Havana La Palomas Winter League Stars vs Municipal League All-Stars (1945)

This broadside advertised a game between the Havana La Palomas Winter League Stars against the Municipal All-Stars. The game was played at Bloomington Baseball Park in Bloomington, Illinois on August 29, 1945. The game also featured a special appearance by Ed Hamman performing his baseball comedy routine.

This broadside was from the personal collection of the late Ed Hamman. Hamman was a professional baseball player early in his career and was recognized as the greatest baseball clown of all-time. He performed with the Indianapolis Clowns and many other teams over his career.

He was also part owner of the Clowns from 1955-1968 and owned the Clowns outright from 1968 until he sold the team to George Long of Muscatine, Iowa in 1976.

Armando Vasquez

The Havana La Palomas Winter League Stars were a barnstorming team that played primarily during the 1940’s and early 1950’s. Most of the team members were from Cuba. The La Palomas club served as the unofficial minor league team for the Indianapolis Clowns of the Negro American League. Having this traveling team made it possible to orient young Latin ball players to playing baseball in the United States and gave the owners a better opportunity to evaluate their talent. During the off season it was not uncommon for players like Armando Vazquez, Leonard Pigg and others to join the team. It gave these players the opportunity to make extra money and was beneficial to the team to have experienced players help in developing the young ball players.



The Municipal League All-Stars were an all-star team from the local Bloomington City League. It was a common practice that when a professional Negro League team was brought into a town that a local all-star team would be selected to play them.