Feb. 28: On this day in 1892, Manuel Cuetowas born in Guanajay, Habana, Cuba.
Elected to the Cuban Baseball Hall of Fame in 1950, Cueto played 22 winters (including two independent leauge seasons) in Cuba from 1912-33 with Almendares, Red Sox, Habana, Marianao, Cuba and Santa Clara.
Cueto (shown in this 1924-25 Aguilitas Segundas card) ranks 11th in Cuban League career batting average (.301) and holds the record for most seasons (11) hitting over .300, according to Who's Who in Cuban Baseball, 1878-1961. He twice led the league in batting average: .334 in 1918-19 and .398 in 1926-27.
Feb. 28: On this day in 1899, Negro leagues star Jud Wilson was born in Remington, Va.
Wilson, who played for the Baltimore Black Sox, Homestead Grays, Pittsburgh Crawfords and Philadelphia Stars, played six seasons with Habana from 1925-36, batting .372 in his Cuban League career, and Habana won the pennant three of those seasons.
Before the Baltimore Orioles played the Cuban national team in a March 1999 exhibition game, it had been 40 years since a major-league team had set foot on Cuban soil.
In March 1959, the Los Angeles Dodgers and Cincinnati Reds had played a pair of spring training games at Havana's El Gran Stadium and Duke Snider was there.
Snider, the Dodgers' Hall of Fame center fielder, died Sunday. He was 84.
Snider appears 12 seconds into the above newsreel video clip (from the 2000 PBS documentary Greener Grass: Cuba, Baseball and the United States), standing next to teammate Don Drysdale at El Gran Stadium.
It was mere months after Fidel Castro had come to power on Jan. 1, 1959, and continuous rain in Florida prompted Dodgers owner Walter O'Malley to Bobby Maduro, the owner of El Gran Stadium, to set up a night game between the Dodgers and Reds.
"In a matter of hours," according to Cuban Baseball: A Statistical History, 1878-1961, the stadium was ready to host a game pitting Drysdale against then-Reds pitcher and former Dodger Don Newcombe.
In that game, Snider (shown with Cuban baseball writers Nelson Varela of Diario de la Marina, left, and Jorge Figueredo of Informacion) went 1-for-3 with an RBI, the Dodgers won 3-2 in front of 7,655 Cuban fans.
The next night, Sandy Koufax beat the Reds with relief help from Cuban pitcher Latigo Gutierrez.
This was not Snider's only appearance in Cuba.
As a 20-year-old Dodgers farmhand, Snider was trying to make the big club in the spring of 1947 when the Brooklyn Dodgers and Jackie Robinson -- who was with the organizations' Montreal Royals farm team -- trained in Cuba.
Crespo (shown in this 1949-50 Carteles premium) ranks first in Cuban League history in career doubles (130), second in RBI (415), fourth in hits (794), tied for fifth in triples (39) and sixth in runs scored (369), according to Who's Who in Cuban Baseball: 1878-1961.
He was named the league MVP in 1945-46, leading Cienfuegos to the Cuban League pennant by six games over Habana. Crespo also led the league in batting in 1942-43 (.337) and 1948-49 (.326).
The former Newark Eagles and New York Giants star outfielder played two seasons for Almendares.
In the 1948-49 season, Irvin (on the cover of this Fotos magazine) led the Cuban League with 10 home runs, while driving in 53 runs, as he helped lead Almendares to the pennant by eight games over Habana.
Irvin also was instrumental in Cuba’s Caribbean Series victoryfollowing the winter league. He batted .389 and led the Series with two homers and 11 RBI as Almendares, presenting Cuba, went 6-0 to win the inaugural Caribbean Series against Venezuela, Puerto Rico and Panama.
Feb. 23: On this day in 1908, Negro leagues star Raymond Brownwas born in Ashland Grove, Ohio.
Brown, who played most of his career with the Homestead Grays, played five seasons in Cuba, three with powerful Santa Clara between 1936-39.
Brown is shown in this photo that was up for auction at Cuban Baseball Cards in September 2010 with his children (also dressed in Santa Clara uniforms) during the 1936-37 season. That season, he went 21-4, including throwing a no-hitter.
Despite Brown's efforts -- according to Cuban Baseball: A Statistical History, 1878-1961 -- the Leopardos finished second, a game behind Cuban League-champion Marianao after losing a three-game playoff series. Marianao had forced the tie-breaking series by sweeping Santa Clara in the final three games of the regular season.
The next season, Santa Clara, with Brown going 12-5, won the pennant. The team followed with a second pennant in 1938-39 as Brown went 11-7.
Feb. 23: On this day in 1914, Cuban baseball Hall of Famer Pedro Pageswas born in Matanzas, Cuba.
Elected to the Cuban Baseball Hall of Fame in 1997, Pages played 15 seasons in the Cuban League between 1935-52, including 13 seasons with Cienfuegos.
According to Who's Who in Cuban Baseball, 1878-1961, Pages was named the league MVP for the 1944-45 season after batting .309 -- this despite the Elefantes finishing third among four teams, eight games behind league champion Almendares.
