Timeline of International Baseball, 1847-present

By Eric Enders
Previously unpublished (2000) 

1847— According to a probably apocryphal legend, American soldiers fighting in the Mexican War play the first baseball game in Mexico, at Jalapa. The wooden leg of defeated general Antonio López de Santa Anna is allegedly used as the bat.

1864— Nemesio Guilló returns home to Cuba after studying at Springhill College in Mobile, Alabama. Among the items he brings back from the United States are a baseball and bat, the first ever seen in Cuba.

1869— Havana-born third baseman Esteban Bellán joins the Troy Haymakers, a top semipro team. When the Haymakers become charter members of the National Association two years later, Bellán becomes the first Latin American player in professional baseball. (He may also have been the first Latino major leaguer; however, historians disagree as to whether the NA can be considered a major league.)

1873— Baseball is introduced in Japan by American teacher Horace Wilson. The game catches on in part because many think it embodies the spirit of wa, the willingness to sacrifice oneself for the good of the group.

1874— On December 27, at Palmar de Junco, Cuba, a Havana team faces a squad from Matanzas in the first documented baseball game played in Cuba (although the sport had been introduced in the country about a decade earlier). Havana, propelled by two home runs by Esteban Bellán, is leading 51-9 when the game is called after seven innings due to darkness.

1877— The Tecumsehs of London, Ontario, win the International Association pennant, becoming the first foreign team to win a championship in a U.S.-based league. Later cities to field foreign teams in American leagues include Montréal, Toronto, Havana, and Juárez, Mexico.

1878— In December, the first baseball league outside the United States is formed in Havana. League profits are funneled directly to guerrilla groups fighting for Cuban independence from Spain. Emilio Sabourín, the key figure in founding the league, is later sentenced to life in prison, and the Spanish government briefly bans baseball in Cuba.

1879—  The first baseball team in Australia, the St. Kilda Baseball Club, is formed. Baseball had first been brought to Australia during the gold rush of the 1850s, when American prospectors played games on the gold fields of Ballarat.

1888— Al Spalding and his Chicago White Stockings embark on a round-the-world tour intended to popularize baseball worldwide. Tour stops include Sydney, Paris, Dublin, London (where the Prince of Wales watches a game), Rome (where the players are refused an audience with the Pope), and Egypt (where a game is played in the shadow of the Sphinx). Although viewed as an interesting curiosity, baseball failed to catch on immediately in any of the places where the tour stopped.

1900— The Cuban X Giants – a team actually composed of African Americans, not true Cubans – travel to Cuba to participate in an international series.

1908— Cuba is now under U.S. rule, and the Cincinnati Reds travel there to play in a four-team tournament that also includes the Brooklyn Royal Giants, a powerful Negro League team. Cuban pitcher José Méndez becomes a hero by hurling three consecutive shutouts against the Reds. Cincinnati is the first major league team to visit Cuba, but many others quickly follow suit, including the Giants, Phillies, Athletics, and Tigers.

1911— The Cincinnati Reds sign Rafael Almeida and Armando Marsans, two Cuban players who had impressed them on their visit to the island. After some controversy, the pair are deemed light-skinned enough for white baseball, and other fair-complected Cubans, including Adolfo Luque, soon follow them into the majors. Talented Cuban players with darker skin, including José Méndez, sign with Negro League teams instead.

1927— A team of Negro League all-stars becomes the first professional team to play in Japan. The players are threatened with expulsion from the white-owned Eastern Colored League if they make the trip, although no significant action is ever taken against them. The black players, or kokujin, are extremely popular in Japan, particularly catcher Biz Mackey, who later makes two more Japanese trips with the Philadelphia Stars.

1931— A team of major league all-stars tour Japan, winning all 17 games they play. The team includes Lou Gehrig, Lefty Grove, and Lefty O’Doul, who soon becomes baseball’s ambassador to Japan. In the following decades O’Doul makes dozens of trips to Japan, and is instrumental in the founding of the first Japanese professional league in 1934.

1934— Another American all-star team tours Japan. This one includes Babe Ruth, Jimmie Foxx, and, of course, O’Doul. Also on the trip is catcher Moe Berg, who, unbeknownst to his teammates, uses the trip as a cover to spy on Japanese structures for the OSS. Ruth is a big hit in Japan, but is struck out three times in one game by 17-year old pitcher Eiji Sawamura, who quickly becomes a national hero.

