Quote:
Originally Posted by Roland 49
Now I show the cover of a notebook with a musical score of in Danzón (Cuban musical genre) that was composed for Adolfo Luque
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Adolpho D. "Dolf" Luque. Pitcher for four MLB teams betwen 1914-1935. 194 wins and 29 saves in 20 MLB seasons. 2-time World Series champion -- 1919 (Cincinnati) and 1933 (New York Giants). MLB wins leader in 1923. 2-time MLB ERA leader. Member of the Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame. Member of the Cuban Baseball Hall of Fame and one of Cuban baseball's most famous figures.
From Luque's SABR biography: Yet despite this . . . surprisingly early trickle of Cuban players northward, there was but a single Cubano who garnered even moderate attention in the US leagues during pro baseball’s initial three-quarters of a century. Racial barriers had almost everything to do with this, of course. The grandest of the early Cuban hurling and slugging phenoms were simply too black in skin pigment ever to penetrate America’s exclusively white-toned national sport during the race-driven eras of Adrian “Cap” Anson and Kenesaw Mountain Landis.
Thus just one lonely pioneer – Adolfo Luque (LOO-kay), a fireplug right-hander who debuted with Boston’s National Leaguers in 1914 and was already a veteran mound-corps mainstay with the Cincinnati club when the infamous 1919 Black Sox World Series rolled around – was left to carry the Cuban big-league banner throughout the half-century preceding World War II. Perhaps more embarrassing for Cuban baseball than the mere isolation of Luque’s big-league career was the persistent flavor of his negative image in Chicago, Boston, New York, St. Louis, and all points north. Unfortunately, this light-skinned if dark-tempered Cuban idol maintained a lasting reputation with big-league fans and ballpark scribes alike that was never quite as “fair and balanced” as most Cuban fans would have wished for back home.
Adolfo Luque today, of course, holds a rare place in Cuban baseball lore – the only Caribbean islander to earn even a modicum of big-league fame during the first half-century of modern major-league history. Between Nap Lajoie and Jackie Robinson, the few dozen Cubans who worked their way north were either brief curiosities in Organized Baseball (journeyman “coffee-tasters” like receiver Miguel Angel “Mike” González with the National League Boston and St. Louis outfits, and erratic outfielder Armando Marsans with Cincinnati) or else passing shadows who barely tasted the proverbial cup of big-league coffee (altogether forgettable names like Rafael Almeida, Angel Aragón, José Acosta, and Oscar Tuero). Numerous others – including some of the most famous and talented back home in Havana (Martin Dihigo, Cristóbal Torriente, and José Méndez head the list) – toured with black barnstorming outfits that rarely, if ever, passed before the eyes of the white baseball press.
By sharp contrast, Luque was something altogether special. His big-league credentials would by career’s end nearly approximate the numbers posted by many of his contemporaries destined for Cooperstown enshrinement once the game decided to formalize its history with a sacred hall of immortals. Twice (with the Reds in 1919 and the Giants in 1933) he experienced the pinnacle of World Series victory. As a near-200-game winner, he blazed trails that no other Latin ballplayer would approximate for decades. And back in Cuba he generated a feverish following for the big-league game and in the process carved out as well a lasting loyalty for “our beloved Reds” (“nuestros queridos rojos”) among baseball-crazy Habaneros. Yet, for all that, his career was destined to be cursed by the fate that eventually became a personal calling card for nearly all early Latin American ballplayers blessed with appropriate talent and skin tone to make their way to the baseball big-time. Among North American fans and writers Dolf Luque would always remain a familiar stereotype – a cartoon figure rather than a genuine baseball hero. At least this was the case at all stops north of Key West or Miami.
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