'Rifleman' Chuck Connors wielded bat for Almendares

Nov. 10: On this date, actor and one-time baseball player Chuck Connors died in 1992 in Los Angeles.

Best known for his 1950s-60s TV show, The Rifleman, Connors was a Brooklyn Dodgers farmhand, a major-league player (briefly) and played two seasons with Almendares, winning back-to-back Cuban League pennants from 1948-50.

He batted .257 with three home runs and 35 RBI during the 1948-49 season and .287 with three homers and 17 RBI in 1949-50.

This photo brought a winning bid of $297 at Leland's in December 2004.

YouTube video entitled 'Baseball Cubano'

Alejandro Oms batted .432 for Santa Clara in 1923-23

Nov. 9: On this date in 1946, Cuban and Negro leagues star Alejandro Oms died.

Elected to the Cuban Baseball Hall of Fame in 1944, Oms is third on the All-time Cuban League list in batting average (.345) and holds the records for the longest hitting streak (30 games in 1928), most consecutive seasons batting over .300 (eight) and most seasons batting over .300 (11), according to Who's Who in Cuban Baseball: 1878-1961.

Between 1922-46, Oms played for Santa Clara, Matanzas, San Jose, Cuba, Marianao, Habana and Almendares and led the Cuban League in batting four times.

He was the MVP of the 1928-29 season, when he set the all-time Cuban League mark with a .432 batting average while leading Habana to the pennant. And he teammed with Hall of Famer Oscar Charleston and Pable Mesa to form what is considered the greatest outfield in Cuban League history with the pennant-winning Santa Clara team of the 1923-24 season.

Andres Fleitas was MVP of fabled 1946-47 season

Nov. 8: On this date in 1916, Cuban League star Andres Fleitas was born in Central Constancia, Abreu, Las Villas.

Elected to the Cuban Baseball Hall of Fame in 1983, Fleitas was the MVP of the fabled 1946-47 season, in which Almendares swept Habana in the teams' final three-game series to win the pennant.

Fleitas, who batted .316 that season, tripled in the winning run in seventh inning in the second game of that series as Almendares beat Habana 2-1 behind a complete-game effort by Agapito Mayor. The next day, Fleitas was behind the plate as Max Lanier beat Habana 9-2 on one-day's rest.

In 1999, Lanier asked me to pass along a note to Fleitas that read in part:

You were a great person as well as a great catcher. I couldn’t have won those two games without you behind home plate.

Between 1942-55, Fleitas played 10 seasons with Almendares. Unlike his brother, Angel, who played with the Washington Senators in 1948, Andres never played in the majors -- although the Baseball Reference website has Andres' mugshot on Angel's bio page.

Jose Mendez was a star of the Cuban and Negro leagues

Nov. 6: On this date in 1928, Hall of Fame pitcher Jose Mendez died in Havana, Cuba.

A Cuban League and Negro leagues star, Mendez compiled a 76-28 record 13 seasons in Cuba, pitching for Almendares, Santa Clara and Matanzas.

Enshrined in the Cuban Baseball Hall of Fame since 1939, Mendez was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., by a special election of Negro League players in 2006.

This charcoal sketch by a Bohemia magazine artist named Rivadulla was up for auction at Leland's in June 2005. The penciled notation at the bottom reads: "Publicado Feb. 12 de 1950 Bohemia Ano 42 Num. 7," "Published Feb. 12, 1950, Bohemia Year No. 42, Issue No. 7."

Red Sox held spring training at La Tropical Stadium in 1941

A 1941 photo of the Boston Red Sox holding spring training at Estadio La Tropical in Havana, Cuba.

Visible in the photo are Hall of Famers Jimmie Foxx (throwing) and perhaps Bobby Doerr (to Foxx's right).

This photo and three others from that spring training were up for auction in September at Cuban Baseball Cards Auctions, yet these amazing images received no bids.

This despite, or perhaps because of, a ... unique condition of the auction:

Any bids on this lot will be considered an official acknowledgment by the bidder that the Red Sox suck. Any such declaration of heretofore mentioned Boston suckery will be considered binding and valid until such time at which the Red Sox do not suck or are deemed no longer relevant as a professional sports franchise.

Dick Sisler was Cuban League legend

Nov. 2: On this date in 1920, Dick Sisler was born.

Sisler, the son of Hall of Famer George Sisler, became a Cuban League legend while playing with Habana during the 1945-46 and 1953-54 seasons.

In 1945, he hit two home runs in his first game on Dec. 11. Later that season in a Jan. 23, 1946 game, Sisler clubbed a homer over a 450-foot barrier La Tropical Stadium, “hitting a wall at the brewery next door,” according to Cuban Baseball: A Statistical History, 1878-1961. And the next day, he belted three homers off Sal Maglie, pitching for Cienfuegos.

Sisler's exploits even got him mentioned in Ernest Hemingway's Pulitzer-winning novel The Old Man and the Sea when the character of Santiago remembers “Dick Sisler and those great drivers at the old park.”