The Cuban X-Giants were a professional

Negro league The Negro leagues were United States professional baseball leagues comprising teams of African Americans and, to a lesser extent, Latin Americans. The term may be used broadly to include professional black teams outside the leagues and it may be ...

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...

team that played from 1896 to 1906. Originally most of the players were former

Cuban Giants The Cuban Giants were the first fully salaried African-American professional baseball club. The team was originally formed in 1885 at the Argyle Hotel, a summer resort in Babylon, New York. Initially an independent barnstorming team, they played ...

, or ex-Giants. Like the

, the original players were not Cuban (though the team would later sign Cuban players). Edward B. Lamar Jr. served as business manager for the team. In 1897 the X-Giants beat the Cuban Giants in a series 2 games to 1. With Frank Grant joining in 1898 the club continued to establish themselves as the new powerhouse in the east. Grant and White left in 1900 and

Bill Monroe William Smith "Bill" Monroe (; September 13, 1911 – September 9, 1996) was an American mandolinist, singer, and songwriter, who created the bluegrass music genre. Because of this, he is often called the " Father of Bluegrass". The genre take ...

joined at second base; both the Giants and X-Giants claimed to be the champions, a situation that was duplicated a year later. In 1903 the club boasted

Rube Foster Andrew "Rube" Foster (September 17, 1879 – December 9, 1930) was an American baseball player, manager, and executive in the Negro leagues. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1981. Foster, considered by historians to have been per ...

on the mound and a middle infield of

Charlie Grant Charles Grant Jr. (August 31, 1874 – July 9, 1932) was an American second baseman in Negro league baseball. During his 20-year career, he played for some of the best teams in the Negro leagues. Grant nearly crossed the baseball color lin ...

and

Home Run Johnson Grant U. "Home Run" Johnson (September 23, 1872 – September 4, 1963) was an American shortstop and second baseman in baseball's Negro leagues. In a career that spanned over 30 years, he played for many of the greatest teams of the deadball era ...

. They played in the integrated Tri-State Independent League and then took 5 of 7 games from the

Philadelphia Giants The Philadelphia Giants were a Negro league baseball team that played from 1902 to 1911. From 1904 to 1909 they were one of the strongest teams in black baseball, winning five eastern championships in six years. The team was organized by Sol Whi ...

for the title as top black team in the east. Foster won 4 games in the series and also was 6 for 17 at the plate. 1904XGiants

For the 1904 season the Philadelphia Giants signed away Grant and Foster, and later beat the X-Giants in a championship series 2 games to 1, as Foster won two games against his old teammates. (Grant and Foster replaced Frank Grant and

Harry Buckner Harry Edward "Green River" Buckner (October 22, 1876 – March 26, 1938), also nicknamed "Buck" and "Goat Head", was an American Negro league pitcher and outfielder in the between 1896 and 1918. Biography A native of Hopkinsville, Kentucky, Buckne ...

as regulars.) In 1905 the X-Giants took one of two games from the

National League The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the National League (NL), is the older of two leagues constituting Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, and the world's oldest extant professional team ...

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

, outscoring them 7–2 in the first game and losing 2–1 in the second.Holway, p. 50. In 1906, the X-Giants signed

John Henry Lloyd John Henry Lloyd (April 25, 1884 – March 19, 1964), nicknamed "Pop" and "El Cuchara", was an American baseball shortstop and manager in the Negro leagues. During his 27-year career, he played for many teams and had a .343 batting average. Lloy ...

for his first season in professional baseball, and the team joined the International League of Independent Professional Base Ball Clubs. In late 1906, the Cuban X-Giants became a founding member of the National Association of Colored Baseball Clubs of the United States and Cuba."Colored Baseball Men Organize Association" The Anaconda Standard, Anaconda, MT, Sunday Morning, November 11, 1906, Page 2, Column 7
/ref> The team folded before play started in 1907.

Notes

References

*This article includes some material from the Baseball Reference Bullpen. The original is availabl
here
It is available under the GNU Free Documentation License. * *Lomax, Michael E. ''Black Baseball Entrepreneurs, 1860–1901.'' * *(Riley.
Cuban X-Giants
Team profiles at Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. – identical to Riley (confirmed 2010-04-16) Negro league baseball teams Defunct baseball teams in New Jersey Baseball teams disestablished in 1907 Baseball teams established in 1897 {{NewJersey-baseball-team-stub