Esteban Bellan was a player from Cuba in the old National Association, the predecessor to the National League and the first professional baseball league, though many historians don't credit it as a major league. Most of the teams operated in large or fairly large cities in the Northeast like NYC, Brooklyn ( at that time a separate city), Philadelphia, Cleveland, Boston, Hartford, Baltimore, and some in the Midwest like St. Louis or Chicago. Some were in much smaller places like Middletown Conn or Utica, N.Y.. Bellan primarily played third base and a few other positions from 1871-1873, the first 2 years with a team from Troy, N.Y. and the third with one of the several clubs in the N.Y.C area- in those days, the larger cities like New York or Philadelphia often had several clubs active at the same time. Bellan only hit .252 lifetime in his brief career, and little is known about him except that he died in Cuba in 1932. At that time, most of the ballplayers were of English, Irish, or Scotch-Irish descent, though there were players from other ethnicities, quite a few were immigrants and most of them came from the East or Midwest, few had gone to college, many had grown up poor, and were from the larger cities or farms. Some had colorful/ bizarre nicknames- "The Old Woman In The Red Cap," Bob " Death To Flying Things" Ferguson, and a fellow whose real surname was Jenkins but went by the awesomely inscrutable "Count Sensenderfer" which is either the most brilliant or most stupid nickname I've ever heard. Bellan did not have a particularly distinguished career, but obviously is noted for being the first Hispanic professional ball player in America.