We remember an important anniversary in Cuban baseball:
“On December 29, 1878, the first game is played between two teams of the first professional baseball league in Cuba, later known as the Cuban League.
Representing the city of Havana, the Habana club faced off against their greatest rivals, a club from the neighboring suburb of Almendares. Habana, coached by Esteban Bellán, the first Cuban to play professional baseball in the United States, won that inaugural game 21-20.”
The first game eventually turned into the very successful Almendares-Habana rivalry, the Cuban version of the Yankees-Red Sox story. Eventually, there was a winter league with teams like Marianao and Cienfuegos.
It all started today in 1878!