Season of 1958-59 was Cuban League's Year of the Pitcher

The 1958-59 Cuban League program, brought to fans -- as the words at the bottom of the cover indicate -- "courtesy of Hatuey, the grand beer of Cuba."

That season was the Cuban League's "Year of the Pitcher," according to Cuban Baseball: A Statistical History, 1878-1961, as hurlers recorded 44 shutouts, shattering the previous record of 30 set in 1947-48.
Nine pitchers had ERA below 2.00, the highest team batting average was .233 and the top individual batting average was .303, the lowest in league history.

Led by Orlando Peña's league-leading 15-5 record, Almendares won the pennant by eight games over Marianao.

And the fall of Fulgencio Batista's regime to Fidel Castro on Jan. 1, 1959 delayed games until Jan. 6.

Jan 1: On this day in 1959, Fidel Castro came to power in Cuba

With long-time dictator Fulgencio Batista fleeing Cuba in the early morning hours, Fidel Castro and his band of rebels rode victoriously into the city of Havana on Jan. 1, 1959, forever altering the history of the country, the lives of its people and the course of the sport that had been ingrained in the island's culture for almost a century.

By the end of 1961, Castro had banned professional baseball in Cuba, a situation which continues to this day, almost five decades later.