An interesting artifact arrived to my collection on recent days. It gives useful information on the procedure of how to formalize an early baseball club in Cuba. It is a letter dated on November 14th, 1881 and is directed to the major of the city of Cardenas who is required to send a copy of the regulations document in order to proceed with the creation of the club. The letter is signed by “Dias, V.”
Baseball started to be played in the island around the mid 1860s, but the formal organization of clubs started between the end of the 1860s and the beginning of the 1870s. The first documented baseball game in Cuba occured on December 1874 when the Habana B.B.C visited the port of Matanzas to play against the local team. A tournament was organized in 1878, and baseball was already spread around many regions of Cuba, that was still part of the Spanish crown.