>> From the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. ^F00:00:04 ^M00:00:18 >> So hello, good afternoon, my name is Tracy North. I am a reference librarian in the Hispanic Division and Social Sciences Editor of the "Handbook of Latin American Studies", an annotated guide to scholarly publications about Latin America that has been published since 1936 and includes quite a few references to baseball I might add. So, on behalf of the Library of Congress I am excited to welcome you to today's talk by journalist and author Cesar Brioso about his new book "Havana Hardball: Spring Training, Jackie Robinson and the Cuban League". Do you know how many Cubans are playing in Major League Baseball today? Do you know who was the first Cuban to play in the MLB and when? Have you heard of New York Yankees' closer Aroldis Chapman who was traded from the Reds last year and is rumored to be on the verge of getting traded again? He had a great night against my Baltimore Orioles the other night, routinely throwing 100-mile-an-hour fastballs. Today, you will learn about some of the historical foundations of Cuban baseball on the island with a focus on 1946 and 1947. You'll learn about the rivalry between the Almendares and Habana, similar to rivalries between the New York Yankees and the Brooklyn Dodgers of Jackie Robinson's era or there is Boca Juniors versus River Plate in Argentine soccer, Barcelona versus Real Madrid in Spain, Borg versus McEnroe, Chrissie versus Martina in tennis in the 80s. You get the idea. As you may know the Library of Congress now holds the Jackie Robinson Papers. Preparing for his major league debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers Robinson participated in spring training with the team in Cuba in 1947. The idea was that he would be able to avoid the attention of the press and unsupportive fans in Florida, the team's usual spring training location. At that time remember we're talking about pre-revolutionary Cuba. Robinson was not the first or only American in Cuba during that time. Think Hemingway whose birthday is today by the way, Sinatra, Meyer Lansky et cetera. These are just some of the topics that you'll hear more about today from Cesar Brioso, a digital producer for USA Today's sports where he served as baseball editor from 2003 to 2004. Cesar has been a writer or editor at several other papers including The Miami Herald, South Florida Sun Sentinel and Tampa Tribune. He's a member of the Society for American Baseball Research that's having their conference coming up next week in Florida and he blogs about Cuban baseball history at cubanbaseball, spelled in Spanish, dot.com. Now I'd like to turn the program over to Cesar. >> Thank you, good afternoon. Thank you all for coming and thank you to the Library of Congress for letting me talk about my book "Havana Hardball". And so broadly, the book is about baseball in Cuba in the mid to late 1940s. It's a pivotal time in baseball history when Cuba finds itself at the epicenter of events that are going to impact not just the Cuban League but also other Latin leagues, Major League Baseball and the Negro Leagues for years to come. I chose to focus on this particular time period at least in part because of my father. You'll see a photo of him here. That's him as a kid in Cuba with one of his uncles. He, the hat he's wearing is Almendares, one of the. That's his favorite team, one of the four teams in the Cuban League at that time. Like when I was a kid my dad would tell me all these stories about American ball players who would come to Cuba every winter to play baseball and you're seeing some of the photos up here. You know familiar names, Tommy Lasorda who became a Hall of Fame manager with the Dodgers, future Hall of Famers from the Negro League like Monte Irvin and Ray Dandridge and as you're seeing right here a guy named Kevin Connors who you would be more familiar with the name Chuck Connors from the, Hollywood actor. He was, before he became a Hollywood actor in "The Rifleman" he was a player in the Dodgers Farm System. So I'd hear all these stories as I was a kid and then as, once I became a sports writer working in Florida I started to find a lot of these guys retired and in, throughout the state and I would interview them for stories for the various papers that I worked for at the time and started building, collecting all these interviews with the idea of eventually, someday writing a book. And when I finally got a publisher, sort of the last stage of my research was the Library of Congress, was very helpful. They have a great collection of Cuban newspapers on microfilm. I was able to access those, not just here but what was really helpful was that the Library of Congress was gracious enough to allow them to be sent to Fairfax County Library where I live which made research so much easier not having to come into the District multiple times to be able to look through all those articles. That's broadly what the book is about. Specifically it focuses on the 1946-47 Cuban League season. That is what is still considered kind of the greatest finish in league history. It came down to a three-game series between Almandares and Habana, the eternal rivals as they were called. Both teams had been in the Cuban League since its formation