Rick Feingold discusses history of American baseball in Cuba at Franklin Lakes library – NorthJersey.com

Babe Ruth gambling away more than $20,000 in Havana’s casinos and Ernest Hemingway challenging a Dodgers pitcher to an amateur boxing match at his home were just some of the stories Rick Feingold told of the history of American baseball in Cuba on Sunday afternoon at the Franklin Lakes library.

Feingold, of Emerson, spoke to a dozen people about the long – and sometimes zany – history of the two nations and their passion for baseball that stretches back to the mid-1800s.

The presentation was a version of a lecture he gave part of the Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture, an annual gathering of academics and writers at the National Baseball Hall of Fame, in 2014.

Feingold said the history of Cuba, which has the oldest professional baseball league in Latin America, was something he found interesting and he wanted to share the stories with passionate baseball fans.

“Baseball in the United States and baseball in Cuba have gone hand-in-hand for the better part of the last 150 years,” he told the audience.

Feingold, who said he has visited Cuba seven times since 2001, presented on a range of topics related to American baseball in Cuba.

First, Feingold showed a list of prominent players who have played baseball in Cuba, including John McGraw, Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Jackie Robinson and Ralph Kiner. He then went on to describe the origins of baseball becoming a passion for Cubans.

The first official baseball game was played in Cuba in 1874, Feingold said, but in the early 1860s students who were studying in the United States began to bring the rules of the game back with them when they returned to Cuba.

Feingold focused heavily on the “American Series,” a semi-regular event where American teams would travel to Cuba to play Cuban teams from 1891 to 1959.

In the 1920s the American Series was very popular in Cuba. In fact, in 1920 Babe Ruth – fresh off his 54-home-run season with the Yankees – visited Havana and spent all of the money he made for playing in the games in casinos throughout the city.

The Brooklyn Dodgers also played a number of their spring trainings in Cuba, Feingold said, which led to various stories of debauchery – including Ernest Hemingway challenging Dodgers’ pitcher Hugh Casey to a boxing match after a night of heavy drinking and Dodgers’ pitcher Van Lingle Mungo being smuggled out of the country after a married woman’s husband attacking him after he found Mungo with her in a hotel.

The Dodgers called Havana home for spring training in 1941, 1942 and 1947.

Those who attended the lecture said they were die-hard baseball fans and were fascinated by the long baseball history associated with Cuba.

“I enjoyed it,” said Mike Lizanich, of Oakland. “I love to learn about parts of baseball history I don’t know about. I’m a student of the game.”

Feingold said he decided to research the topic of American baseball in Cuba because he was fascinated by the history surrounding the game that is so popular in the two countries.

“As a baseball fan, you grow up collecting baseball cards and you say, ‘What’s next?’” he said. “Then you’ll read some baseball history books and ask, ‘What’s next?’ Then you might go to a few ballparks and ask yourself, again, ‘What’s next?’ So you go to a few different countries to see baseball in foreign countries. I just keep asking myself, ‘What’s next?’”