Huh. From the Did You Know Files.

Chances are if you are reading this soon after the publishing time, I am on a flight to Dayton, as long as the Snowpocalypse backups don't affect my flight from National Airport. I do look forward to eating Skyline and Cassano's sometime in the coming days!

A few days ago Red Reporter gave a final rundown of the Best 100 Reds series. An interesting side note was some of the fun names the Reds have had in the past. I like to look at turn of the century rosters to see all of the unusual names and the great nicknames they had back then. As I was pouring over a few rosters from the early twentieth century, I came across some interesting names, not for their unusual sound, but because of their unusual ethnicity, at least for that time - Armando Marsans and Rafael Almeida.

Turns out, Marsáns and Almeida, who both debuted on July 4, 1911 for the Reds, are recognized by Major League Baseball as the first Cuban MLB baseball players. Both of them spent time in the Negro Leagues. Though they were light skinned Cubans, the Reds had to refute rumors that they had "negro blood."

Almeida spent only three years in MLB, all with the Reds, mostly as a bench player. Marsáns, on the other hand, was a good player who finished 18th and 24th in MVP voting in 1912 and 1913 respectively. However, a falling out with the manager of the Reds led to his quitting the team and going to play for the St. Louis Terriers of the Federal League in 1914. It was his last good season. Legal battles with the Reds plagued him for the next few years, forcing him at one point to return to Cuba. He went to the Browns the next year and to the Yankees for two seasons after that, but he was never the player he was for those two brilliant seasons for the Reds.

The Reds discovered the pair on a trip to Cuba in 1908 to play exhibition games against the Cuban teams.

You can read the great bio of Marsáns here at the Baseball Biography Project. Interesting stuff.

Of all the firsts the Reds have had, this is one I didn't know about.

Pretty awesome

The Reds Hall of Fame will debut two new exhibits this spring and is looking for your help in making these exhibits unforgettable experiences for all Hall visitors.

For "Crosley Field Remembered," the Hall is actively seeking items associated with the ballpark to include in the exhibit. Crosley-era programs, ticket stubs, snapshots from photo days, souvenirs, advertising materials, concession items - all are of great interest.

The Hall of Fame is also looking to supplement the displays for 2009's second major exhibit, "The Negro Leagues and Cincinnati." If you have any items connected to the Cincinnati Tigers, Clowns, Buckeyes, Browns, Cubans Stars or Crescents or any advertising items, programs or scorecards related to Negro League games played in Cincinnati or Negro League players from the area, please contact us.

If you are interested in loaning or donating an item for either or both of the Hall of Fame's new exhibits or if you have questions about making a loan or donation, please contact Reds Hall of Fame Chief Curator Chris Eckes at ceckes@reds.com or by phone at (513) 765-7930.

I don't have any memorabilia old enough to contribute, but if you do, do it!

"The Negro Leagues and Cincinnati"

Cincinnati's role in the Negro League story will be examined through images, period artifacts and rare film footage. The Hall of Fame's exhibit will also include items culled from the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum's "Discover Greatness: An Illustrated History of the Negro Baseball Leagues" exhibit, the balance of which will be on display at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, which is partnering with the Hall of Fame to bring this traveling exhibit to Cincinnati. The Hall of Fame's exhibit is part of the Reds' season-long celebration of the June 19-21 Civil Rights Weekend which will be highlighted by the Civil Rights Game on June 20 against the Chicago White Sox.

I'm really excited about the Negro Leagues exhibit in Cincy - I've been curious about Negro Leagues baseball in the city. I know a little about the Clowns, but it is my understanding that Cincy couldn't keep a Negro Leagues team for very long and I'm wondering if that has to do with being a small city and not being able to profit from the teams or because of the racial problems associated with the city. Or both. If anyone knows anything about it, let me know. It would make an excellent topic for a book, that's for sure.

I can't wait to see these exhibits this year!
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It's a new dawn, it's a new day, it's a new life...

I watched MLB Network’s “Pride and Perseverance” about the Negro Leagues this evening. If that’s the quality of programming we can expect to see from MLB Network, I may never leave the couch again. Really great stuff. I had tears in my eyes, which has happened quite a lot this weekend – tears of joy, tears of rage, tears of hope that we can put all of this skin color nonsense behind us forever. I suppose nonsense is too weak of a word.

One thing I found fun about the Negro Leagues is all of the great nicknames the players had. My favorite was Peach Head. There was Mule, Buck, Bobo, Chico, Double Duty, Cool Papa, Mack the Knife, Whip, Slim – it seems like everyone had a nickname, and not just had a nickname, but were known by their nicknames. Today we have weak names like A Rod and K Rod and Big Z. There’s The Big Unit, The Rocket, Big Puma, and a few others, and then more localized names like Adam “Donkey” Dunn, Voltron, Johnny Cuest, but no one calls them that outside of their markets. I think Chris Berman killed nicknames.

In the 1920s, black teams used to play Major League teams in exhibition games. It was said that Major League players loved these games because the competition was so tough, as the black teams often beat the Major League teams. Babe Ruth was a big champion of these games. Ohio’s own Kenesaw Mountain Landis banned these games in 1929. I remember driving past the sign in Millville that read “Birthplace of Kenesaw Mountain Landis, First Commissioner of Major League Baseball” on trips from Miami U. to Cincy. The sign stood so proudly. I think they should take it down. Bigots deserve no place in history.

Do you ever wonder what you would have been like had you lived in another time period? I’m convinced I would have been ostracized for eccentricities if I had been born any earlier. I know I would have gone to Griffith Stadium in DC to see Josh Gibson play, and I would have gone alone if no one would have gone with me. A single white woman going to a black baseball game? In some cities you’d probably be killed for that. Like Cincinnati. I would have been screaming my head of for Josh Gibson, my answer to the question, "If you could see any ballplayer play ball, who would it be?" Josh Gibson, the greatest baseball player who ever lived, a guy who was said by some to hit over 900 home runs in his career, a guy who was said by others to have hit a homer out of Yankee Stadium, tragically died of a stroke at age 35, three months before Jackie Robinson made his Major League debut. Sometimes, fate is a cruel mother.

I am very proud that baseball was a catalyst for the civil rights movement. True American human heroes emerged from the dark shadows of segregation, heroes like Jackie Robinson, Branch Rickey, Larry Doby, and the others who followed. It's just unthinkable to me that these stories are real, that those signs they showed on the documentary, the ones that said "We do laundry for white people only" and "White Entrance/Black Entrance" couldn't have existed. But they did. I know they did. I just can't wrap my head around it.

It we could realign the stars, I would love to see the 1931 Homestead Grays play the 1976 Reds in a series. The ’31 Grays went 163-23 that year. Josh Gibson hit 75 homers. The roster had five Hall of Famers: Oscar Charleston , Jud "Boojum" Wilson, Smokey Joe Williams, Willie Foster, and Gibson. Man, what a series that would be. Well, someday, when I get to that cornfield in Iowa, maybe I’ll be able to sit in the bleachers eating my hotdog and see that series. And yeah, I’ll root my heart out for the Reds, but when Josh comes up and hits a 500 footer into the waving green beyond the outfield, I will stand up and clap.

Those guys must be sitting up there beaming at America right now.
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