page_title: José Rodríguez (infielder)
section_title: Cuba
hierarchical_section_title: José Rodríguez (infielder) / Baseball career / Cuba
caption_attribution_description: Large 1932 team photograph of what appears to be an all-star type assemblage of various players on various teams including Chucho Correa, Rogelio Alonzo, Eugenio Morin, Joseito Rodriguez, Lazaro Salazar, Oscar Rodriguez, Cheo Ramos, Cando Lopez and Francisco Quevedo.
context_page_description: José Rodríguez, nicknamed "Joseíto" or "El Hombre Goma" in Spanish and "Joe" in English, was a Cuban infielder who played in Major League Baseball from 1916 to 1918 and in the Cuban League from 1914 to 1939. In the majors, he played for the New York Giants and was primarily a second baseman, while in the Cuban League and the U.S. minor leagues he mostly played first base. A defensive specialist, according to Roberto González Echevarría, Rodríguez "was considered the best defensive first baseman in Cuba" of his time. He was also a long-time manager in the Cuban League and managed for one season in the minors. He was inducted into the Cuban Baseball Hall of Fame in 1951.
  Rodríguez was born in Havana in 1894. His younger brother Oscar also became a baseball player and manager in the Cuban League and the minor leagues and joined José as a member of the Cuban Baseball Hall of Fame in 1960.
context_section_description: Rodríguez began his professional career in the winter of 1914/15 as the first baseman of the Fe club of the Cuban League. The following winter he moved to Almendares.  The team, which included Cristóbal Torriente, Adolfo Luque, José Méndez, Ramón Herrera, and Rafael Almeida, won the championship, with Rodríguez hitting .286.  He again played for a championship team, the Orientals, in the winter of 1917, but hit only .194. The league didn't play in the winter of 1917/18, but in 1918/19 he again played for Almendares and hit .312.
  In 1919/20 he moved to Habana, where he played shortstop and hit .278. In 1920/21, still with Habana, he played third base and was part of another championship, hitting .226. The next winter, the Cuban League season terminated after only five games; Rodríguez had returned to first base and hit .368.
  The following winter, 1922/23, his role shifted as he became the playing manager of Almendares. In his third season as manager, 1924/25, he won the league championship with a team powered by Negro league stars, including five future members of the U.S. Baseball Hall of Fame—Bullet Rogan, Andy Cooper, John Henry ("Pop") Lloyd, Biz Mackey, and Oscar Charleston—as well as Dick Lundy, Newt Allen, and Valentín Dreke, and major leaguers Adolfo Luque and José Acosta.
  He won his next championship as manager for Almendares in 1931/32, his last season as a full-time player and a season in which no American players were signed to play in the Cuban league.  He continued to play part-time until 1938/39 and to manage for various teams until 1943/44. In 1950 he became the general manager of the minor league Havana Cubans.
  Rodríguez died in 1953 at the age of 58.
caption: 1932 All Star team
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