Esteban Bellán

Esteban Enrique Bellán Hart
born Esteban B. Bellán Hart
(Steve)

• Bats Unknown, Throws Unknown
• Height 5' 8", Weight 154 lb.
• School St. John's College
• High School St. John's College Preparatory (Bronx)
• Debut May 9, 1871
• Final Game June 9, 1873
• Born October 1, 1849 in Cuba
• Died December 23, 1891 in Havana, Cuba

BR page

Biographical Information

Esteban Bellán, whose first name was anglicized to Steve in the U.S., was the first Cuban-born (and Latin American) player to play in Major League Baseball. Before the National Association was founded in 1871, he played for Fordham University (where he attended in 1863-1868), the Unions of Morrisania, and the Troy Haymakers in their amateur days. Eventually, he went back to Cuba to become a player-manager for the Habana club there. He played in the first organized baseball game in Cuba and later led the Habana team to three championships.

The book Viva baseball! says his nickname was the "Cuba Sylph" (a sylph being a kind of nymph or spirit). He was a catcher in college, but developed a reputation as a good-fielding third baseman in the majors. It has recently been discovered that Bellán played with a number of other Latin players in college and with amateur clubs before the National Association was founded in 1871.

Not much is known about Bellán's later life, although it was surmised that he had become a U.S. citizen in the 1870s and applied for and received a U.S. passport at the time. His purported date of death was 1932, but some serious doubt was expressed about this, as the last mentions of his being alive dated back to 1887, decades earlier. Books and articles published about the beginnings of Cuban baseball before the 1930s never listed him as being alive either.

A Mexican baseball historian, César González Gómez, decided to investigate the case thoroughly, given the important role Bellán played in the history of baseball in Latin America. By painstakingly looking up all of his known relatives, he was able to establish that his last place of his residence was at Rayo 32 in Havana's Chinatown, which was also the last known residence of his mother and sister, who died nearby after being struck by a car in 1916. There was no mention of Esteban surviving her at the time. With the help of a Cuban archivist, Lázaro Flores Martínez, González was able to find the parish records of Nuestra Señora de la Caridad, then known as Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, the closest church to the family residence. In parallel, the family grave plot was located through the work of other Cuban historians. The grave was opened the bodies were exhumed in 2019, and an analysis of the remains by forensic anthropologists pointed to a 50-year-old man among the four bodies found - which would have meant that if the body in the grave was truly that of Bellán, he would have died around 1900. There were no records remaining in the cemetery about the date of his burial, so the question remained open; however, the ossuary did feature four sets of initials identifying the bodies, including his ("E.B.").

The work conducted by González did manage to confirm that the body was indeed Esteban's. The forensic experts had identified the likely date of death as 1902, while it was known that Bellán's mother had passed away in 1895, but the historian was unable to find any death record for Esteban during that time frame. But by digging further back into the parish records, he did find a hand-written entry for the player's death, with a record of the funeral taking place on December 24, 1891, one day after his passing from a liver abscess, a condition for which there was no treatment at the time. Bellan had never married, and as a result had lived with his mother and sister for the remainder of his life after his return to Cuba. He was listed as being 43 at the time of his death, which was within one year of his stated birth year of 1849. The parish record was the element that made it possible to find the burial record at Cristóbal Colón Cemetery in Havana, which took place on the date of his funeral. His remains would later be moved to the family crypt in 1903, where they were found in 2019, at the behest of his surviving suster, who wanted to reunite the remains of her family members in a single location.

Further Reading

• "A Cuban Mystery", in Bill Carle, ed.: Biographical Research Committee Report, SABR, January/February 2026, p. 1.
• "Esteban Bellan", in Bill Carle, ed.: Biographical Research Committee Report, SABR, May/June 2026, pp. 1-2.
• César González-Gómez: "New Evidence Solves the Mystery of Esteban Bellán’s Death — He Died Decades Earlier Than Believed", Arqueo Beosbol, May 19, 2026. [1]

Related Sites

• Steve Bellán at the SABR Bio Project
• BR Minors page