Alejandro Oms

Cuban baseball player, known as "El Caballero". He remained active in Baseball for 17 years, during the period between 1922 and 1941; he played in the Cuban Professional Baseball League between 1922 and 1932; he batted over 400 twice and the rest over 300 for an offensive average of 352, only surpassed by Cristóbal Torriente.

He was born in Santa Clara. He was a blacksmith by profession until he became known as a great figure of the diamond at Boulanger Park, near where he lived.

They nicknamed him "Caballero", it is not known if it was for his behavior on and off the field or for the elegance with which he used to perform on the baseball field. He was a professional player and was part of the Negro Leagues.

He began his sports career at a young age, characterized by great discipline. He was very sure when making a play, just hearing the sound of the bat he already knew how to position himself to secure the ball, staying underneath it, making it difficult to escape by stepping and running. In that era an error meant not playing and that was fatal, many ballplayers wanted to be part of the Cuban League.

During 1922 and 1932 he batted over 400 twice and always did so over 300, facing prestigious pitchers recognized worldwide, he was respected as a left-handed batter and thrower.

Pedro A. Darias recounts that in October 1927, on the occasion of a Negro Leagues selection to which Oms belonged facing one of the Major Leagues in a three-game series at Yankee Stadium, he hit the same number of home runs as Herman "Babe" Ruth, all outside the park, a fact that caught the attention of "Babe" Ruth, the New York fence-breaker who lined up on the Major Leagues team in those games, amazed by the power of that Black man of only 5.8 feet in height, he was interested in conversing with the Cuban, who that same year had dispatched 50 home runs in the Negro circuit.

In the days of splendor of the "Caballero", as in those of so many other greats of baseball of yesteryear, they earned miserable salaries and on many occasions had to play for a percentage of what was collected at the box office, which is why in 1941 he reached retirement in utter poverty.

Oms maintained his stardom until the arrival of the 1940s, he appears in the Hall of Fame of Cuba and that of the Negro Leagues of the United States, in which he was a true idol.

To eat, he had to return to active baseball. He played in the semi-professional tournament of the Commercial League until a contract came to him from Venezuela, where he had taught years before. But this tired and sick Oms was not the one they had known and he was soon returned to Havana. The great Cuban and friend Adolfo Luque, who leading Cienfuegos won the title in the 1945-1946 campaign, extended a generous hand to him and due to such a charitable opportunity the "Caballero" returned to the Cuban League.

Despite being finished for baseball, Adolfo Luque keeps him on the Cienfuegos payroll and to please his old friend by retiring "as the champion" which he had presided over with such prestige, he took him out as a pinch-hitter twice. On October 12, Pedro Natilla Jiménez, pitcher for Habana, gave him a base on balls. An afternoon later at La Tropical, Oms was seen wielding the bat for the last time. By then, white his black head, flaccid his powerful muscles, in short he was barely a sad shadow of the great ballplayer he had been, the left-handed almendarista Agapito Mayor bid him farewell with a strikeout.

Never again was the "Caballero" seen on a baseball field. Seriously ill, almost blind and without a penny in his pockets, he who was one of the greats of Baseball in Cuba returned to Santa Clara, and there he lived with the help of his family and the favor of friends.

Shortly after retiring from active sports he returns to Havana and enters the sanatorium for tuberculosis patients "La Esperanza", and there, alone and forgotten, he dies on November 9, 1946, at the age of 51.