Statement from Conrado Marrero to be read at Cuban baseball history congress

Word of the Cuban Cultural Center of New York's upcoming congress on Cuban baseball has reached Havana.
More specifically, it has reached Cuban baseball legend Conrado Marrero, who turned 100 in April and is the oldest living former major-league player.

According to Iraida Iturralde, first vice president of the Cuban Cultural Center, Marrero, who recently fractured his hip, and his doctor (who has internet at the hospital treating Marrero) contacted the center.

"I promised Conrado (shown in a 1949-50 Alerta premium) we would read his message at the congress," Iturralde wrote in an e-mail this week.

Among the former Cuban players expected to attend the congress at Fordham University's Lincoln Center campus in New York are: Minnie Miñoso, Luis Tiant, Tony Pérez, Julio Bécquer, José Cardenal and Cookie Rojas.

Cuban Cultural Center to host congress on Cuban baseball history

The Cuban Cultural Center of New York's annual congress this year will be on the history of Cuban baseball, and I will have the honor of moderating one of the panel discussions.

The congress will be held Aug. 20 at the Lincoln Center campus of Fordham University, which counts as an alumnus Cuban Baseball Hall of Famer and pioneer Esteban Bellan, the first Cuban-born player to play for a major league when he was a member of the Troy Haymakers of the National Association in 1871.

The congress will feature keynote speaker Roberto González Echevarría, Ph.D. at Yale University and author of Pride of Havana: A History of Cuban Baseball.

One panel will be a roundtable of Cuban All-Stars, whose invitees include Orestes "Minnie" Miñoso (left), Luis Tiant, Tony Perez and Bert Campaneris.

The panel I will moderate will include Manuel Márquez-Sterling, Professor Emeritus at Plymouth State University and author of the Cuba 1952-1959 blog; El Nuevo Herald journalist Marino Martínez; Leslie Heaphy, Ph.D. at Kent State University and author of A League of Their Own: Cuban Women in Baseball; and Gary Ashwill, baseball historian and author of the blog Agate Type: Adventures in Baseball Archeology.

I hope to blog and perhaps post video from the congress.