About Connie Marrero
Conrado Eugenio Marrero Ramos (April 25, 1911 – April 23, 2014), nicknamed "Connie", was a Cuban professional baseball pitcher. The right-handed Marrero pitched in Major League Baseball from 1950 to 1954 for the Washington Senators. Marrero was a popular star in his native Cuba, where he had a long and successful career in the Cuban Amateur League. He pitched for Cuba in several Amateur World Series competitions, including the legendary championship game of the 1941 Amateur World Series, and played several excellent seasons with the professional Cuban League and the minor league Havana Cubans. Marrero made his major league debut when he was 38 years old, and was one of the oldest players in the league throughout the duration of his time in the major leagues. Marrero's pitches were primarily "slow stuff—curves, sliders and knucklers." Roberto González Echevarría provides the following description: "A bit plump, of less than average height [he was listed as 5 feet 5 inches (1.65 m) tall and 158 pounds (72 kg)], with short arms and small hands, Marrero looked, in uniform, like someone in a baseball costume, not a player. He looked more like a Spanish grocer or peasant than an athlete." His nicknames in Cuba were "El Guajiro de Laberinto" (The Peasant from Laberinto), reflecting his rural origins, "El Premier", and "El Curvo." At age 102, Marrero was the oldest living former Major League Baseball player at the time of his death. Marrero was a pitcher for the Cuba national baseball team at the second Amateur World Series in 1939, the first in which Cuba competed. Only three teams competed and Cuba easily won, with Marrero contributing a victory in the only game he pitched. In the fourth Amateur World Series in 1941, Marrero won three games, but the series ended in a tie between Cuba and the Venezuela team.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.