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Will ‘visionary’ Bobby Maduro be included on 2024 Baseball Hall of Fame ballot?

Will ‘visionary’ Bobby Maduro be included on 2024 Baseball Hall of Fame ballot?

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When his minor league baseball team was relocated to another country against his will and professional sports were banned in his native Cuba following the Communist revolution, Roberto “Bobby” Maduro eventually gave up on his dream.

The Cuban entrepreneur’s family had already fled to the United States, and Maduro flew out of Havana on April 16, 1961, just hours before the ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion, because he knew he would never get the chance to bring a major league team to Havana.

But Maduro’s baseball story didn’t end there; it remains an unfamiliar story to many baseball fans.

A group of baseball historians is trying to change that. They and some former major leaguers believe Maduro’s work makes him worthy of Hall of Fame consideration.

“I’ve always seen him as a visionary,” Lou Hernández told USA TODAY Sports of Maduro, who owned the Havana Sugar Kings of the Class AAA International League from 1954-60.

“He always saw the internationalization of the game as a way to expand and promote it. … In a way, he was a forerunner of the globalization we see in modern baseball today.”

Hernández, author of “Bobby Maduro and the Cuban Sugar Kings,” is one of the historians who sent a packet of information to the Hall of Fame last week supporting Maduro’s inclusion in the Classic Baseball Era finalist ballot, which is expected to be announced a few days after the final game of the 2024 World Series.

Tony Pérez and Cookie Rojas convince Bobby Maduro to join the Hall of Fame

The package includes 15 autographed endorsements, including letters from Hall of Famer Tony Pérez and former major leaguer, manager and coach Cookie Rojas, who played for the Sugar Kings in 1959-60.

“As owner of the Sugar Kings, Mr. Maduro was directly responsible for many Cuban talents reaching the major leagues, and I was one of them,” wrote Rojas.

“Bobby Maduro helped pave my way to organized baseball and eventually the Hall of Fame,” Pérez wrote.

The Classic Baseball Era Committee’s vote will be held and announced in December.

“I think we have a pretty good shot right now,” Anthony Salazar, chairman of the Latino Baseball Research Committee of the Association for American Baseball Research, told USA TODAY Sports.

If Maduro, who died in 1986, were to make it onto the ballot, “It would be something that would give me great pride,” Maduro’s son Jorge told USA TODAY Sports. “This man’s accomplishments are incredible. He dedicated his entire life to baseball. … It would be a tremendous accolade and he would be very deserving of it.”

Bobby Maduro’s turbulent era in Cuba

Much of Maduro’s tenure as baseball owner coincided with perhaps the most vibrant period of the Cuban Winter League, followed by the country’s most volatile period.

Maduro, along with business partner Miguelito Suárez, built Havana’s El Gran Stadium, which hosted the Cuban League from 1946 to 1961.

Maduro, already a partner in the Cuban League’s Cienfuegos team, purchased the Havana Cubans of the Class B Florida International League in 1954 and moved the club to the International League as the Cuban Sugar Kings in 1954, although they were listed as Havana in U.S. newspaper rankings.

The team’s motto is:One more step and one more step” – “One more step and we’re there” – referring to Maduro’s goal of seeing a major league team in Havana.

During the early years of the Sugar Kings, Fidel Castro was leading a revolution against Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista, and there were occasional incidents of violence in Havana, including an attack on the Presidential Palace in 1957 in an attempt to kill Batista.

Such incidents have led to repeated calls for the Sugar Kings to move, with Maduro having to assuage the concerns of league president Frank Shaughnessy and other team owners, who have at times threatened to refuse to play games in Havana.

After Castro overthrew Batista on January 1, 1959, gunfire was heard around the Gran Stadium to celebrate the 26th anniversary of Castro’s revolution.pearl July Action. Stray bullets grazed Sugar Kings shortstop Leo Cárdenas and Rochester Red Wings shortstop Frank Verdi. Neither was seriously injured, but the Red Wings refused to end the series.

