Specialized Catalog Cuban Cards Answer

[GeoPoto]

Conrado E. "Connie" Marrero Ramos. Pitcher for the Washington Senators in 1950-1954. 39 wins and 3 saves in 5 MLB seasons. 1951 All-Star. After long and successful career in Cuba, he made his MLB debut at age 38 in 1950. His best season was 1952 as he posted a 11-8 record with an ERA of 2.88 in 184.1 innings pitched. When he died in 2014, he was the oldest living MLB player.

From Marrero's SABR biography: To aging North American fans, Marrero is remembered exclusively for his five brief seasons with the American League also-ran Washington Senators, the team he joined in 1950 as a grizzled 39-year-old rookie. It has often been reported that Washington owner-manager Clark Griffith erroneously believed Marrero was born in 1919 instead of 1911 when he signed him on, but that part of the legend is probably only apocryphal.

Marrero was nonetheless anything but a novelty act during his Washington years, featuring one of the league’s most devastating curves and claimed repeatedly by manager Bucky Harris to be the most valuable “stopper” on an otherwise lamentable Washington mound corps. “Connie Marrero had a windup that looked like a cross between a windmill gone berserk and a mallard duck trying to fly backwards,” once noted Dominican slugger Felipe Alou. But it was always the issue of his age (more even than his huge cigars or funky delivery) that remained the Cuban’s most notable calling card.

For stateside partisans whose memories stretch back a full half-century, it is nearly impossible to separate Marrero from nostalgic memories of one of the Fabulous Fifties’ most charismatic yet inept teams. Marrero seemed, in fact, to epitomize Clark Griffith’s entire stable of sad sack Washington Senators. There was plenty of raw talent to be sure in the magical arm of the fire-plug-shaped Cuban right-hander—as there was in those of fellow countrymen and Washington teammates Camilo Pascual and Pedro Ramos—but the more entertaining story for beat writers and their readers was always in the end his oversized Havana cigars, his laughter-provoking slaughtered-English phrases, and his whirling-dervish high-kicking delivery while launching the league’s most tantalizing slider and curveball.

The stogie, the thick Spanish accent and the elaborate windmill windup were trademark realities that merged rapidly into all-too-familiar stereotypes. In the large scheme of things Conrado Marrero was little more than a blip on the screen of baseball’s golden age fifties so dominated by names like Mantle, Musial, Williams, Spahn, Mays and Banks. But from yet another perspective, the American League Washington Senators and the whole enterprise of big league baseball were themselves, in turn, but a mere blip in the baseball-playing career of the seemingly ageless and remarkably durable Conrado Marrero.

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[Roland 49]

George very good what you published Conrado Marrero. You can write a lot about Marrero, he was an idol in amateur baseball and also in professional baseball in Cuba, in MLB, I think that if he had played in better teams his record would have been better, he also started at 39 years old, he said that The first time he faced Ted Williams strikeouts, he was the manager of Almendares, he lived 102 years, now I show you the first Marrero card from the collection La Ambrosia 1943 played for the Cienfuegos amateurs team.

[Roland 49]

This is card # 6 of the manager of the Cubans of Havana, Oscar Rodríguez from the album HC Helados Hatuey 1948, very rare.

[Roland 49]

This is the 2nd series of postage stamps featuring baseball and boxing.

[Butch7999]

Beisbol should not be regarded as one centavo less valuable than boxing.

[Exhibitman]

I like it.

[Roland 49]

B7999, how good you published, you are right in the price of baseball and boxing, but at that time the 9c stamp was used more, and therefore the baseball label circulated more, now there is another example from 1966, notice that the baseball stamp is 3c, and that was the price of circulation of the envelopes throughout the territory of Cuba.

[Roland 49]

B7999, you are right, the $ 2 bill is rare, the first one printed in 1862 but with the face of Hamilton, already in 1869 it appeared with Jefferson, but there are issues of 1874, 1928, 1953, 1976, of this last time I got 4 in perfect condition and consecutive numbering, I have seen people who keep it because they say it is lucky, now an anecdote, a few years ago I visited the Plaza de Armas 1 or 2 times a week and sometimes the Hotel Santa Isabel in the same place of the constructions of the 18th and 19th century, on the day that I went to the hotel to see one of the employees I knew, I saw several people at the door and the doorman would not let them in, as they knew me and if I could enter and now Inside I see my friend standing talking with a person who was sitting at a table having breakfast, I approached to say hello and the one who was sitting was the actor Jack Nicholson, and I greeted him, I stayed for a while and Nicholson came out and immediately people surrounded him who were outside, to ask for autographs etc, in That is why a man takes out his wallet and takes out a $ 2 bill and a $ 100 bill, he was undecided and gave him the $ 100 bill to be signed and so it happened, but he dies at me and asks me: What do you believe? and I answer him: you should have given him the $ 2 that you are not going to spend because you have it saved and the $ 100 insurance at some point you will need to use it, but there was no time, Jack got into the car with the driver and his companions and left,

[Roland 49]

Now I show some pennants from the first Cuban National Baseball Series

[Roland 49]

Camaguey baseball team 1946-47 Federation Championship in La Tropical, Caramelos Felices, you can see the club's logo, and the "Pollo" Rodriguez and Parrado cards.

[Roland 49]

In the photo we see Conrado Marrero, very young when he played for the Estany team.