Example Detroit Card Format

Example Almenderes Card Format

Example Habaña Card Format

A Cuban-American series of exhibition games played in 1909 between the Detroit Tigers and two prominent Cuban teams of the period inspired the earliest and one of the most valued Cuban vintage baseball card sets.

The set was sponsored by Cabañas, a Cuban manufacturer of cigarettes and other tobacco products. In total, there are 35 known cards in the set (34 players along with umpire "Silks" O'Laughlin). Several variations in card labeling are known.

Each of the paper-thin cards measures 1-1/2 by 2-1/4 inches.

The series was played in Cuba between the Tigers, the Almendares Baseball Club and the Habaña Baseball Club.

All three teams that participated in the event are represented in the set. Each team is color coded for easy identification of the cards. The twelve Tigers players are printed in black and white over a beige stock.

Similarly, the player images for both of the Cuban teams are printed in black and white. However, eight Almanderes players (represented on nine cards) are framed in blue, while the fifteen known Habaña players are framed in red. Further, the letters "D" for Detroit, "A" for Almandares and "H" for Habaña, respectively, are printed in both the upper left and upper right corners of the card. The result is a colorful and very attractive set.

The player's name and position are printed inside a white panel at the bottom of the card. An example card for each team is illustrated above.

Cabañas Card Back (click to enlarge)

The backs of the cards carry the logo of the sponsor, Cabañas, printed at the top and bottom in a horizontal format. In addition, the backs contain advertising text in Spanish which, when translated, reads: "The best way to form a valuable collection of baseball cards of the Cuban and foreign players is to smoke Cabañas."

Souvenir Booklet for the 1909 Cuban American Series

An equally rare and collectible 32-page souvenir booklet commemorating the Tigers' visit was also printed for the series (see cover image at right). It measures 3-1/4 by 6-3/4 inches and was published by Harris Brothers Sporting Goods of Havana.

The booklet is entitled "Souvenir De La Visita Del 'Detroit,' Habaña, Noviembre 1909" and is printed entirely in Spanish. It provides detailed accounts of the entire tour including scoring pages for each of the games.

Unfortunately for Detroit (American League pennant winners in 1909), the Tigers showed up without the services of two of their star players--Ty Cobb and Sam Crawford. As a result, their win-loss record in the series trailed that for both of the Cuban teams. The Almanderes team scored the highest win-loss record of the series, followed by the Habaña squad.

To the dismay of today's collectors, Cobb's and Crawford's absence from the tour also explains their absence from the Cabañas card set.

Among the highlights of the series was an 11-inning no-hitter held November 18, pitched by Eustaquio Pedroso (not represented in the card set) of Almendares versus Bill Lelivelt of the Tigers. The game went into extra innings with the score tied 1-1, as Almendares had allowed an unearned run in the seventh inning on a throwing error. In the eleventh inning, a well-executed squeeze bunt by Armando Cabañas (the player; not the card set) gave Almendares a 2-1 victory. Both Lelivelt and Cabañas are represented in the Cabañas card set.

Remarkably, the proof sheet displayed at left surfaced in the hobby in recent years and features the same twelve player poses pictured on the Tigers subset of the Cabañas cards.

It is unclear how the proof sheet survived, especially since it has the words "para borrar" stamped on it. Roughly translated, "para borrar" means "to throw away."

There are proof marks visible on the left and right of the sheet. Images are the same size as on the cards. The full sheet measures 8-1/2 by 12-1/2 inches.

	St. Louis Republic Example Supplement (shown at approximately 1/2 actual size)

Issued in 1909 as a series of supplements to the St. Louis Republic newspaper, this exceedingly rare set contains 24 player portraits.

Just two complete sets of the supplements are known to the hobby, with both sets discovered only recently, more than a century after they were originally issued.

Aside from these two complete sets, only a handful of individual examples are known. Further, most of the players that appear in those two sets represent the only known examples for that player. And many are not found in any other card sets.

The set can be divided into two distinct subsets, with each subset consisting of 12 portraits representing each of the two St. Louis Major League teams (Browns and Cardinals).

Each of the oversized supplements measures 9 by 12 inches and is printed in black and white on paper thin stock. All supplements are unnumbered and have blank backs.

The player portraits are printed inside a thin black frameline that measure about 7-1/2 by 9 inches, leaving relatively wide white borders.

Below the bottom frameline is a tagline for the set's sponsor, "Supplement to the St. Louis Republic," with a photo credit "Murillo Portrait" at the lower right. Note: Murillo was a photographic studio located at 1314 Olive Street in St. Louis.

Curiously, although the same photographic studio is credited with taking the photos for players of both teams, all of the Browns players are presented in a baseball uniform while all of the Cardinals players are posed in a suit and tie!

The player's name and team are printed in all-caps bold type centered near the bottom followed by a very brief player bio.

The 1909 date of production of the St. Louis Republic set is confirmed by the exact matches of all 12 players from each of the Browns and the Cardinals teams with the team rosters for that year.

T206 "Charles" (click to enlarge) St. Louis Republic "Charles Achenbach" (aka Raymond Charles)

Curiously, today's vintage baseball collectors may not recognize the name Charles Achenbach, as printed on his St. Louis Republic supplement with the Cardinals.

Although he was a solid player, he is not considered among the top tier players of the period and therefore may not be as well known among collectors.

More significantly, however, Achenbach appears to have had an identity problem during his time in the Majors after he changed his name to Raymond "Chappy" Charles. He did manage to be included in the T206 White Border set (as shown in the example above) as well as in other card series, where in all cases he is identified as (Raymond) Charles!

Three of baseball's Hall of Fame players are represented in the 24-supplement St. Louis Republic series: Rube Waddell and Bobby Wallace of the Browns and Roger Bresnahan of the Cardinals.

The St. Louis Republic newspaper, sponsor of the baseball supplements described above, was founded in 1808 as the Missouri Gazette. Following several name changes, it became the St. Louis Republic in 1888. By the end of the nineteenth century, the St. Louis Republic had achieved the second largest circulation in the St. Louis area. The sponsorship of the paper's Baseball Supplements in 1909 was no doubt part of an effort to promote the newspaper's expanding sports coverage. The supplements were distributed with one in each Sunday edition of the newspaper between April 18 and September 26, 1909. Exactly one decade after it sponsored the Baseball Supplements and 111 years after its founding, the paper was discontinued in 1919.