1942— On February 19, President Franklin Roosevelt issues Executive Order 9066, banishing persons of Japanese ancestry, including native-born Americans, to internment camps for the duration of World War II. Baseball teams quickly are formed in the camps, providing a small measure of enjoyment for those imprisoned. “More and more people are hating the Japs, it appears, which is a source of great elation to umpire Babe Pinelli of the National League,” the Sporting News writes on September 10. “Ever since he was a little boy in San Francisco, Babe says he has hated ALL Japs and long before Pearl Harbor he tried to convert everybody he knew to the same kind of hatred.”

1943— African-American shortstop Willie Wells leaves the Newark Eagles for a second tour of duty in Mexico. “I’ve found freedom and democracy here, something I never found in the United States,” he says. “Here in Mexico, I am a man. I can go as far in baseball as I am capable of going.” Wells becomes a hero in Mexico, where fans affectionately nickname him “El Diablo.”

1944— As World War II drags on, baseball is banned in Japan as an undesirable enemy influence. On November 2, Eiji Sawamura, the pitcher who had become a hero in Japan by striking out Babe Ruth, is killed in action in the Pacific.

1946— Jorge Pasquel, millionaire owner of the Veracruz Azules (Blues), tries to bring major league status to the Mexican League by offering unheard-of sums of money to American stars to play south of the border. Commissioner Happy Chandler threatens lifetime banishment for any player who jumps to Mexico, and most major stars, including Stan Musial and Ted Williams, stay put. However, 22 major league players, including Sal Maglie of the Giants and Max Lanier and Mickey Owen of the Cardinals, risk their careers to play in Mexico. Pasquel was more successful in recruiting African-American players, who were already banned from the major leagues anyway. Negro League stars who accept his offer include Ray Dandridge, Josh Gibson, and Satchel Paige.

1947— In June, the Cuban League signs a working agreement with the National Association. This provides the league with American financial backing, but also gradually transforms it from a highly competitive independent league into a subordinate loop of interest solely for player development. Experienced major league players are now banned from the league, as are Cubans, Mexicans, and Americans, both black and white, who had played in Pasquel’s Mexican League. These banned players form a rival league of their own, but it lasts only one season.

1949— After a lawsuit by ex-New York Giant Danny Gardella, Major League Baseball, fearing a legal challenge to the reserve clause, agrees to reinstate Gardella and the other players who had jumped to the Mexican League.

1949— On April 19, Orestes Miñoso of the Cleveland Indians, a Cuban, becomes the first black Latino to play major league baseball. He collects 1,963 hits in his career and becomes the second major leaguer to play in five different decades.

1951— The first Little League outside the United States is formed in British Columbia, Canada.

1957— Monterrey Industrial Little League of Mexico, behind a no-hitter by Angel Macías, becomes the first non-American team to win the Little League World Series.

1959— On July 24, shortly after his revolutionaries take over the Cuban government, Fidel Castro pitches two innings in a military exhibition game. (Rumors of his baseball prowess as a youth, however, are entirely false.) In 1961, anti-Castro politics cause the International League to move the Cuban Sugar Kings to Jersey City. The Cuban professional league suspends play the same year, but reappears in 1962 as an amateur circuit.

1964— On September 1, 20-year-old Giants reliever Masanori Murakami becomes the first Japanese player in major league history. He compiles a 5-1 record with a 3.43 ERA over two seasons before his family convinces him to return to the Japanese League.

1969— The Montréal Expos become the first Canadian team in the major leagues. On April 14 at Jarry Park, they defeat the St. Louis Cardinals 8-7 in the first big league game played outside the United States.

1974— On November 11, after four straight championships by Taiwan, non-U.S. teams are banned from the Little League World Series. The ban is rescinded after a Lakewood, NJ, team wins the 1975 championship. Taiwanese teams then win five of the next six titles.

1981— On Opening Day, Los Angeles Dodgers rookie Fernando Valenzuela, a product of the Mexican League, shuts out the Houston Astros in his first major league start. “Fernandomania” spreads across the United States as the young pitcher has an 8-0 record and 0.50 ERA midway through the season. Valenzuela wins both the Rookie of the Year and Cy Young awards as he leads the Dodgers to the World Championship.

1984— For the first time, baseball is played in the Los Angleles Olympic Games as a demonstration sport. Eight teams participate, and Japan wins the gold medal although the American team features many future major league stars, including Barry Larkin and Mark McGwire. Sixteen-year-old Ramón Martínez pitches for the Dominican team at Dodger Stadium, where he would later win 123 games for the Dodgers.

