The Cuban Giants in 1887. The team started in Babylon...

The Cuban Giants in 1887. The team started in Babylon two years earlier. Credit: The collections of the Town of Babylon, Office of Historic Services/The collections of the Town of Babylon, Office of Historic Services

The Cuban Giants left their mark on the world of baseball. Now the storied team is getting a marker of their own that celebrates their contributions to history.

The Cuban Giants were the first salaried professional Black baseball team and got their start in Babylon Village in 1885. On Saturday, the Suffolk County Sports Hall of Fame honored the 140th anniversary of the team’s birth with a historic marker placed near Argyle Lake where they once played.

“If you think about the history of baseball, the fact that you can pinpoint this location as the first all-Black team to play professionally, it’s pretty profound,” said Chris Vaccaro, president of the Suffolk County Sports Hall of Fame. “Hopefully, for generations, when people walk past . . . we’re educating and informing on a really special piece of American history.”

From left, Tony Martinez, Frank Seibert, Judy Skillen, Chris Vaccaro,...

From left, Tony Martinez, Frank Seibert, Judy Skillen, Chris Vaccaro, Mary Adams, Wayne Horsley, Mary Cascone and Susan Goodwin during the unveiling and dedication of a historical marker Saturday to honor the 140th anniversary of the Cuban Giants. Credit: John Roca

The Cuban Giants were formed during Babylon’s heyday as a resort destination, when summer visitors topped 1,500 in a 3,500-population community, according to Babylon Town historian Mary Cascone. A headwaiter at the ritzy Argyle Hotel recruited waiters, bellhops and other staff who he knew were good ballplayers and formed a team designed to entertain guests, Cascone said.

The first reference to the team locally was in the South Side Signal newspaper in August 1885, when they were called the Athletics and won a game against a team from Farmingdale by a score of 29 to 1. Later that season they became the Cuban Giants, although it’s unclear how they got the name, Cascone said. They then became a barnstorming team that traveled the country.

An ad featuring the Argyle in an 1884 travel guide.

An ad featuring the Argyle in an 1884 travel guide. Credit: Mary Cascone, Babylon Town Histo/Mary Cascone, Babylon Town Historian

A brief but lasting impression on LI

Sol White, a Black baseball player and manager who in 1907 wrote “The History of Colored Base Ball” — considered the first book to comprehensively detail Black baseball — wrote the Cuban Giants went on to become the “strongest independent team in the East . . .”

The team never came back to Babylon and none of the players were from Babylon, Cascone said.

“They were here for one summer and they left an indelible mark that we’re so proud of,” Cascone said. “You can pick up any book on Black baseball in America and somewhere in the first couple of pages you will find Babylon, Argyle Hotel and Cuban Giants.”

The Cuban Giants played teams that were predominantly white, Cascone said, until the late 1880s when teams “drew that color line” and refused to play them.

Sports writers, historians and the National Baseball Hall of Fame have credited the team as a pioneering force that helped pave the way for the Negro Leagues, which gave players a home during the decades they were excluded from Major League Baseball due to racial discrimination. Infielder Jackie Robinson officially broke the color barrier in 1947 when he  joined the Brooklyn Dodgers.

The Cuban Giants continued to play in various iterations into the early part of the 20th century and won several championship series. Writer Jerry Malloy wrote the Cuban Giants “set a standard for Black baseball excellence that would be unequaled, though not unchallenged, for ten years. And in the process, they built a foundation for black professional baseball that would survive sixty years of racial exclusion from organized baseball.”

That the players got paid to play ultimately set a standard for the game, Vaccaro said.

“Word got out and they said, ‘Hey, if we can pay players, maybe there’s a revenue model here and we can charge people to come in,’” he said. “Before you know it the economics of baseball is hatched. The fact that it happened . . . on Long Island is pretty cool.”

This is the sixth historic marker the Hall of Fame has placed, with five of them noting baseball-related spots, including those acknowledging Carl Yastrzemski, Satchel Paige, Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig.

The historical marker recognizes the Cuban Giants.

The historical marker recognizes the Cuban Giants. Credit: John Roca

'The small role we can play'

Babylon Village first paid tribute to the Cuban Giants in 2010 with a rock monument near the lake. Mayor Mary Adams said the players have been “role models as well as an inspiration” to residents.

“They broke through barriers, overcame adversities and went on to be not only baseball champions, but champions in their own right,” she said in an email.

Cascone said Babylonians can take pride in how the community “dipped our toe in the history of baseball” and remember its past incarnation as a resort destination.

“It continues to show the small role we can play in a really big story,” she said

Madeline Quintyne-McConney, assistant secretary and civic engagement chair for the Central Long Island branch of the NAACP, said the Cuban Giants can especially be a source of pride for Black residents.

“They can see a part of their history,” she said. “Everything doesn’t always have to be so horrendous and bad. This was something good and it should be celebrated. Black history is American history and we have to always remember that.”

Cuban Giants

Formed: 1885

Where: Argyle Hotel, Babylon

National Baseball Hall of Fame Player: Ulysses "Frank" Grant, inducted in 2006

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