Outfielder James Sebastian "Jim" Basso had a seventeen year minor league career, topped by landing on the St. Louis Cardinals spring roster in 1947. Don't know what the occasion was for his linking up with Ernest Hemingway, but thought this photo merited a post. It was displayed on the Pecan Park Eagle, a blog operated by SABR member Bill McCurdy. Bill is apparently a friend of Jim Basso, as the photo comes from Basso's personal collection.
P.S. From correspondence with Bill McCurdy, I learned that the occasion of the photo was Jim Basso's attending dinner, along with others, with Hemingway in Cuba in 1952.
P. P. S. After some research, it was learned that Basso was performing very well for the Marianao team of the Cuban Winter Leagues at the time of this photo. Bill McCurdy sent me a copy of the larger photo from which this pair was excerpted. On the other side of Hemingway was Frank Carswell, who was Basso's teammate with Marianao. So it's likely that Hemingway had invited a selected group of Marianao players over to his home in Cuba for dinner.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/re...d=basso-001jam