in 1878, just two years after the start of the National League here in the U.S. And as the three games, the decisive three-game series was being played out the Dodgers arrived for spring training in Havana and with them came their Triple AAA Farm Team, the Montreal Royals which included not only Jackie Robinson but also Roy Campanella, Don Newcombe and Roy Partlow. And so the book alternates between those two storylines in alternating chapters and they play out against the backdrop of the Mexican League trying to get major league players to jump their contracts to play in their summer league. And why that matters is because they, them trying to get all these players to jump, and in fact they got like 20-something players to jump their contracts. Commissioner Happy Chandler declared that any player who jumped their contracts would be ineligible to play Major League Baseball and organized baseball for at least five years, and even then there was no guarantee that they'd be allowed back. And that matters to the Cuban League because so many players played in the Cuban League of those jumpers and Cuban players also played in Mexico or managed or coached in Mexico so Chandler had also declared that anyone who played with or against those jumpers would also be ineligible to play in organized baseball. So in essence the Cuban League which had enjoyed great relations with Major League Baseball and had players from the majors playing in Cuba either in the league or barnstorming really throughout the 20th century, they were suddenly a rogue league and their players were rogue players, just by playing in the league were, their careers, futures in organized baseball were threatened. So, and the book explores sort of how all these conflicts came into being, how they got resolved and what happens going forward. So, with that I think I'll just open it up. I'd prefer to have, it be more of a conversation than me just standing up here, kind of telling you about the book so hopefully you have some interesting questions and I'll be glad to answer them now. Yes? >> Since it was raised in the introduction, who was the first Cuban in the Major League Baseball in America? >> The very first Cuban in the majors was Esteban Bellan with the Detroit Haymakers in, I'm trying to remember now off the top of my head, 1870 something. But in terms of the modern era since 1900 there were a pair of Cuban players signed by the Cincinnati Reds in 1911, Rafael Almeida and Armando Marsans. So they joined in, like I said 1911 and when they were first signed and were playing in the minors there was this. In my research I found this sort of rushed by, newspapers to assure baseball fans that they were in fact, white, really kind of amazing words used. One, I believe the Cincinnati Enquirer, if I remember correctly, referred to them as the two, two purest bars of Castilian soap ever sailed to these shores. And there were all kinds of, I mean that's kind of how they were described. Multiple newspaper accounts again assuring white major league fans that no, they're not black. They're Cuban or they're of you know European ancestry. One referred to them as having no ignoble African blood so all these references in the 19, the teens, trying to describe them and assure fans they weren't black. Yes? I'm sorry. >> So what was the racial situation in Cuba in that summer that Jackie Robinson? Were there any problems there? >> No, not at all, in fact the Cuban League had been integrated since 1900 so they were far ahead of integration here in the major leagues. In fact that's one of the reasons why Branch Rickey chose to move the Dodgers' spring training from Daytona Beach. That's where they trained in 1946, to Havana. ^M00:10:19 They had been. They were familiar with Havana. They had trained there in 1941 and 1942 and in '46 Robinson's first year with the Royals they had a bunch of issues trying to play games. When the Royals would go to play a minor league spring training game they might find that the stadium was padlocked or that there was a sudden lighting malfunction so they couldn't play. In one instance a police officer informed that there was an ordinance where black and white players could not share the same baseball field. So they encountered all these issues in 1946 so when Branch Rickey was planning to make sure that that was the, in '47, that that was the year that he would elevate Robinson to the Dodgers. That's why he chose to move to Havana because of the better racial climate certainly in baseball and in society as well. There were. It's not to say that there's no racism or no issues in Cuba but it certainly was not the codified racism that you had here especially in Florida with Jim Crow laws. >> The ownership of the Cuban League teams at that time, was it pretty much all indigenous ownership or was there any influence of American owners or investors down there? >> No, it was pretty much owned by Cubans. In fact one of the sort of, baseball legends Miguel Angel Gonzalez, he played. He was also one of the early Cuban players in the majors. He played in 1920s-30s. He played with the Cardinals, Giants, White Sox, several teams. He was a catcher and played with Habana most of his career as a player. He eventually became manager of Habana, saved enough money to