(Originally published in the Agate Type newsletter.)

The Almendares club of the 1922/23 Cuban League was not a great team—they finished last (well, officially third*) in a four-team league, although they did feature some good players. This, however, is a great team photo:

As far as I can tell, the only IDs for this photo that are easily available are at Wikimedia, which they’ve taken from RMY Auctions when a print was up for sale back in 2017:

They tried to identify only 8 of the 17 players, and got just two right, as we’ll see. Most egregiously, they identified Bernardo Baró (front row, middle) as Martín Dihigo, who did not play for Almendares in 1922/23 (he was a 17-year-old rookie for Habana that season), and also does not look anything like Baró.

Anybody who’s got a passing familiarity with 1920s Cuban baseball will pretty much know who most of these players are, but I thought I’d go ahead and put their identities on public record.

Back Row, L to R: Edgar LePard, Ramón Herrera, Oscar Tuero, Armando Marsans, Valentín Dreke, Bartolo Portuondo

Middle Row, L to R: Chano García, Oscar Rodríguez, José Rodríguez, Eufemio Abreu, Tommy Taylor, Eugenio Morín

Front Row, L to R: Isidro Fabré, Cheo Ramos, Bernardo Baró, Oscar Levis, Wickey McAvoy

Here are player-by-player comparisons, with players from this photo on the left, confirmed photos from other sources on the right.

Edgar LePard

This southpaw emerged from the semipro ranks after World War I and got a tryout with the Yankees, but wound up as a career minor leaguer.

Ramón (Paíto, Mike) Herrera

The erstwhile Cuban Star and future Boston Red Sox infielder is very recognizable (and looks nothing like Oscar Rodríguez!):

Oscar Tuero

Armando Marsans

Valentín Dreke

The longtime Cuban and Negro league star was one of the two players RMY Auctions correctly identified.

Bartolo Portuondo

Joaquín (Chano) García

He didn’t hit much (a combined .198 career average in Cuba and the United States), but he was a regular for both this team and the 1926 Bacharach Giants.

Oscar Rodríguez

José (Joseíto, Joe) Rodríguez

The team’s player-manager (and Oscar’s older brother), who decided to dress up for this picture (and who looks nothing like Armando Marsans).

Eufemio Abreu

Tommy Taylor

Eugenio Morín

Isidro Fabré

Cheo Ramos

Bernardo Baró

This is definitely not El Inmortal.

Oscar Levis

The only known Jamaican-born Negro leaguer.

Wickey McAvoy

The RMY Auctions description does correctly identify him, but wrongly calls him “one of the first white players to play in Cuba.” White Americans had played professional baseball in Cuba as early as 1879, and of course many native Cuban ballplayers identified as white. The Cuban League itself did not allow Black players until the 1900 season. McAvoy was nothing unusual when it came to racial identity: there are two other white Americans in this very photograph (LePard and Taylor), along with six Cubans who were considered light-complexioned enough to compete in the U.S. major and minor leagues (Herrera, Tuero, Oscar and José Rodríguez, Morín, and Ramos).

*-Santa Clara left the league in a huff after a dispute over a game went against them, and the league officially forfeited their entire remaining schedule, leaving them with a 14-40 record (and the other three teams with records over .500). In the Seamheads DB we have not honored that decision, since it badly distorts—in fact conceals—what really happened on the field.