@Btccuba 6 February 2021 more from that month

Baseball in Cuba was introduced around 1860 by Cubans studying in the United States, as well as American sailors who called at the ports of Cuba. Since then, baseball has spread rapidly throughout the island. It is said that the first Cuban to bring a bat to his homeland was Nemisio Guillo in 1864. Guillo learned to play in Mobile, Alabama, and after him two more Cubans were sent to Mobile, including his brother, Ernesto Guillo. Once these Cuban pioneers of the sport returned to Cuba, they founded the Havana Baseball Club (Habana Base Ball Club), the first known baseball team, not only in Cuba, but in all of Latin America. During the Cuban war of independence, baseball became a symbol of the aspirations for the future of a modern Cuba, already detached from colonialism. In 1869 the Spanish colonial authorities prohibited the practice of the sport, which prompted the Cuban player Esteban Bellán to emigrate. Once in the United States, Bellán became the first player of Latino origin to play in the US Major League Baseball.1