become a part-owner and eventually owned the entire team. And that was pretty typical. It was either individual, Cuban individuals or a group of Cubans who owned each team. Almendares was owned by a group that had ties to the Vedado Tennis Club which was a social club for affluent Cubans so that was pretty typical of the teams in the Cuban League. Yes? >> Would you mind speaking sort of generally about baseball in Latin America and then baseball introduction to Cuba? How did it go from being this game that we've all heard about having its roots in America and now we're talking about Latin America and Cuba so? >> Well, baseball was introduced in Cuba around, in the 1860s. Students who, Cuban students who went to the United States to study in college brought the game back to Cuba in that time period. It also kind of was helped spread by the presence of U.S. military in Cuba. I've seen dozens of photos of U.S. Navy teams playing in Guantanamo in the early part of the 20th century. So, that's where it was first introduced and it really became sort of engrained in the Cuban culture with the fight for independence against Spain. It became, sort of, one way of expressing their rejection of Spanish rule, choosing baseball over bullfighting for example. And it also became engrained as part of that with the exiled communities in Key West, Ybor City in Tampa. They would form their own social clubs here in the United States and they would put on baseball games and some of the proceeds from those games would be sent back to Cuba to fight the, for the fight for independence. So in the late 1800s it really started to become entrenched and be part of Cuban culture, what it means to be Cuban. And then Cuba really became sort of the apostles of baseball throughout the Caribbean, spreading it to other countries. There were some people who left Cuba to, you know because of the war to places like Mexico and the Dominican Republic for safety and kind of brought the game there with them then and it built up through that, that way. >> Can you take that one step further to then integrating into Major League Baseball in the U.S.? I guess it was Cubans a lot first and then when that ended other, players from other countries started to come more? >> Right, before the Castro revolution Cuba had the largest number of players born outside the United States that were in the majors. I don't have the exact number off the top of my head but they were pretty much the main producer of major league talent in the, from Latin America. And then once the Castro revolution took over and eventually professional baseball was eliminated there and ties were cut off so that players couldn't come here, that's when you started to see the growth in other Latin American countries, specifically the Dominican Republic, Venezuela and then Puerto Rico. Today, the Dominican is the largest producer of major league talent followed by Venezuela and then Puerto Rico. When they do there, even though, yes, they're U.S. citizens, when Major League Baseball does their sort of count their, run their numbers they refer to it as 'born outside the 50 United States'. So that's how Puerto Rico gets put into that list, again, Latin America, much larger than the Asian countries although they're increasing now as well. >> You said there were five teams in the Cuban League and? >> Four teams. >> [Inaudible] yes, Cienfuegos, Marianao. >> Right. >> Almendares' home field is also in the greater Havana area? >> Yeah, they used to, earlier in the existence of the Cuban League they had sort of their own ballparks. There was an Almendares Park. There were Cienfuegos. Matanzas had a park but then in 1933 and there's a photo here, the La Tropical Stadium was built for the Pan-American Games. There's an aerial shot and you'll see that there's actually like a track intersecting the baseball field. So it was used for not only baseball but track and field, soccer and that's, and all the four teams at that point played in that one location, in the Marianao area just outside the heart of the city. And then in 1946 right before the season that my book focuses on Bobby Maduro and his company built El Gran Stadium in, closer to the heart of the city. Again, all four teams moved to that area and it was because the La Tropical while it was supposedly this really wonderful site because it was associated. That's it right there. It was associated with the breweries so there were beer gardens, dancehalls and all these other activities but it really wasn't great for baseball. So then they moved to El Gran Stadium and you can see a much more traditional setup for baseball, more capacity. It could hold 34,000 when it opened. There were lights added to El Gran Stadium which La Tropical did not have. So because it, not only was the economy booming post World War 11 but the old stadium simply really couldn't hold the interest, all the fans that were interested and so the season that I talked about is the inauguration of that sort of more modern stadium. >> Do teams still play at El Gran Stadium? >> They do. If you saw where the Rays went to play the Cuban National Team and that's been. That's El Gran Stadium. It's called Estadio Latinoamericano and it looks very similar. The main change is that now that there's a. I think you