Martín Dihigo

CTL-E-6958 · Person · other · 1906–1971

VERIFIED evidence grade — build store (JSON graph)

Combined Graph record U-07830 · provenance: build store (JSON graph), record CTL-E-6958.

Martín Magdaleno Dihigo Llanos was an Afro-Cuban pitcher, utility player, and manager, born May 25 in Matanzas Province, Cuba — SABR's biography gives 1906, while the Baseball Hall of Fame's listing gives 1905, and this record shows the split rather than settling it. Known in Cuba as "El Inmortal" ("the Immortal") and elsewhere in Latin America as "El Maestro" ("the Master"), he played all nine positions, primarily pitching and playing second base, across the Negro leagues and the leagues of Cuba, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Venezuela from 1923. The Hall of Fame records that in Mexico in 1938 he went 18–2 with a league-leading 0.90 ERA while also winning the batting title at .387, and credits him with more than 260 pitching victories in summer and winter ball. He died in Cienfuegos, Cuba, on May 20, 1971. Elected to the U.S. Baseball Hall of Fame in 1977, he is, in the Hall's own framing, the only player inducted into the American, Mexican, and Cuban baseball halls of fame; other accounts add the Dominican and Venezuelan halls.

The record

• Also known as: Martín Magdaleno Dihigo Llanos, El Inmortal, El Maestro

Notes

Sports Encyclopedia roster CTL-SPE-0259. Firsts disposition: NO 'first' is asserted in the description. The Hall's own article calls Dihigo 'the first Cuban elected to the Hall of Fame,' and a secondary account calls him the second Hispanic-born inductee after Roberto Clemente; each rests on a single framing in this record and is recorded here rather than asserted. BIRTH-YEAR SPLIT SHOWN: 1906 (SABR) vs. 1905 (Hall of Fame listing, NLBM); era follows SABR's 1906. Hall-count framing also varies (Hall: American, Mexican, and Cuban halls; other accounts add Dominican and Venezuelan) and is attributed in the description. Nationality stated as sourced: Afro-Cuban, born in Matanzas Province, Cuba. Curator's Judgment (DRAFT): Dihigo may be the most complete player in this packet — a man who pitched, hit for a batting title, and played every position across four countries' leagues, barred from the U.S. majors by his race. His record is necessarily scattered across five baseball cultures, and that scattering is the segregation story told in one career. Photo: CLEARED — 1922 Martin Dihigo.jpg, Public domain; the Commons file description names Martín Dihigo in Habana uniform.

Relationships

• Homestead Grays — played for
  Dihigo's teams included the Homestead Grays in 1928 (Negro Leagues Baseball Museum). Edge emitted by the head at assembly on the record's own evidence; Lane D flagged it as verified but outside its authorized wiring scope.

Sources

• National Baseball Hall of Fame. "Martín Dihigo" (player listing) and "Dihigo, Lloyd blazed trails en route to Cooperstown." Accessed 2026-11-03. (primary source · build store)
• Society for American Baseball Research. "Martín Dihigo" (Peter C. Bjarkman, SABR BioProject). Accessed 2026-11-03. (primary source · build store)
• Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. "Martin Dihigo" (Negro Leagues Baseball eMuseum, Personal Profiles). Accessed 2026-11-03. (primary source · build store)

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Record CTL-E-6958 · Combined Graph record U-07830 · CultureTechLens Knowledge Graph · 3 sources · 1 mapped relationship.
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Researched and maintained by the CultureTechLens research program · CultureTechLens Combined Graph, Release 2026-11-04. Corrections are public: the corrections log.

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