Cuban American baseball history reaches well beyond Miami. A Growing Up Bright reel turns the spotlight on the New York Cubans, a team whose story belongs at the intersection of Latino heritage and the Negro Leagues.

According to the Negro Leagues Baseball eMuseum, owner Alex Pompez’s club competed in the Negro National League beginning in 1935, with an interruption in 1937 and 1938. The team returned in 1939 and built toward its defining achievement: defeating the Cleveland Buckeyes in the 1947 Negro World Series.

The Cubans played at New York’s Polo Grounds and later joined the Negro American League after the Negro National League folded. Their history is a reminder that the story of baseball in the United States has always included communities too often left outside its most familiar narratives.

Remembering the New York Cubans honors both the players’ achievements and the institutions preserving this chapter for new generations.

Featured source and creator: Growing Up Bright, original reel. Historical reference: Negro Leagues Baseball eMuseum’s New York Cubans profile, citing James A. Riley, The Biographical Encyclopedia of the Negro Baseball Leagues (1994).

Image credit: Historical image displayed in the Negro Leagues Baseball eMuseum’s New York Cubans collection. Individual photographer and date are not identified by the source.