1944 Mexican league Scorecard with Negro Leaguers

[jerseygary]

As payback for all the great stuff everyone shares on Net 54, I took pictures of some of my favorite and more obscure scorecards to share. I always felt bad because I enjoyed seeing everyone elses rare pieces and I never got around to taking pictures of some of mine. A new and very handy little camera fixed that!

Here is a 1944 Mexican League scorecard for a game between the Mexico City Diablos Rojos (Red Devils) and the Puebla Angeles (Angels). The Mexico City Red Devils and Vera Cruz Blues had a history of importing some of the best Negro league and Cuban league players in the 1930's and 40's and this 1944 scorecard proves that season was no different. The Reds feature Hall of Famer Willie Wells at shortstop, Baltimore Elite Giants centerfielder Wild Bill Wright and Theolic "Fireball" Smith, former pitcher with the Pittsburgh Crawfords and Chicago American Giants. Famous latin players include the Avila brothers, future major leaguer Bobby and brother Pedro. I've never seen a real Mexican League program from the 1940's before and I was very pleased to get a hold of this one.

It's on thick very coarse natural card stock and the former owner had pasted in the box score carefully clipped out of the next day's newspaper. The front page has a really nice illustration of Homestead Grays pitcher Leroy Matlock who played for Mexico City from 1940-42. The back page shows that it was removed from a scrapbook.