Muro, Raúl Diez (1899–1974)

Historia del Base Ball Profesional de Cuba… Campeonatos Celebrados desde 1878 hasta 1949 (History of Cuban Professional Baseball, 1878–1949) [Negro League Players]

Havana, Cuba: Liga de Base Ball Professional Cubana, 1949. Third Edition.
Full Title: Historia del Base Ball Profesional de Cuba... Campeonatos Celebrados desde 1878, hasta 1949

Translation: History of the Professional Base Ball of Cuba... Championships Held from 1878 to 1949

Original illustrated wrappers printed in color with elongated Cuban flag motif and vertical team pennants (Havana, Almendares, Marianao, Cienfuegos). Octavo, 390 pages. Numerous halftone photographs, player portraits, team composites, statistical tables, and period advertisements throughout. Text in Spanish.

The wrappers show edge wear, creasing, and chipping (the publisher-issued oversized covers extend beyond the text block and have taken expected handling losses). Paper remnant on spine; faint remediated stamp on front wrapper. Internal pages uniformly toned, as typical of Cuban newsprint, but supple. Rubber stamps to dedication leaf. The bindings are sound; no loose gatherings.

This is the official statistical and historical record of Cuban professional baseball through the 1948–49 championship season, issued by the Liga de Base Ball Profesional Cubana. It remains the most substantial single-volume reference on the island’s professional era, documenting every recorded season from 1878 forward, with complete standings, box scores, career summaries, and extensive photographic documentation.

Crucially, the volume includes portraits and statistical records for players who bridged Cuban League, Negro League, and early U.S. professional baseball, among them José Méndez, Cristóbal Torriente, Martín Dihigo, Alejandro Oms, Armando Marsans, Luis Padrón, and U.S. Negro League greats such as Pete Hill, Jud Wilson, Oscar Charleston, and John Henry Lloyd. For researchers working on Afro-Caribbean baseball networks, Negro League winter ball, or Cuban–U.S. baseball exchange, this is a foundational primary source.

Scarcity: OCLC/WorldCat locates seven institutional copies of the 3rd edition. Survival in the original oversized wrappers is far less common, as most were either trimmed or rebound due to fragility.
A key title for institutions collecting Caribbean sport history, Afro-diasporic athletics, or the international Negro Leagues.

Subjects: Cuban baseball; Negro League players; Winter Leagues; Latin American sport; Havana publishing; Caribbean print culture, Baseball history; Caribbean studies; Afro-Atlantic sport history; Primary statistical records; Illustrated sporting books.

Item #21379

Price: $600.00