This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 6/5/2007
Many have said, including Buck Leonard who played with him in the Negro Leagues and Johnny Mize who played with him in the Mexican Winter Leagues, that Martin Dihigo was the greatest and most versatile baseball player of all time. A Cuban native, “El Maestro” played in the States with Alex Pompez’s Cuban Stars as a 15 year old teenager at the inception of the organized Negro Leagues in 1923. During the 1920’s through the 1940’s he played brilliantly at virtually every position on the diamond with powerhouse teams such as the Homestead Grays, the Hilldale Giants and Baltimore Black Sox in the United States and leading clubs in Mexico, Latin America and his homeland of Cuba. After he took power in 1959, Fidel Castro, who has a life long interest in baseball himself, promptly named the Cuban national hero Dihigo as his Minister of Sports. This is Dihigo’s own inscribed book entitled “Ignacio Agramonte Y La Revolucion Cubana." Dihigo’s book about the famous Cuban revolutionary was published in Havana, Cuba in 1928 and was authored by Eugenio Betancourt Agramonte. Signed in ink by Dihigo and written in Spanish, the Hall of Famer expresses his admiration and praise for Agramonte. Dihigo dates his entry July 25, 1960, eleven years before his passing. The book has suffered severe spine damage, with evidence of mildew and staining affecting the lower portion of most of the interior pages. LOAs from PSA/DNA and JSA.
Estimate: $2,000-3,000