1926 Exhibits, Ramon Herrera ⭐ MLB Pioneer
I've seen this card for sale just one time and I jumped on it. It is a key card in my MLB Pioneer Collection of players who played in both the Negro League and MLB.
Ramón “Mike” Herrera played in the Negro Leagues for the Cuban Stars and in MLB for the Boston Red Sox.
During a time in MLB when strict segregation kept most Black players out of the majors.
Ramón “Mike” Herrera blurred the racial barrier lines in baseball.
As a colored, but light-skinned Cuban, he was able to move between the Negro Leagues and Major League Baseball at a time when In the 1910s and 1920s, black men were forbidden from MLB participation.
Herrera played with Black teammates in the Negro Leagues, sharing the field with African American stars and proving that baseball talent transcended race. Yet, when he signed with the Boston Red Sox in 1920, his lighter complexion and Cuban identity allowed him to bypass the “color line” that barred African Americans. Herrera’s career highlighted the contradictions of segregation: players of darker skin from Cuba and Latin America were excluded, while some lighter-skinned Latinos could slip through. By occupying this in-between space, Herrera helped challenge the artificial boundaries of race in professional baseball, foreshadowing the eventual full integration that Jackie Robinson would achieve a generation later.