saw in the aerial shot there were no seats in the outfield. Now they have. They have grandstands and bleachers in that area so the capacity is much larger. You know I believe that for that game Major League Baseball helped to sort of do not necessarily renovations but maybe just upkeep. Like much of Cuba's infrastructure stuff had started to deteriorate so they did, from my understanding, did quite a bit to get it up to standard for that game. Yes? >> You mentioned a conflict with the, because of the Mexican Leagues sort of created problems for Major League Baseball. What brought about I guess the big [inaudible] allow Cuba to become part of the minor leagues? >> Yeah, like the. >> [Inaudible] after that. >> Like one of the things that happened, there was actually an organized baseball sanctioned Cuban League that was running parallel to the traditional one where players who were afraid about their future went to play. But there were two attempts. There was one attempt like that and it just did not have the popular support of fans and it ended up finishing prematurely that season in '46, '47. And then eventually, basically a delegation from the Cuban League went and met with organized baseball to come up with an agreement to sort of let the Cuban League back into good graces but bring them under the umbrella of organized baseball because of the fact that all of these players suddenly didn't have a career in the majors, in organized baseball anymore, so they were able to work a negotiated. ^M00:20:28 They negotiated a system where, but now codified sort of how the league would be populated with players from Major League Baseball, what numbers, what pool of players they could pick from. Previously to that, each Cuban team just kind of signed players who they had contacts with. I mentioned Miguel Angel Gonzalez, he was a coach with the, a third-base coach for the Cardinals for many years. In fact he was in the third-base coaching box in the 1946 World Series for Enos Slaughter's mad dash home. But like Adolfo Luque who was the manager for Almendares he was a pitching coach with the Giants at the time. He recruited Sal Maglie to come and play for him when he was managing Cienfuegos in the '45, '46 season and that's how they kind of just through their contacts in baseball, that's how they signed players. But moving forward after the conflict with the, because of the Mexican League raids they set up a codified system of how they would actually be able to use players from organized baseball going forward. >> But then there was also like a Triple AAA team in Havana in the 50s? >> Right. It actually began as a B-League team, the Havana Cubans in 1946 and then Bobby Maduro who. He built the stadium as well not just to modernize the Cuban League but also with an eye toward eventually having a major league team in Havana. And he bought the Cubans and in 1954 they then moved to the internationally AAA as the Havana Sugar Kings and they were affiliated with the Reds. So by that point it was actually a, you know that minor league team operated separately from the Cuban Winter League but, you know that was. They were affiliated with the Reds like I said but like the Cuban League was brought into organized baseball as an unaffiliated minor league so they weren't you know, in Triple AAA, Double AA or what have you. >> What can you tell us about that picture of the Dodgers with Hemingway and all [inaudible]? >> Well, it's in the book during the '41 and '42 seasons when, before the Dodgers would train there, spring training I mean. You know Hemingway was living in Havana at the time. He had a ranch about 10 miles outside of the city and he would run into the players not just at the ballparks but at the casinos and nightclubs and invited a group of them back to his farm and I don't want to give everything away but it involved quite a bit of drinking, fisticuffs and the challenge to a duel so. John, did you have a question? >> Yeah, I was wondering if the Cuban League had any international play with other Latin American countries on a regular basis? >> No, not specifically. There were Cuban players who would go and play in Venezuela or the Dominican. In certain years, certainly also players from those countries came and played in the Cuban League. During the time when the Cuban League was an outlaw league, there were discussions about maybe creating some sort of Latin American League, where they would play against teams from other Latin American countries. It never really got off the ground. It was more or less just trying to figure out what are we going to do if we're not, you know, if we're still sort of this rogue league? But no, there were never really sort of organized games other than maybe exhibition games. Yes? >> This, this obviously is outside the purview of the title of your book. Could you maybe talk a little bit about how baseball in Cuba changed after the revolution? I think, I mean we obviously had a lot of American influence prior to the revolution but we do know that baseball has survived in Cuba [inaudible]. >> Yeah, it survived and even thrived on some levels. One of the major changes obviously the major change is, no professionalism. It became state-run just like all the businesses and, but, for instance in this era where