Alex Pompez

Alejandro "Alex" Pompez (May 3, 1890 – March 14, 1974) was an American executive in Negro league baseball who owned the Cuban Stars (East) and New York Cubans franchises from 1916 to 1950. His family had immigrated from Cuba, where his father was a lawyer. Outside of baseball and numbers, he had owned and operated a cigar shop in downtown Manhattan. He later served as a scout and director of international scouting for the Giants franchise in Major League Baseball. He was posthumously inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2006.

Biography

Pompez was born on May 3, 1890 in Key West, Florida, the oldest of four children born to Cuban immigrants Jose and Loretta Pompez. His father was a lawyer and cigar manufacturer who had connections to Cuban author and dissident Jose Marti. Jose Pompez was on the board of directors for the Key West chapter of the Cuban Revolutionary Party; he was elected to the Florida House of Representatives as a Republican in 1892. He was a state representative until his death until 1897. Alex and his family struggled financially after his father willed his estate to the insurgency.