Surprisingly, the Sugar Kings finished that season by winning the International League championship and then defeating the American League champion Minneapolis Millers in a dramatic seven-game Junior World Series, the majority of which was played in Havana.

Unrest in Havana grew throughout the 1960 season, and weeks after an explosion at a munitions depot in Havana Harbor in June, Shaughnessy ordered the Sugar Kings to move to Jersey City, over Maduro’s objections; the team was in the middle of a four-city, 14-game road trip.

Bobby Maduro’s baseball summary

After Maduro left Cuba in 1961, he regained control of his club, which he renamed the Jersey City Jerseys, and eventually worked in the commissioner’s office.

Although Maduro has focused most of his career on baseball outside the United States, he has achieved a wide range of success:

  • He built and co-owned the El Gran Stadium in Havana, which is now known as the Estadio Latinoamericano.
  • In 1947 he helped negotiate the Cuban League’s entry into organized baseball.
  • In 1948 he helped create the framework for the Caribbean Series.
  • Co-owner of Cienfuegos of the Cuban Winter League (1949-53).
  • In 1953, he became the owner of the Class B Havana Cubans of the Florida International League.
  • Owner of the Havana Sugar Kings of the Class AAA International League, the minor league affiliate of the Cincinnati Reds (1954-60).
  • Started CubansA Cuban youth league modeled after Little League with 5,000 participants (1954-60).
  • Owner of the minor league Jersey City Jerseys (1960-61) and Jacksonville Suns (1962-63).
  • GM of the Jacksonville Suns (1964-65).
  • Latin American scout for the St. Louis Cardinals (1964-65).
  • He served as Director of Inter-American Affairs (1965–78) under MLB commissioners William Eckert and Bowie Kuhn and served as cultural liaison between MLB and the Caribbean leagues.
  • Founded the short-lived Inter-American League (1979).
  • The first class of the Latino Baseball Hall of Fame in the Dominican Republic in 2010.

“Bobby Maduro was a pioneer in our Latino baseball community and what he accomplished was nothing short of incredible success in the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s,” Salazar said. “You have an incredible track record of selfless actions and creating pathways for Latino baseball players and baseball in general.”

Obstacles to getting on the Hall of Fame ballot

But the fact that Maduro’s resume isn’t well known among modern baseball followers may be his biggest hurdle, as Monte Cely, who has participated in 11 Caribbean Series since 2011, acknowledged.

“Awareness is definitely a big issue,” he told USA TODAY Sports about the efforts to get Maduro on the ballot. Cely said this latest effort was bolstered by feedback from previous committee voters.

“The big question is, can you compare or contrast anyone who’s currently in the Hall of Fame?” Cely said. “And fortunately, one of our supporters did exactly that.”

Thomas E. Van Hyning, who has written two books about the Puerto Rican winter league, wrote in a letter of support that Maduro’s contributions to the game “mirror” those of Hall of Famer Alex Pompez, owner of the New York Cubans of the Negro Leagues, who was elected by a special committee vote in 2006.

“If you look at Hall of Fame executives, Alex Pompez is probably the closest analogy,” Cely said. “Bobby Maduro is pretty unique in terms of the breadth of his accomplishments, but Pompez is probably the closest executive in terms of comparing accomplishments and so on.”

Another concern is the 2022 changes that split the committees into two sections, one for players and one for managers, administrators and umpires. These are the Contemporary Baseball Era (1980-onwards) ballots and the Classic Baseball Era (pre-1980s) ballots.

“So now you have one ballot that comes out every three years, which is for everyone from 1980 and before,” Cely said. “So, access to that ballot might be a little bit more crowded.”

Jorge Maduro’s biggest concern? Time.

“He (Bobby Maduro) died so many years ago,” Jorge said. “My only concern is that so much time has passed and that makes it harder for people to realize what he did, but he deserves it.”