1896 Cuban X-Giants (X-Cuban Giants)

This rendering is based on written documentation for uniform style and color. No visual documentation is known and an artist’s conceptualization is used to create the rendering.

Rendering accuracy:Year: documented    Team: documented

Visual documentation on this uniform:
None

Written documentation on this uniform:
April 17, 1896, Cuban X-Giants v. Hartford (of the Atlantic League), at Hartford, Trinity ground, exhibition game: “The Giants were very gorgeous with orange and black stockings and gray suits with a prominent ‘X’ on their shirts before the words ‘Cuban Giants.’” From the Hartford Courant, April 18, 1896. The Courant referred to the team as the “ex-Cuban Giants” and also as “Giants” in this report. Throughout the 1896 season newspapers used a variety of names: ex-Cuban Giants, X-Cuban Giants, Cuban ex-Giants, Cuban X-Giants, and more often simply Cuban Giants, with no differentiation from the other team using this name at the same time.

April 23, 1896, Cuban X-Giants v. Shamokin PA (of the Pennsylvania State League), at Shamokin, Maysville Park, exhibition game: “The Cuban giants are evidently traveling on the reputation gained in years that have escaped, and the big X’s that decorate their jackets seem to serve as an apology for the exceedingly exceptional [bad] exhibition they gave yesterday [April 23], for truly they are ex-giants. In the vernacular of the small boy who climbed in over the fence, ‘the Cuban Joints can’t play a bit.’ The big X cannot be accounted for unless the inference that the much-mooted Roentgen rays [i.e., x-rays] are utilized to discover bases, for yesterday’s game following so closely the results of other games played in this part of the state, would demonstrate that this latest scientific agency is essential to the location of bases by gentlemen of color who essay to perpetuate the fair name won by their predecessors.” From the Mount Carmel (PA) Daily News, April 24, 1896. A long-winded way to say that the X-Giants weren’t playing very well at the time. They lost to Shamokin, 19 to 4. The newspaper also called the team the “Cuban Giants” in this report, even though they referenced the “X” on the team jacket.

Team genealogy: Cuban X-Giants, 1896-1906
The Cuban X-Giants were formed for the 1896 season with members of the “genuine” Cuban Giants team. Each season, the X-Giants toured throughout the northeast playing exhibition games. They joined the International League (IL) for the 1906 season. The IL was a regional league based in the Philadelphia area, New Jersey and Delaware. The X-Giants folded before the start of the 1907 season. Information from wikipedia.com.