Reviewed by: Cuban Star: How One Negro-League Owner Changed the Face of Baseball Roberta Newman Adrian Burgos Jr. Cuban Star: How One Negro-League Owner Changed the Face of Baseball. New York: Hill and Wang, 2011. 302 pp. Cloth, $28.00. Once consigned to the background of baseball history, segregated black baseball has garnered a great deal of interest over the last two decades, producing a veritable flood of publications. The focus of much of this work has either been on presenting sweeping histories of the Negro leagues or on biographies of individual African American players and, less frequently, executives. Scant attention, however, has been paid to the considerable role played by Latinos in black baseball as well as in the organized, professional game. Adrian Burgos Jr.’s comprehensive study of the influence of Latin Americans on both sides of the segregated game as well as on the desegregated major leagues, Playing America’s Game: Baseball, Latinos, and the Color Line, is the notable exception. Burgos’s most recent work, a biography of Alejandro “Alex” Pompez (1890– 1974), adds to the body of literature. The child of Cuban immigrants, Pompez, once a power in Harlem’s numbers rackets, would become owner of the [End Page 108] Cuban Stars and later the New York Cubans, the “Latins from Manhattan.” Eventually, he would use his considerable knowledge of both Latin American and African American baseball talent to become an influential major-league scout. His story, as presented by Burgos, is a compelling one. Cuban Star is, first and foremost, a scholarly biography. Very well researched and annotated, the book provides ample socio-cultural analysis, while avoiding virtually all the clichés of popular baseball bios, most particularly the overly familiar tone. This is not to say that Cuban Star is dry, dense, or overly formal. Quite the contrary, its rich detail and clear writing make for entertaining reading. From the outset, Cuban Star tells a compelling story. In addition to recounting Pompez’s journey from Florida, through Havana, to New York, with several necessary forays to other locations, most notably time spent on the lam in Mexico City, the author pays close attention to the personal, social, and cultural influences on Pompez’s life and career. Particularly interesting is the story of Pompez’s father, Jose, a cigar factory owner and committed follower of Jose Marti, who was twice elected town clerk of West Tampa and left all his money to the cause of Cuban independence, leaving his family with little. The fact that Pompez financed the Cuban Stars with proceeds from the numbers rackets is not at all unusual. Numbers and policy kings often played the part of financiers in urban African American communities under the reign of Jim Crow, and more than a few Negro league owners made their money from the rackets. But Pompez’s connection to Dutch Schultz, however unwanted, and his prosecution by Thomas E. Dewey make up one of the central episodes in the baseball man’s life and one of the central episodes in Burgos’s book. Reading like something out of a crime novel, Burgos pays close attention to Pompez’s flight to Mexico City, where he was arrested. Extradited to the United States, Pompez eventually turned state’s evidence and helped to convict key figures in the organization Schultz left behind after his untimely, but not altogether unexpected, demise. Of course, Cuban Star is about a baseball man, and Pompez’s life in baseball makes up the lion’s share of this book. Just as his background and his legal history were unusual for a baseball executive, so was his background in the business. Unlike his fellow team owners, many of whom were at the financial mercy of white promoters for bookings, venue rental, and publicity, Pompez learned the ropes from Philadelphia’s Nat Strong, one of the most successful and least popular white booking agents. Prior to his legal troubles, Pompez acquired control over Dyckman Oval in upper Manhattan’s Inwood, allowing his team the luxury of its own ballpark, something few other black ball clubs could boast. Particularly interesting is Burgos’s discussion of the role played [End Page 109...
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Jul 14, 2023
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