all the teams, the four teams even though they may have by name represented other parts of the country, they all played all their games in Havana. And what they did post-revolution was they spread the league out, throughout the country. And in fact there were rules that you had to live. You had to be from that province to play on that province's team. And so that's, it's called the Serie Nacional, the National Series is what it is now and that league was, with the pool of players that they would use to fill the Cuban national team. And obviously for international amateur competitions they were the dominant force for decades whether it was Olympics, their version of a World Cup played throughout the country, throughout the world. They were the team to beat. That has not necessarily been the case in recent years because they have haemorrhaged so much talent through defections, particularly the last, maybe ten years or so they have seen a huge spike in defections and you see the results of that with the players that are coming to the major leagues and making an immediate impact, you know, whether it's [inaudible] or Horayu [phonetic] or [inaudible], Chapman who was mentioned earlier. And there's a player on the Red Sox system, Moncada who is supposed to be just a star and he's in his early 20s. So now that [inaudible] it's not necessarily the case that they're just going to be the automatic winner and I think that that at least in part is what has kind of helped drive the, at least on the baseball side, the connections that are being made right now with Cuba and Major League Baseball. The Cuban government I'm sure wants to, if there is going to be a future where Cuban players can come to the majors, they want it to be some kind of a system where they can maintain some control over their players so that they're not all defecting. >> Could you talk a little bit about Dihigo, the guy who is in three Halls of Fame? >> Yeah, Martin Dihigo, there are photos of him here. He played in the Negro Leagues in the 1920s. Many consider him to be maybe the greatest all-around player, certainly in Cuba maybe anywhere. He played practically every position and he was a great pitcher. He was a great hitter. But because he was black he never played in the majors but that didn't. He was elected to the Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee along with many other Negro Leaguers during the 1970s. And he was a manager in Cuba as well. He managed also in other Latin American countries and as you mentioned, in the Hall of Fame in the U.S., Cuba and Mexico, a terrific player but never got the chance to show that here other than playing for Negro League teams or barnstorming with Negro League teams in the United States. And he's a contemporary of Adolfo Luque and Miguel Angel Gonzalez, you know, but because they were white they could play in the majors. >> Can you talk a little bit about the experience of attending, of being a fan in the 40s in Cuba? Were there tickets that you had to buy? What were the prices? Did they sell popcorn? I'm sure they didn't but like what was the? Did you dress up because I think it used to be more formal? >> Yeah, there's a, "Life" magazine did a. I found pictures from 1951 and everybody, they did a huge spread, multiple photos and you see everybody in suits and ties and their best dresses which I find amazing considering what the temperature must have been even though it was. Even though it was January and February in Cuba it was very festive. There were bands or at least groups of people with instruments in the stands. You would see there are [inaudible] images of guys walking around with these giant lottery billboards that they would sell there. People would place bets on the first homerun, the first hit. So it's a fairly festive atmosphere and in all the readings I've done The Sporting News did a great job covering the Cuban League back then. And it was unlike any atmosphere that they had, that those writers had seen in Major League Baseball. ^M00:30:02 Yes? >> Will Oscar [inaudible] as well but I've heard, I think there are rumors that, obviously I think Fidel Castro, he's confirmed he's a big baseball fan but I've heard some things about he was actually a prospect at one time? >> Largely urban myth [laughter]. >> I heard that too [laughter]. >> Yeah, it's the kind of thing that started and sort of subsequent writers just picked up on and it just kind of kept growing but they're. He played I believe volleyball and basketball at the University of Havana. One author, Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria, he wrote a great book, sort of the entire scope of Cuban baseball history called "Pride of Havana" and he actively sought out box scores trying to find evidence of a Fidel Castro and only found that one, F. Castro, pitching. I'm presently working on, sort of the next book which is the end of professional baseball and where I've seen the references, apparently start is with Joe Cambria who was a scout for the Washington Senators and signed something on the order of 300 players from Cuba throughout the 30s, 40s and 50s and he's the one who sort of said that Castro was a prospect and you know that if he had been able to sign him maybe things would have been different. And then some