Jose Ramirez: Cuba's "Last" Baseball Season
Thursday, June 207:00—8:30 PMSimoni RoomMorrill Memorial Library33 Walpole St., Norwood, MA, 02062
The Friends of the Library will host José Ramírez, author of “Cuba and the “Last” Baseball Season,” at the Morrill Memorial Library on Thursday, June 20 at 7:00 pm. Ramírez’s 2018 book features a foreword by Red Sox Hall Fame member Luis Tiant, Jr., and explores the impact of the Castro takeover in Cuba, including the abolishment of professional baseball at the end of the 1960-61 season.
Join us to learn more about the little known story of baseball players in Cuba and in the U.S. minors who learned that their dream of playing professional baseball in their home country would go unrealized. Players were faced with a difficult choice: leave family, home, friends, and their beloved homeland, in order to play professional baseball or, stay at home and pursue a different and uncertain way of life. This is a story of the personal struggle these men and their families endured, and the heart-wrenching judgement they had to make.
Ramírez was among the 14,048 unaccompanied minor children sent to the Unites States from Cuba by their parents through the fabled Pedro Pan Program between 1960 and 1962. A lifelong fan of Los Leones de La Habana (Havana Lions) and a member of the Society of American Baseball Research (SABR), in his retirement he writes and lectures about Cuba, baseball, Operation Pedro Pan, and his family. Copies of his book will be available to purchase at the program.
To register for this event, please fill out the form below, call 781-769-0200 x110, or visit the Reference or Information desk.
Registration for this event has now closed.