Baseball players rarely involve themselves in politics (Curt Schilling being an exception), but when Fidel stepped down from his rule last week, Cuban baseball players and coaches found themselves involved in politics. Virtually every Cuban-born baseball player in MLB was asked to give their thoughts on the news. Most were fairly apathetic.
Juan Cardenal, of the Washington Nationals, says he doesn’t get involved in politics, was indifferent to the news and even said that “Castro doesn’t really bother” him… I guess he hasn’t been keeping up with Cuban affairs since he left in 1961.
Regardless, he does say this, which goes hand in hand with the photos Claudia posted a few days ago:
“I remember how Cuba used to be,” he said. “We used to have everything we wanted to in our country and then we were free and the whole thing. It was paradise in Cuba. … That’s what I remember the most about Cuba.”
monica oye bien lo que dice si lo puedes entender, y este es un problema reciente , muchos cubanos deberian ser tratados como haitianos o mejicanos por eso es que estamos como estamos
escucha la razon que este señor tiene para salir a ver si tu escuchas la palabra clave ..freedom
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0sONPAqn2Q
Monica!!! You too read 38 pitches??????
I love 38 Pitches 🙂 The Red Sox are my 2nd favorite team (after the Marlins of course!) One time, I sat behind the Red Sox dugout when Schilling was undergoing his stint as a closer, and I quoted him from one of the message boards. He turned around and gave me a high five 🙂 The internet is powerful!
Abajo,
Like I said, baseball players usually shy away from politics as much as they would a 99 mph chin-grazing fastball. What I enjoyed about the article was what Cardenal said about pre-1959 Cuba on MLB.com. He could have easily said nothing. Millions of people read MLB.com every day and read that Cuba wasn’t all that bad for its citizens. The MSM constantly portrays pre-1959 Cuba as a horrible place to live.
Baseball players and many cubans that are not baseball players reach the florida coastline not for political freedom but economic reasons..and then 3 months after they get here they want to celebrate a quinceañero in The island…
is that something we should feel proud of?
is that fair to other migrants?
Monica I envy you; we still haven’t been able to get to a game!!!
One baseball player who is not apathetic is the Red Sox World Series MVP Mike Lowell (Thank you, Florida Marlins!).
Both Mike and his wife are Cuban-Americans, and he recently shared a very moving story about the courtship between his father-in-law and mother-in- law. He was a young political prisoner in Cuba and she met him while he was on a work gang and she offered him food and drink. The two fell in love and eventually made it to the US.
Mike’s autobiography (Deep Drive: A Long Journey to Finding the Champion Within) is due out in May.
Hopefully he will share more about his heritage as well as his successful fight against cancer.