other writers just picked up on it. It became almost a fact but there's no evidence. And I don't know if you're familiar with the name Ralph Avila. He was the guy kind of running the Dodgers' academies in the Dominican Republic and he, I spoke to him several months ago and he was just adamant that that's. There's just no truth to that and he was apparently with Castro before the revolution, you know, while it was happening, for a time before being against the revolution, once he saw what it was actually going to be. So, yeah, my guess is that maybe Cambria kind of said that in a way of maybe ingratiating himself with Castro because he wanted to, I think at that point, at that time, the relationships were starting to deteriorate between the U.S and Cuba and I'm sure he was just hoping to be able to keep signing talent on the cheap in Cuba going forward and maybe that's why he sort of made him sound like a better baseball player than he was or even. Anyone else? >> I have like 5 million. >> Sure [laughter], we have time. >> If you talk a little bit more about Jackie Robinson. I don't know if he's ever talked about his experience in Cuba. Was he just there that one time? What, you kind of allude to, it changes things. Everything changes after that so, if you could talk about? >> Yeah, I mean that was the only time that he played there, that spring training and as I said it was because Rickey wanted the more tolerant social climate in Havana as the sort of staging ground for his elevation to the majors. But it was not at all guaranteed that he was going to make it to the majors that season and he had the. And in some of the slides it kind of alludes to it, he had to deal with several issues. He had. He was changing position. For the second time actually, he was a shortstop in the Negro Leagues. He played second base with the Royals in the International League and was the league's MVP in '46 and suddenly was handed a first baseman's mitt and because the Dodgers' infield was essentially stacked. That was the only spot that potentially he could break into so he had to deal with that. There was, even though Cuba was chosen for the better racial climate he still had to deal with separate accommodations. The Dodgers were at the Hotel Nacional which is a landmark, this opulent hotel and the Montreal Royals trained at the Havana Military Academy about 10 or 15 miles outside the city. It's not at all unusual for a minor league and a major league team to have different accommodations, it still happens today. But in addition to that, Robinson and the other three black players were housed in a pretty seedy hotel in Old Havana so they were even separate from their Montreal teammates probably out of Rickey, an abundance of caution although kind of unnecessary. Robinson had played a year with the Royals. There were no issues with teammates. Whatever issues they encountered were when they played other teams. As I said he was the International League MVP so it was an odd choice and it, and Robinson was not happy about it. There was also, he had an injury late, a minor injury late in spring training. Leo Durocher largely was absent during spring training because he was dealing with multiple issues including his sort of scandalous marriage to actress Laraine Day. But also there was, he had been admonished by Chandler to disassociate himself from gamblers which he had done in Cuba but he and Rickey raised a stink when there were gamblers seen in the Yankees President's Box at Gran Stadium. And there were hearings with Chandler during spring training so Robinson, so Durocher hardly ever got to see Robinson during spring training. So there were quite a few things that, quite a few issues that Robinson had to deal with not the least of which was the petition started by a group of Dodgers' players to try and prevent him from actually making it to the majors. And all that boiled over on a side trip to Panama which is explained in the book. Yes? >> One picture [inaudible] is just opposite Satchel Paige who's got a legendary reputation in baseball everywhere [inaudible]. >> Right. >> Any particular stories that come out about him being, playing in Cuba? >> Yeah, he played for Santa Clara which was one of the earlier teams in the Cuban League and I don't want to give the whole thing away but yes, there was an issue where he essentially had to get out of Cuba because he. There are sort of conflicting stories. What it was. >> It didn't involve Hemingway did it? >> That, those didn't involve Hemingway but it was either because he didn't understand, like the, whatever the mayor of that particular city was upset with one of his performances and asked him if he had basically thrown it and him not understanding Spanish, sort of nodded and just smiled which enraged the mayor or it was supposedly because he, of a relationship with a woman there. A lot of conflicting stories, they're all sort of explained and you can try and figure out which one is the actual truth but. >> And Josh Gibson? >> Ah Josh. >> Could you give a little? >> Sure, he also played for Santa Clara for a couple of seasons and he led the league in homeruns. Not surprisingly down there, you know, shorter season, I think it was something like eight homeruns or whatever but well over a 300 batting