When Esteban Bellán left St. John’s College in 1868 to pursue a career in baseball (with the Unions of Morrisania) he was not the only Cuban to do so.
Rafael de la Rúa, a native of Matanzas, Cuba, played 12 games for the Unions of Lansingburgh of the National Association in that same year of 1868. He was a pitcher, with a good screwball but some control problems.
De la Rúa joins Bellán as the first Latin player in an organized and highly competitive league. The National Association would not be considered a Major League until it became professional in 1871, and still that is debatable. But what is clear is that they are the first Latin ballplayers to compete at the highest level of baseball in the United States.
This was a discovery made by the great investigators Peter Morris and John Thorn, and I have been helping in the last couple of days trying to figure out some aspects of his biography.
This is what we have at the moment:
Rafael Julián de la Rúa was born on January 28th, 1848 in Matanzas, Cuba.
In 1860, he appears with an age of 12 in an official United States census living in Newton, Massachusetts. He was studying in a small school directed by R.B. Blaisdell in Newton. There is also a Finomen Rua in that census, 18 years old, apparently Rafael’s brother.
In June 1864, he was one of the passengers of the steamship Havana that arrived at New York from La Habana, according to a note published by The New York Times. Rafael was about to start his preparatory education at St. John’s College (Fordham) on September 1864, and he stayed there until July 1867. He studied there at the same time as Bellán. In the official student catalogues of St. John’s College he is listed as Julian R. Rua from Matanzas, Cuba.
In the academic year of 1868-69. he is listed studying at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, under the name of Rafael J. Rua, from Matanzas, Cuba. He stayed there only for one year and did not graduate.
It was in that same town of Troy that the Unions of Lansingburgh, members of the National Association, were based. De la Rua played for them in 12 games, mostly as a pitcher. At that time, the National Association was still officially an amateur competition. There is in existence an image of the 1868 Unions of Lansingburgh. You can see it in the book Smoke by Peter Bjarkman and Mark Rucker, though one of the players is mistakenly identified as Bellán (he didn’t play for Lansingburgh until 1869). However, we are working to try to identify De la Rua in that same image.
Official documents were found for Rafael de la Rúa in which he applied for U.S. citizenship on September 23, 1874, declaring himself a merchant. When naturalization was granted he applied for his first American passport, filing as Rafael de la Rúa, living on 15th and 32nd streets in New York, born on January 28th, 1848, in Matanzas, Cuba. His height, according to these documents, was 5 ft. 9 in.
According to encyclopedias with early Cuban League listings by Jorge Figueredo and Severo Nieto, Rafael de la Rúa never played in the Cuban League.
Without a doubt, a very important piece of Latin American baseball history.
Documentation of Rafael de la Rúa from 1874 and 1875 where he applies for American citizenship and passport.
Latin BaseBall Archaeology 