Negro League Team/Player Identifications

[Kenny Cole]

Rigal was born in 1901 or 1902 and began playing pro ball in 1922 for the Cuban Stars West. He is the youngest of the players mentioned by Steve, with Chacon being the oldest.

I looked at Jorge Figueredo's Cuban Baseball book which has a year-by-year statistical history of the teams and players from 1878-1961, and I found no mention of a professional Cuban baseball team that ever started with a V. I guess people can draw their own conclusions regarding what that might mean.

[bcbgcbrcb]

Thanks, Kenny. So it sounds like early 1920’s is more likely than 1910’s.

I just posted a pic of the back of the postcard up in the original post along with a similar time period photo of Smokey Joe Williams. The original image of the big guy on the postcard is so-so, not very clear but not completely unidentifiable.

Do we know of any winter ball seasons from Williams during the 1920’s anywhere?

[Jason19th]

I looked again and I do t think that the 3rd player in is Rodriquez - I think that it is Eugenio Morin who played for Santa Clara in the mid 20’s. This would push the photo later and the Oms would make more sense

[bcbgcbrcb]

For those who asked about when these items would be presented for auction, both the Ciudad Trujillo photo and Cuban "V" team photo are both in the current Merkin Online Auction ending on June 24th.

[triwak]

I've been perusing it. Some cool stuff!