average. You know, that was a very common thing for Negro League players to play down there whether it was barnstorming during the winter or playing with Cuban League teams and that was something that was going on again since like 1900. Every year there would be teams that came through. It became known as the American Series whether it was Negro League teams barnstorming there or major league teams or a semblance of major league teams, All-Star teams barnstorming and then the spring training games as well. Yeah? >> Are there any sort of unique baseball traditions in Cuba back then? I mean we have the seventh-inning stretch. We have, you know, rally caps, things like that. Is there anything that you need to, the Cuban history any other things? >> Well, maybe just the atmosphere, just the sort of open betting on everything from first homerun to first hit or whatever. That was certainly a big deal there. There were also like awards handed, like money awards to the players, like if somebody got a no-hitter. Bohemia magazine would pay out, you know $1000 or whatever it was or $500 so there were those types of things, were like a big accomplishment would actually get, be a. There would be a cash reward for the player from a magazine or whoever happened to be sponsoring that sort of thing. Yes? >> Were the players down there able to play professionally and not have another job or did they have to work during the season or work in the off-season? >> Well, a lot of them would play in the majors or in Minor League Baseball in the summer or they'd go to play in Mexico in the summer and then be playing in their homeland during winter ball. So they kind of were able to play baseball year round and that was also why they were able to get American players to come down there, you know, because if you weren't a star player once the baseball season ended you kind of needed to get a job, you know, whether it was working at the local hardware store or whatever for the winter. So, if they had the opportunity to go down to Cuba or Dominican Republic or Puerto Rico and play baseball and earn money they didn't have to go and get a real job during those times so. ^M00:40:16 But yeah, the Cuban players were probably playing baseball year round whether in the minors, other Latin countries or in Major League Baseball. There was another question? >> I was just wondering if any of the players that visited Cuba stayed or returned and settled down. Are there any stories like that? >> I'm trying to think if anything along those lines. I've read stories about some players, some of the Negro League players staying in Mexico. I don't recall any American players sort of staying beyond just the winter. Again a lot of them had their lives and careers here. They were in the majors but they all seemed to, reading quotes and the people I've talked to all seemed to really enjoy their time down there. Because it was, they were well paid. They played baseball and they didn't have to play every day. They would play games maybe three, maybe four days a week so they had down time where they could go to the nightclubs or hang out on the beach. >> What were the comparative economics of U.S. baseball versus Cuban baseball? I mean was it, was there? I mean there's obviously, you know, you can't even, you know, compare it to today. It was different here. >> Right, right. >> But. >> I mean I've heard, read stories and heard from people that they would make more money a month playing baseball in Cuba than they were getting paid a month playing in the majors. So from that standpoint it was certainly a good thing for them. I believe at that time it was a one to one ratio in terms of dollars and pesos so it translated really well obviously. So yeah it was, economically it was a good thing for the players to come down there. >> Was it viewed? Was winter ball in Cuba viewed as a good time for the major league baseball players? Is that one of the reasons why? >> Sure. >> Yeah, we were just kind of saying women and rum and gambling and baseball three or four days a week. >> All of the above [laughter]. I mean yeah, this was the nightlife where there was nightclubs, casinos was a big draw. Cuba really became sort of the, a playground for American tourists and baseball players were part of that. I mentioned the Hotel Nacional. When it opened you know the guest list are movie stars and boxers and from the United States, so yes and this particular time period in the late 1940s the mob is just starting to get entrenched down there. In fact, right before the Dodgers went to stay at the Hotel Nacional for the 1947 spring training, a couple weeks before there had been a, for lack of a better description, a mob convention led by Meyer Lansky where they were trying to plot out how they were going to divvy up the casinos. They all had interests in various casinos and hotels and nightclubs to make it essentially the Las Vegas of the Caribbean, away from the prying eyes of U.S. law enforcement. Yes? >> I guess. There was also going on a lot of people would, a lot of Americans would be [inaudible] Key West, hop on the ferry and do their honeymoon in Havana and Cuba. Was there a, during this winter, were there a lot of Americans going to Cuban winter ball as, you know, fans down there or was