Have Glove, Will Travel_ Adventures of a Baseball Vagabond - Bill Lee [88]
Bob was walking around on one lung and will have to make it to ninety-two to have any hope of ever seeing his grandson wear a Red Sox uniform. I have no doubt he will keep our date. After all, the man’s a Vermonter.
18
BACK IN THE LAND OF BEISBOL
I visited Cuba four more times with various senior teams from 1999 to 2003. We won very few games. One does count as very few, right? I could offer any number of reasons for our poor showing, but the fact is the Cuban players were simply better than we—more talented, better conditioned, and far more competitive.
The Cuban players also played a headier brand of ball; all of them grew up in the game. Baseball may be the national pastime in the United States, but few people in my country embrace the sport with the passion I found throughout Cuba. For example, no U.S. city has a spot comparable to Havana’s esquina caliente, or “hot corner,” a park in the center of the city where hundreds of Cubans gather every day to discuss their favorite players and teams.
Diana and I discovered just how much knowledge those fans possessed when we attended a game with them in Latinoamericano Stadium, located in downtown Havana just off Revolutionary Square. We sat on the third base side and watched the fiesta begin before the first pitch was thrown. Cheerleaders warmed up the crowd from the dugout roofs, though the fans hardly needed any prompting. Salsa bands playing rock-your-socks-off Cuban music strutted through the stands.
I noticed the spectators around us understood baseball down to its smallest intricacies. They did not second-guess managerial decisions the way many American fans do. The Cubans prided themselves on making first guesses. During the game that afternoon, the hometown manager stepped from the dugout with two men out in the fourth inning to remove the starting pitcher, who had just walked three straight batters to load the bases. Most of the fans immediately rose from their seats to roar their disapproval. I thought they were right. The pitcher had been throwing great up to that point. He hadn’t surrendered a hit, and his control was only off by a hair on the last two batters he faced. When the opposing team pounded the pitcher who came on in relief, the fans stomped their feet, filling the stadium with thunderclaps of disgust.
The Cuban players demonstrated more élan than you will see in the American major leagues. Whenever a player struck out, the team on defense flipped the ball around the diamond from catcher to third to second to first, not once as they do in the States, but twice. They performed this ritual to entertain the fans, but also to stay in the game. Cubans understand that the more a fielder touches the ball, the better he plays. An infielder can go several innings without moving a step until a batter hits a ball that requires him to suddenly range far to his left or right. That is not a time to get caught flatfooted. The throwing exhibition kept the infielders on the balls of their feet, always free, always moving, always ready to make the play.
The fans in our section went out of their way to make us comfortable as soon as they learned we were norteamericanos. The game was played on a Sunday, so the local laws did not allow concessionaires to sell alcohol in the stadium. Diana called to a man who sold the Cuban meat pies called arepas. She asked if he could get us some beer. He said, “Sure, just watch my stuff and make sure no one takes anything without paying.” He returned an inning later carrying two ice-cold beers he had taken from the refrigerator in his house four blocks away. No charge.
We walked through Havana after the game and were struck by the sight of the Cuban women. Not by their beauty, which was often arresting, but by their body language. Most Cuban women walked the city streets with a quiet confidence. This was not the tough, fragile arrogance too many attractive American women carry as