
- July 21, 1886: Shep Trusty pitches a 9-4 win over the Cincinnati Reds. Five days later, he beats the Kansas City Cowboys 3–2, and next loses to the same team 13–4.
- August 13, 1886: The first meeting between the New York Gorhams and the Cuban Giants ends with a Cuban Giants victory, 25–4.
- December 1886 – January 1887: Cuban Giants play in Cuba again.
- June 1887: J.M. Bright buys the Cuban Giants from Walter Cook.[11]
- 1888: The Cuban Giants join the Middle States League. They were briefly associated with the Hudson River League (as were the 'colored' New York Gorhams);[47] the league folded less than two weeks later.[48]
- August 1888: The Cuban Giants win the round-robin Colored Championship Series over the Pittsburgh Keystones, New York Gorhams and the Norfolk Red Sox.[49]
- 1889: The team's last year in Trenton, the Cuban Giants join the Middle States League.
- 1890: Entire team leaves and plays as the Colored Monarchs of York, Pennsylvania.
- 1891: The Cuban Giants join the Connecticut State League.[50]
- 1891: Mid-season, a good portion of the Cuban Giants, under J.M. Bright's control, leave for the Gorhams managed by S.K. Govern, now called the Big Gorhams. The Giants reassemble annually under Bright.
- 1894: The Cuban Giants were Eastern champions.[50]
Notes
- ^ This is the same justification Sol White gave in a 1938 Esquire article: "when that first team began playing away from home, they passed as foreigners—Cubans, as they finally decided—hoping to conceal the fact that they were just American Negro hotel waiters, and talked a gibberish to each other on the field which, they hoped, sounded like Spanish."[8] This account is likely apocryphal as it was not reported in contemporary accounts, nor did it appear in White's own History of Colored Base Ball (1907).[7]
- ^ Sol White's account in his History of Colored Base Ball that Thompson formed the team from waiters and bellhops already employed at the Argyle is likely apocryphal. Evidence suggests that he got it backwards, according to Malloy "any duties the players performed… as waiters, bellhops, porters and the like were incidental to their primary obligation, which was to play baseball for the hotel’s guests.”[12]
- ^ Accounts differ regarding the change in ownership between Simpson and Cook. Malloy states that Simpson sold the team to Cook,[26] while Lomax believes that Cook expressed an interest in buying the team, prompting Govern to negotiate a deal with him unbeknownst to Simpson.[23]
References
- ^ a b Heaphy 2003, p. 16.
- ^ "Scratch Hits". The Boston Daily Globe. Vol. XXVIII, no. 64. 2 September 1885. p. 2. Retrieved 27 January 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "Baseball Brevities". Hazleton Sentinel. No. 49. Hazleton, Pennsylvania. 21 September 1885. Retrieved 27 January 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "Dots from Different Diamonds". The Daily Picayune. Vol. XLIX, no. 221. New Orleans, Louisiana. 2 September 1885. Retrieved 27 January 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ Malloy 2005, p. 3.
- ^ a b Lomax 2003, p. 78.
- ^ a b c Malloy 2005, p. 4.
- ^ Harlow 1938, p. 75.
- ^ Malloy 1995, p. lxi.
- ^ Lomax 2003, pp. 78–79.
- ^ a b Malloy 2005, p. 11.
- ^ a b c Malloy 1995, p. lx.
- ^ Browne 2011, p. 55.
- ^ "Notes and Comments". The Sporting Life. 5 (3): 7. 29 April 1885. Retrieved 31 January 2022.
- ^ Costello, Rory (2000). "S. K. Govern". Society for American Baseball Research. Retrieved 31 January 2022.
- ^ Lomax 2003, p. 50.
- ^ White 1995, p. 8.
- ^ "The Cuban Giants Beaten" (PDF). The New York Times. Vol. XXXV, no. 10637. 6 October 1885. p. 2. Retrieved 2 February 2022.
- ^ "Saturday's Exhibition Games". The Sporting Life. Vol. 6, no. 1. 14 October 1885. p. 1. Retrieved 2 February 2022.
- ^ Lomax 2003, p. 96.
- ^ White 1995, p. 134.
- ^ "Manager Simpson's New Team". Daily True American. Vol. L, no. 103. Trenton, New Jersey. 30 April 1886. p. 3. Retrieved 2 February 2022.
