Tropicana Nights: The Life and Times of the Legendary Cuban Nightclub

by Rosa Lowinger

By 1920, the two nations’ baseball communities were as inextricably intertwined as the cork and rubber inside a baseball. Regular visits to Havana by Negro and major league teams such as the Cuban X-Giants, Brooklyn Dodgers, Pittsburgh Pirates, and both the Philadelphia Phillies and Athletics continued. Charles Stoneham and John McGraw brought the New York Giants down regularly, possibly so they could spend time at Havana’s Oriental Park, which they had purchased in 1919. Babe Ruth arrived in October of 1920 for the beginning of the Liga Nacional de Base Ball de la República de Cuba’s regular season—it was the year that he had hit fifty-four home runs for the New York Yankees—and made two thousand dollars a game playing with the Giants against the Havana teams Habana and Almendares. (It was reported that “the Babe,” an avid gambler, lost most of his earnings betting on jai alai.)