Tombstone
Born: 1978
Folded: June 16, 1979
First Game: April 11, 1979 (W 6-5 vs. Miami Amigos)
Last Game:
Inter-American League Championships: None
Stadium
Ownership & Affiliation
Owner: Bernardo Benes, et al.
Major League Affiliation: Independent
Background
The Panama Banqueros were one of six ball clubs in the doomed Inter-American League experiment of 1979. The league included the Miami Amigos plus five Caribbean teams in the Dominican Republic, Panama, Puerto Rico and Venezuela. Remarkably, the unproven Inter-American League received a Class AAA designation (one step below Major League Baseball) from the governing body of the minor leagues, the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues. This despite the fact that none of the teams had an affiliation with a Major League parent club.
‘Banqueros’ means ‘Bankers’ in Spanish and the club’s (apparent) lead owner was Bernardo Benes, a Cuban exile banker who lived and worked in Miami, the site of the Inter-American League’s lone U.S.-based team.
On The Field
The Panama City-based Banqueros were one of the weakest entries in the Inter-American League. After a 2-10 start, the club dismissed field manager Chico Salmon, a native Panamanian who spent 9 years in the Majors with the Cleveland Indians and Chicago Cubs. Willy Miranda, a Cuban shortstop who enjoyed a brief Major League career in the early 1950’s, replaced Salmon for the final month or so of the Banqueros’ brief existence.
The team had a handful of former Major Leaguers on its roster, including Panamanians Adolfo Phillips and Ramon Webster and infielder Lee Richard, who had been the #6 overall pick in the 1970 Major League Baseball amateur draft.
The End
The Banqueros went belly up on Saturday, June 16th, 1979. The team played 51 games of a planned 130-game schedule and sat mired in 5th place with a 15-36 ledger. The players’ final paychecks never arrived and most of the team wound up broke and standed in Panama City’s Gran Hotel Soloy, watching students riots take place outside and making increasingly desperate calls to figure out who would pay their way back to their home countries.
The rest of the Inter-American League folded two weeks later on June 30th, 1979.
Downloads
2019 FWiL Interview with Banqueros third baseman Donn Seidholz
In Memoriam
The Banqueros second field manager, Willy Miranda, passed away on September 7, 1996 at the age of 70.
Original field manager Chico Salmon died of a heart attack on September 17, 2000 at age 59.
Banqueros owner Bernardo Benes passed away on January 14, 2019 at age 84. New York Times obituary.
##
2 Responses
It was an honor to play with the Panama Banqueros at shortstop my name Jose L. Garcia number#2 and a dream come true be with great Major League players.
We had a blast and got to see some gorgeous cities in the league. The Hotel Grand Soloy in Panama was beautiful. The team put us up there and we had the run of the place. Some of the guys charged all their food and gambling to the room and it was taken care of— and the Canal Zone. What a fascinating place. The only downside was the Monsoon rain that hit everyday at 4p. I think half our games were rained out.
But still one of my most memorable baseball experiences