Leopardos de Santa Clara
| Leopardos de Santa Clara | |
|---|---|
| League | Cuban League |
| Location | Santa Clara, Cuba |
| Ballpark | La Boulanger Park |
| Year founded | 1922 |
| League championships | 1923/24, 1935/36, 1937/38, 1938/39 |
The Leopardos de Santa Clara (English: Santa Clara Leopards) were a Cuban professional baseball team based in Santa Clara, Cuba. Founded in 1922, they played in the Cuban League from 1922 to 1925, from 1929 to 1930, and from 1935 to 1941. Although they competed for only 11 seasons, they won league championships in four regular seasons and in one "special season." According to Cuban League historian Jorge S. Figueredo, the 1923/24 team, which went 36–11 and won the championship by 11 1⁄2 games, is "considered as the most dominant team in the history of Cuban baseball."
During their existence, the Leopardos featured several of the biggest stars of Negro league baseball, including Oscar Charleston, Satchel Paige, and Josh Gibson. In addition, the team featured outstanding performances from Cuba's own baseball stars including Alejandro Oms and Martín Dihigo.
In the fall of 1921, with a depressed economy and political instability, the Cuban League fielded only two teams, Almendares and Habana, and played a shortened schedule. Abel Linares controlled the league, owning both franchises. For the 1922/23 season, he set out to expand the league to four teams by establishing new teams in Marianao, a suburb of Havana, and in Santa Clara, the capital of Las Villas Province in the center of the island. Santa Clara was the first Cuban League team to be located outside of metropolitan Havana since the Matanzas club folded in 1909.
Linares assigned his long-time associate, Tinti Molina, to organize and manage the team. As manager of the Cuban Stars (West), he had contacts he could use to recruit top Negro league players from the United States. The team would play at La Boulanger Park, a small stadium with a capacity of fewer than 3,000 people. In an effort to draw from a regional fan base, they scheduled all of the team's home games on weekends.
...
Wikipedia