During his time at Fordham, Bellan played for the newly created Fordham Rose Hill Baseball Club. This was the team that history tells us played the first ever nine-man team college baseball game in the United States against St. Francis Xavier College on November 3, 1859. In 1868 Bellan began to play for the Unions of Morrisania, an upstate New York team. A year later he joined the Troy Haymakers for whom he played third base until 1872. In 1871 the Haymakers had joined the National Association, which became the National League in 1876. The Haymakers later became the New York Giants, now the San Francisco Giants. Later on Bellan was instrumental, both as a player and manager, in establishing professional baseball in Cuba in 1878. He died in 1932.
As early as 1889, the US Major Leagues showed interest in Cuban players, when the legendary John McGraw, who visited Cuba regularly and eventually kept a permanent apartment in Havana, tried to sign a Cuban player named Antonio Maria Garcia (nicknamed "The Englishman" apparently because he was so fair of hair, eyes and skin). Garcia declined, since he was making a higher salary playing in Cuba.
In 1900, a Cuban player named Luis Padron (who as a pitcher had lead the Cuban league in wins and also in hits) was asked to try out with the Chicago White Sox. However, when doubts as to his racial purity were raised, the White Sox immediately released him and he never played. A couple of years later, John McGraw brought to the US a Cuban player named Luis "Anguilla" Bustamante, who he called "the perfect short stop." Unfortunately for Bustamante, who was half black, his timing was off by half a century. Hearing of Bustamante's prowess, around 1903-4, Clark Griffith, then with the New York Highlanders (later the Yankees), had Bustamante brought up for a try-out. As soon as Griffith saw Bustamante, according to Angel Torres, author of "The Baseball Bible," Griffith ended the try-out and simply said: "Too chocolate."
Let's now move the clock forward to 1910, when four Cubans debut in the Minor Leagues: Armando Marsans, Rafael Almeida, Alfredo Cabrera and a second chance for Luis Padron. They play for the New Britain Class B team of the Connecticut League and a year later Marsans and Almeida begin to play for Cincinnati, and that's truly when the issue of race becomes a question in the mind of ignorant racists.
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