1989— On October 27, the Adelaide Giants defeat the Perth Heat in the inaugural game of the Australian Baseball League. Nearly a decade later, the league is purchased by one of its most distinguished alumni, Milwaukee Brewers catcher and Brisbane native David Nilsson.

1992— The Toronto Blue Jays (whose postseason roster features Americans, Dominicans, and Puerto Ricans, but no Canadians) become the first Canadian team to win the World Series.

1994— Pitcher Chan Ho Park signs with Los Angeles and, despite no previous professional experience, makes the opening day roster. On April 8 he becomes the first Korean player in major league history.

1995— “Nomomania” sweeps Los Angeles as Hideo Nomo, once a star with the Kintetsu Buffaloes, lights the National League on fire in his rookie season with the Los Angeles Dodgers. He is voted Rookie of the Year after going  13-6 with a 2.54 ERA and a league-leading 236 strikeouts. Nomo’s success paves the way for other Japanese pitchers, including Shigetoshi Hasegawa, Hideki Irabu, Mac Suzuki, and Masato Yoshii.

1996— For parts of the next two seasons, the Los Angeles Dodgers feature a “United Nations” pitching staff, with starters from five different countries. They are Hideo Nomo of Japan, Ismael Valdes of Mexico, Chan Ho Park of Korea, Tom Candiotti of the United States, and Ramón Martínez and Pedro Astacio of the Dominican Republic.

1996— The San Diego Padres and New York Mets play a three-game series in Monterrey, Mexico, the first regular-season games to take place in that country. The Padres win two of the three games, including the series opener on August 16, a victory by Fernando Valenzuela.

1999— After 40 years, relations between the United States and Fidel Castro’s Cuban government are finally relaxed enough to allow the Baltimore Orioles to play a two-game, home-and-home exhibition series against the Cuban national team. Though punctuated by political protests, the games themselves are uneventful, with the Orioles and Cubans winning one contest each.

1999— Outfielder Chin-Feng Chen signs with the Los Angeles Dodgers, becoming the first Taiwanese to enter the farm system of a major league team. He is named MVP of the California League in his first season after hitting .316 with 31 home runs, 123 RBI, and 31 stolen bases.

2000—The Boston Red Sox and Houston Astros play two spring exhibition games in the Dominican Republic. Though baseball is beloved in the Dominican, the games are played with thousands of seats empty because fans cannot afford tickets. (The top ticket price is 1000 pesos, or $62.50 in American dollars.) Red Sox pitcher Pedro Martínez calls the ticket prices “extremely abusive,” but an MLB official defends them, pointing out that bleacher seats are fairly affordable, and “the average Dominican sits in the bleachers.”

2000—On March 29 and 30, the Chicago Cubs and New York Mets open the season with two games at the Tokyo Dome, marking the first time regular season games have been played outside the Western Hemisphere. Baseball’s most recognizable star, Mark McGwire, criticizes the games, saying the travel involved is too exhausting for the players. “I want to play here in America,” he says. “Our game is too international as it is.”

2000—At the Olympic Games in Sydney, the United States team, a ragtag squad of minor leaguers, defeats Cuba to win its first-ever gold medal. The Americans are coached by Hall of Fame manager Tommy Lasorda.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Research Files, National Baseball Hall of Fame Library, Cooperstown, New York.

and

Baseball: An Illustrated History by Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns. Alfred A. Knopf, 1994.

Baseball With a Latin Beat by Peter C. Bjarkman. McFarland, 1994.

The Biographical Encyclopedia of the Negro Baseball Leagues by James A. Riley. Carroll & Graf, 1994.

Blackball Stars by John B. Holway. Carroll & Graf, 1992.

The Cultural Encylopedia of Baseball by Jonathan Fraser Light. McFarland, 1997.

Enciclopedia del Beisbol Mexicano, edited by Pedro Treto Cisneros. Revistas Deportivas, 1998.

The Negro Leagues Book, edited by Dick Clark and Larry Lester. SABR, 1994.

The Pride of Havana: A History of Cuban Baseball by Roberto González Echevarría. Oxford, 1999.

The Rise of Japanese Baseball Power by Robert Obojski. Chilton Book Company, 1975.

Smoke: The Romance and Lore of Cuban Baseball by Peter C. Bjarkman and Mark Rucker. Total Sports, 1999.

Total Baseball VI. Total Sports, 1998.

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