it, you know, was it primarily a Cuban fan base and that's what you did. Were the Americans staying in the casinos? >> Yeah, I suspect there was probably mostly a Cuban fan base. You mentioned the ferries. I know the players would do exactly that. They'd get, go down to Florida, take the ferry and their car on the ferry, to come to Havana to play in the winter. But I suspect that the large percentage of the fans going to these games were Cuban fans. Anybody else? Tracy, any more questions [laughter]? >> [Inaudible]. Can you talk a little bit more about your next project you started to talk about, to tell us about? >> Yeah, I've already started interviewing. I've clocked about a dozen interviews so far and I'm gathering newspaper articles, trying to focus on the end of professional baseball in Cuba, essentially sort of 1958 to 1961, what happened with the Cuban League and the Sugar Kings at the, you know, as the revolution was building and then in the immediate aftermath of the revolution. How the league ended, you know, the last season was 1960-61 for the Cuban League and it was an all-Cuban for the first time, certainly in the 20th century, an all-Cuban League because U.S. players were not allowed at that point to come and play. And the Sugar Kings had to leave mid-season in 1960 to Jersey City and it was abrupt enough that when they debuted in Jersey City they still had their Sugar Kings uniforms on with a patch stitched on across the chest that said Jersey City. It was in July when they moved, when essentially the International League revoked the franchise and they had to relocate. ^F00:46:11 ^M00:46:23 >> I feel like it's unfair to put you on the spot but what does happen now with the thawing of relations between U.S. and Cuba, will we see more players? Will there be a professional league again? Or right now I guess the only institutionalized baseball is through the national team? >> Right. Well, I think we're going to see some sort of system in place eventually. How long that will take I don't know. I can tell you that there's a group here, people who used to be associated with the Pawtucket Red Sox who own the rights to a future minor league team in Havana should there ever be one. They've been working to build relationships with the people in Cuba, the officials there, you know, but right now they're just kind of. They're just building relationships in case there is an opportunity. How exactly that would play out given the economics of the country, given the embargo still being in place, yet to be seen I suspect as far as Cuban players playing in the majors and not having to defect, I think we will see something. Maybe it will be a system similar to what we see with the Japanese League where a major league team will essentially bid for the right to negotiate with a player, whatever pool of players that they make available and then if they negotiate a contract I suspect part of that money will go back to the Cuban government and they will have some sort of control over his services. Cuba had already started sort of allowing veteran players to play in Japan after, you know sort of as a reward for playing, for a distinguished career and not defecting [laughter] from Cuba. So, but usually they've been late in their careers and have not necessarily had the kind of impact that certainly Major League Baseball would be looking for so yes, I think it will happen. I think there might still be a ways away although the one thing that made me think it might happen quicker was the goodwill tour that baseball took in December I think it was where they went to Cuba. And but what they brought with them, they brought defectors with them, Yasuo Fujii was there and at the time I just found that stunning. These are players that were declared traitors because they left Cuba and suddenly they were able to travel back there freely with this goodwill tour. You know and the Cuban government, I mean if they wanted. If they want to save baseball in Cuba they need to do something to stop the defections or have more control over this because that's what's been hurting baseball there. And if they can come up with a system where they can control the players or which, and I would imagine there would have to be some sort of a restriction on anybody who defects actually playing then. I don't know how that would work out either so, there's a lot of questions but I do think that it's just a matter of time before we do see it. >> I think it's important to note also that there are Cuban defectors in the minor leagues in the U.S. >> Yes. >> [Inaudible] all over the world. >> Yeah and that's the thing is that not all of them, a vast majority just like which is the case for not just American minor leaguers but Dominican minor leaguers. It's a tiny fraction of the folks that are in the minors that actually make it to the majors. So for yeah, for every Yasuo Fujii, there's dozens if not more who just have, never make it out of the minors or never even make it to the minors. >> One more question, someone's got that one last question. What is it? Who's it going to be, alright, [laughter] thank you so much. >> Thank you. >> Victor Brioso. ^M00:50:25 [ Applause ] ^M00:50:27 >> This has been a presentation of the Library of Congress. Visit us at loc.gov ^M00:50:36