- ^ a b Lomax 2003, p. 54.
- ^ "Trenton Victorious". Daily True American. Vol. L, no. 106. Trenton, NJ. 4 May 1886. p. 3. Retrieved 9 February 2022.
- ^ "To-day's Base Ball". Daily True American. Vol. L, no. 113. Trenton, NJ. 12 May 1886. p. 4. Retrieved 10 February 2022.
- ^ a b Malloy 2005, p. 7.
- ^ "Mr. Cook's Benefit". Daily True American. Vol. LI, no. 43. Trenton, NJ. 20 August 1886. p. 3. Retrieved 16 February 2022.
- ^ White 1995, p. 10.
- ^ Lomax 2003, pp. 54–55.
- ^ "Some Good Ball Playing". Daily True American. Vol. L, no. 128. Trenton, NJ. 29 May 1886. p. 3. Retrieved 28 February 2022.
- ^ Lomax 2003, pp. 55–59.
- ^ Malloy 2005, p. 9.
- ^ Lomax 2003, p. 58.
- ^ "On the Diamond". Daily True American. Vol. LI, no. 13. Trenton, NJ. 16 July 1886. p. 3. Retrieved 7 March 2022.
- ^ "The Black Nine Rejected". The Meriden Journal. Meriden, CT. 20 July 1886. p. 3. Retrieved 7 March 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "The Eastern League". Spalding's official base ball guide. Chicago and New York: A. G. Spalding & Bros. 1887. p. 80. Retrieved 5 April 2022.
- ^ Lomax 2003, p. 59.
- ^ a b Malloy 2005, p. 5.
- ^ Lomax 2003, p. 92.
- ^ Lomax 2003, p. xx.
- ^ "Base Ball Notes". Wheeling Sunday Register. Vol. 26, no. 161. Wheeling, West Virginia. 7 April 1889. p. 3. Retrieved 1 February 2022.
- ^ Browne 2011, p. 56.
- ^ Lomax 2003, pp. 94–95.
- ^ Lomax 2003, p. 95.
- ^ a b Heaphy 2003, p. 17.
- ^ "Attendance". Baseball-statistics.com. Archived from the original on 13 January 2022. Retrieved 11 January 2022.
- ^ "Chips from the Diamond". The Sun. Vol. LV, no. 283. New York, NY. June 9, 1888. p. 3. Retrieved 11 January 2022.
- ^ "Among the Amateurs". The Sun. Vol. LV, no. 295. New York, NY. June 21, 1888. p. 5. Retrieved 11 January 2022.
- ^ "For the Colored Championship". The Sun. Vol. LV, no. 362. New York, NY. August 27, 1888. p. 3. Retrieved 11 January 2022.
- ^ a b Riley 1994, p. 202.
Works cited
- Browne, Paul (Fall 2011). "You Can't Tell the Players". Black Ball. 4 (2). McFarland & Company, Inc.: 55–66. ISSN 1939-8484.
- Harlow, Alvan F. (September 1938). "Unrecognized Stars". Esquire. X (3). Retrieved 11 January 2022.
- Heaphy, Leslie (2003). The Negro leagues, 1869-1960. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company. ISBN 0786413808. Retrieved 11 January 2022.
- Holway, John B. (2001). The Complete Book of Baseball's Negro Leagues: The Other Half of Baseball History. Fern Park, Florida: Hastings House Publishers. ISBN 0-8038-2007-0.
- Lomax, Michael E. (2003). Black baseball entrepreneurs, 1860-1901. Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press. ISBN 0815607865. Retrieved 27 January 2022.
- Malloy, Jerry (1995). Introduction. Sol White's history of colored base ball, with other documents on the early Black game, 1886-1936. By White, Sol. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 0803247710. Retrieved 20 January 2022.
- Malloy, Jerry (2005). "The Birth of the Cuban Giants: The Origins of Black Professional Baseball". In Kirwin, Bill (ed.). Out of the Shadows. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 9780803251533.
- Riley, James A. (1994). The Biographical Encyclopedia of the Negro Baseball Leagues. New York: Carrol & Graf. ISBN 0786709596. Retrieved 11 January 2022.
- White, Sol (1995). Sol White's history of colored base ball, with other documents on the early Black game, 1886-1936. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 0803247710. Retrieved 20 January 2022.