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This volume represents a first and only biographical encyclopedia (in English or Spanish) devoted to Cuban ballplayers who have performed in the post-revolution Cuban “amateur” league (1962-2007) and on Cuban national teams which have dominated international tournaments for the past 45 years (including Olympic Baseball, World Cup tournaments, Intercontinental Cup and Pan American Games competitions). All the major stars and important lesser figures of the Cuban National Series and Selective Series (recently renamed the Super League) are included, as well as every member of all senior-level Cuban national teams of the past five decades. Player profiles are accompanied by career statistics (for all players) and numerous photos (for about one-third of the entries). Important non-playing figures like managers, coaches, league officials (including Fidel Castro) and broadcasters are also provided. Supplemental materials include 2 chapters outlining post-1962 Cuban baseball history, thus giving a context for the player portraits.

Major League Baseball’s March 2006 World Baseball Classic shocked an international audience when previously unheralded “amateurs” from the long-hidden Cuban League unleashed a talent display that lead to an appearance in the tournament finals. Pedro Luis Lazo (once a teammate of 2005 World Series star José Contreras, himself an ex-Cuban Leaguer) demonstrated dominance equal to any big league closer, American audiences discovered a slugger named Osmani Urrutia who has now batted over .400 in five of the past six seasons, and Baseball America at tournament’s end dubbed second baseman Yulieski Gourriel the top non-signed prospect of the entire WBC field. Who are these great Cuban stars that almost no one outside the island has heard of? How many others like them have played in the shadows during recent decades after Cuban baseball became off-limits to major league talent scouts? Here for the first time are the intimate portraits and career details of a half-century of Cuban ballplayers who have been as lost to North American fans, sportswriters, and historians as were the now-legendary blackballers of the pre-1947 Negro leagues era.

Even for Spanish-speaking Cuban fans on the island nation no “Who’s Who” volume collecting portraits of all major and minor Cuban Leaguers has ever previously been published. And outside of Cuba, the false notion still persists that most of the great Cuban stars played before the 1961 closing of Cuba’s professional baseball era. This single volume corrects both voids and opens for North American readers one of the very last hidden corners of the baseball universe.

Many Cuban leaguers of the past five decades have been true big leaguers in talent and achievements; yet their careers have been hidden from North American fans by the circumstances of Cold War politics that has keep islanders out of the major leagues and that has also hidden Cuban National Series action from the view of most Americans. The record here of these players’ achievements, milestones and playing talents is an important contribution to modern-era baseball history. Diminutive righty Aquino Abreu (1966) duplicated Johnny Vander Meer’s big league feat of back-to-back no-hitters; Sports Illustrated writer Ron Fimrite once called slugging 1970s-era Havana first baseman Antonio Muñoz a left-handed Tony Pérez; 1980s/1990s-era infielder Omar Linares was widely touted as the best third baseman never to play in the majors; 100-mph fastballer Maels Rodríguez was reputed to have the best arm of the past quarter-century by many big league scouts who saw him in international tournaments before his 2002 career-ending arm injury; 1990s shortstop Germán Mesa was the equal to Ozzie Smith and right-hander Lázaro Valle was always considered in his homeland to be a cut above “El Duque” Hernández; and in recent months viewers of the World Baseball Classic were shocked by the hitting of Yulieski Gourriel, the game-closing skills of Pedro Luis Lazo, and the crack infield play of Eduardo Paret. Here, for the first time for U.S. readers, are full portraits and career details of these amazing all-stars.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface

Chapter 1 - Cuba's National Series: A Contextual History
Chapter 2 - The Special Flavor of Cuban Baseball
Chapter 3 - Best Team Money Can't Buy: Cuba's International Domination
Chapter 4 - Revolutionary baseball's Twenty-Five Greatest Players
Chapter 5 - Cuban League Teams
Chapter 6 - Stars and Role Players of the 1960s and 1970s
Chapter 7 - Stars and Role Players of the 1980s and 1990s
Chapter 8 - Stars and Role Players of the 2000s

Appendix I: Chronology of Cuban Baseball, 1962-2008
Appendix II: National Series and Selective Series Statistical Records

Bibliography
Index