Baseball 'visionary' gathering support to get on Hall of Fame ballot

His minor league baseball team relocated to another country against his wishes and professional sports outlawed in his native Cuba following a Communist revolution, Roberto "Bobby" Maduro finally gave up his dream.

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

But this wasn’t the end of Maduro's baseball story, one that remains unfamiliar to many baseball fans.

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

"I always saw him as a visionary type of person," Lou Hernández told USA TODAY Sports about Maduro, who owned the Havana Sugar Kings of the Class AAA International League from 1954-60.

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"He always saw the internationalization of the game as a way of broadening it and promoting it. … In a way he was sort of a forerunner for the globalization that we see in modern baseball today."

Author of "Bobby Maduro and the Cuban Sugar Kings," Hernández is one of the historians who this past week submitted a packet of information to the Hall of Fame, endorsing Maduro’s inclusion on the ballot of Classic Baseball Era finalists, which is expected to be announced a few days after the last game of the 2024 World Series.

Tony Pérez, Cookie Rojas endorse Bobby Maduro for Hall of Fame

The packet contains 15 signed endorsements, including letters from Hall of Famer Tony Pérez and former major league player, 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 prospects reaching the major leagues, of which I was one," Rojas wrote.

Wrote Pérez: "Bobby Maduro helped pave the way for me into organized baseball and eventually to the Hall of Fame."

The vote by the Classic Baseball Era Committee will take place and be announced in December.

"I feel like we’ve got a pretty good chance right now," Anthony Salazar, chair of the Society for American Baseball Research’s Latino Baseball Research Committee, 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. "It’s incredible, the accomplishments of that man. He dedicated his entire life to baseball. … It would be a tremendous recognition and he would very much deserve it."

Bobby Maduro’s tumultuous time in Cuba

The bulk of Maduro’s time as a baseball team owner coincided with perhaps the most vibrant era for the Cuban Winter League, followed by the most volatile time for the country.

Along with business partner Miguelito Suárez, Maduro built El Gran Stadium of Havana, which became the home for the Cuban League from 1946 to 1961.

Already a co-owner of the Cienfuegos team in the Cuban League, Maduro bought the Havana Cubans of the Class B Florida International League and moved the franchise to the International League in 1954 as the Cuban Sugar Kings, although they appeared in the standings in U.S. newspapers as Havana.

The team’s motto: "Un paso mas y llegamos" – "One more step and we arrive" – alluding to Maduro’s goal of seeing a major league team in Havana.

During the Sugar Kings’ early years, Fidel Castro was mounting a revolution against Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista, with violence periodically breaking out in Havana, including a 1957 attack on the Presidential Palace in attempt to kill Batista.

Such incidents prompted repeated calls to relocate the Sugar Kings. Maduro often had to assuage concerns from league president Frank Shaughnessy and fellow team owners, who at times threatened to refuse to play games in Havana.

After Castro overthrew Batista on Jan. 1, 1959, gunfire erupted around Gran Stadium in celebration of the anniversary of Castro’s revolutionary 26^th of July Movement. Stray bullets grazed Sugar Kings shortstop Leo Cárdenas and Frank Verdi of the Rochester Red Wings. Neither was seriously wounded but the Red Wings refused to finish the series.

Remarkably, the Sugar Kings completed that season, winning the International League championship and then beating the American Association champion Minneapolis Millers in a dramatic seven-game Junior World Series played mostly in Havana.

Turmoil in Havana only escalated during the 1960 season, and weeks after a June explosion at a munitions dump at Havana Harbor rocked the city, Shaughnessy ordered the Sugar Kings be relocated to Jersey City over Maduro’s objections – while the team was in the middle of a four-city, 14-game road trip.

Bobby Maduro’s baseball résumé

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

Although much of his career was focused on baseball outside the U.S., Maduro had a wide breadth of accomplishments:

• Built and co-owned El Gran Stadium of Havana, today called Estadio Latinoamericano.
• Helped negotiate the Cuban League’s entry into organized baseball in 1947.
• Helped establish the framework for Caribbean Series in 1948.
• Co-owner of Cienfuegos of the Cuban Winter League (1949-53).
• Owner of the Class B Havana Cubans of the Florida International League in 1953.
• Owner of Havana Sugar Kings of the Class AAA International League and minor league affiliate of the Cincinnati Reds (1954-60).
• Launched Los Cubanitos, a Cuban youth league modeled after Little League with 5,000 participants (1954-60).
• Owner of minor league Jersey City Jerseys (1960-61), Jacksonville Suns (1962-63).
• GM of Jacksonville Suns (1964-65).
• Latin American scout for the St. Louis Cardinals (1964-65).
• Director of Inter-American Relations (1965-78) under MLB commissioners William Eckert and Bowie Kuhn, serving as cultural liaison between MLB and Caribbean leagues.
• Founded short-lived Inter-American League (1979).
• Inaugural 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 has been nothing short of an incredible feat in the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s," Salazar said. "You’ve got an incredible track record of selfless acts and creating pathways for Latino ballplayers and baseball in general."

Hurdles to inclusion on Hall of Fame ballot

Yet, Maduro’s résumé is not well-known among modern baseball followers, which Monte Cely, who has attended 11 Caribbean Series since 2011, acknowledged might be the biggest hurdle.

"Awareness is certainly a big issue," he told USA TODAY Sports of the efforts to get Maduro on the ballot. Cely said this most recent effort has been aided by feedback from prior committee voters.

"One key item was, can you make a comparison or contrast to anyone that’s currently in the Hall of Fame?" Cely said. "And fortunately, one of our endorsers did just that."

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

"If you look at the executives that are in the Hall of Fame, Alex Pompez is probably the closest analogy," Cely said. "Bobby Maduro’s very unique in terms of his breadth of accomplishments, but Pompez is probably the closest executive in terms of comparing accomplishments, etc."

Another concern is the 2022 changes that restructured the committees into two – one for players and another for managers, executives and umpires – Contemporary Baseball Era (from 1980) ballots and one Classic Baseball Era ballot (before 1980).

"So, now you’ve got just one ballot that goes out every three years that’s everybody 1980 and before," Cely said. "So, access to that ballot could be a little more crowded."

Jorge Maduro’s biggest concern? Time.

"He (Bobby Maduro) died so many years ago," Jorge said. "My only concern is that a lot of time has passed and that makes it harder for people to recognize what he did, but he deserves it."