Major League Cuban Baseball

Underwriting for Major League Cuban provided by Badia, the soul of cooking.

Hi, I'm Dr. John Uribe.

Baptist Health South Florida salutes all the legendary figures in Major League Cuban.

If you love baseball or any other sport, don't let an injure keep you out of the game.

Let Miami Orthopedics & Sports Medicine Institute get you back on the field.

For Cubans, the concept of home is not a place, but rather a state of mind.

A scent, a sound, or a sensation is all that's needed to bring you home.

Baseball transcends geography, politics, gender and race.

It is at the core of Cuban identity.

Baseball is running from home to come back home.

To come back home.

You do the utmost, against obstacles that are put along the way, as life does, to come back home, in a circular pattern like Ulysses coming back home to Ithaca in the Odyssey.

This is what is the, the appeal of, of baseball.

When baseball ran deep, kitchen table conversations about Tani, Tiant, and Minnie were commonplace.

These were our heroes.

They allowed us to share moments and feelings that were familial.

It's in our blood.

It's in our blood.

I always had, in my lifetime, just two wishes: I wanted to either be a musician or a baseball player.

Baseball was in my blood.

My father transferred it to me.

My father would drive from our home town in Morn, Camagey all the way to Havana just to see a baseball game.

Baseball is life, the rest is details.

Baseball has been a big part of my life from the onset of my dad, my son, and now it's part of my life because I keep carrying on and, and baseball is very dear.

He hits it.

Right field.

Dodges the wall.

Baseball history in Arlington.

That's lined into center field.

A base hit for Pierzynski.

Around third comes Markakis.

The throw by Cspedes, on target and he got him!

Oh, wow, what a throw!

"La pelota" for the Cubans I think it's always been something inbred.

You come out and, and, and you know, not only your dad and your granddad, and your uncles, but your mother and your grandmother.

I mean everybody's "involucrado", everybody's involved in, in baseball.

I think it's in the blood of the Cuban ballplayer.

In 1874 in the middle of Cuba's Ten Year War against Spain, the first official baseball game on the island was played in defiance of Spanish law.

As Cubans gain independence from Spain after the Spanish-American War, baseball became part of Cuban national identity.

In the United States, baseball had already become the national pastime.

But America didn't force baseball on Cuba, Cubans adopted the game as their own.

"La pelota" was all the rage.

The Spaniards brought bullfighting to Cuba.

And one of the ways in which Cubans, at the time, were rebelling against colonial rule is that they picked up that sport from the north.

Many Cubans that were studying in the United States, college students that would come back, brought back stories in the late 1800's about this great sport that Americans were playing.

Havana-born Esteban "Steve" Belln picked up the game of baseball at Fordham University in New York.

After college, Belln would go on to play for the Troy Haymakers and become the first Latin American and Cuban to play professional baseball in the United States.

As the game of baseball stormed into the 1900s, the sport was racially divided in the United States.

Both Negro and major league teams visited Havana.

In 1908 the Cincinnati Reds toured Cuba and, to their dismay, a crafty Cuban pitcher named Jos de la Caridad Mndez shut out the big leaguers three times.

Jos de la Caridad Mndez, "El Diamante Negro," was not allowed to join a major league team because of the color of his skin.

White Cubans Rafael Almeida and Armando Marsns joined the National League Cincinnati Reds in 1911.

They became the first major league Latin American players in the 20th Century.

In 1914, Miguel ngel or "Mike" Gonzlez joined the Cincinnati Reds as a good fielding catcher.

He went on to have a long 16-year career in the majors.

The same year Gonzlez joined the Reds, Adolfo or "Dolf" Luque was signed by the Boston Braves.

The stint with the Braves was short for Luque as he was quickly traded to Cincinnati.

In 1923, he led the league with 27 wins and an ERA of 1.93.

Luque was the first bona fide major league Cuban star.

In America, the Roaring 20s ushered in an era of irony.

While jazz, America's first true art form was all the rage, prohibition also punctuated the decade.

Sadly, for black Americans, segregation was still a harsh reality.

Baseball was not exempt from the Jim Crow laws which divided America according to race.

In the spring of 1920, a former all-star pitcher and maverick, entrepreneur Andrew "Rube" Foster jump started the dormant Negro Leagues.

Cubans played a major role in the development of black baseball in America.

The history of the Negro Leagues in the United States and Cuban baseball are intertwined.

It was just incredible to know that these players would be able to succeed not only given their challenges with the language but also the fact that they were segregated coming to the U.S. and had to get used to that.

If you can imagine these players who had freedom in Cuba to go most anywhere, all of a sudden they couldn't share the same bathrooms, the same hotels with the white counterparts.

That was outrageous.

Team names such as the Cuban Giants and the Cuban X-Giants were utilized to camouflage the blackness of the players.

No actual Cubans were on those squads.

The first team of Cuban players to play in the Negro Leagues were the All Cubans and the Cuban Stars.

In 1935 Alex Pompez, a native of Key West and son of a Cuban lawyer, created the New York Cubans.

The team featured stars such as Alejandro Oms, Luis Tiant Sr., and Martn Dihigo.

Martn Dihigo was selected to five Halls of Fame.

American fans remember him as El Maestro, but to Cubans he is the Immortal One, El Inmortal.

Adolfo Luque's grit and Martin Dihigo's grace helped forge a Cuban baseball legacy that would last for generations.

Until the 1947 racial integration of the Major Leagues, Cuban baseball fans were treated to the most competitive baseball in the world featuring the best Latin America talent, Negro League stars, and legendary Major Leaguers.

Cuba was on top of the baseball world.

Post-war Cuba thrived economically and culturally.

["Vertiente Camaguey" plays] ["Vertiente Camaguey" plays] Baseball maintained a prominent role in Cuban society both at the amateur and professional levels.

Cuban fans reveled in the experience of following "la pelota."

Felo Ramrez was born 94 years ago in the town of Bayamo near the southeast tip of Cuba.

To Cubans, Felo is synonymous with baseball.

He has narrated thousands of baseball games and throughout every pitch and inning has graced his audiences with authenticity, respect, and a great passion for the game.

In 2001, Felo Ramrez was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Today I will share with my wife, Fela And unfortunately I can't share With my family Closest family members In my beloved country, Cuba Using a very popular expression I just wanted to broadcast baseball in a free Cuba.

Thank you.

1947 was a pivotal year for professional baseball in Cuba.

That February, the Brooklyn Dodgers arrived in Havana for spring training.

A second baseman named Jackie Robinson was on the roster.

That season he would go on to break the race barrier in the major leagues.

Also in 1947, Cuban fans enjoyed their favorite pastime in a new facility.

Bobby Maduro and Miguel Surez built El Gran Estadio de La Habana.

Bobby Maduro was a man with a vision and he truly knew what he wanted back from 1946 on and, uh, when he built that stadium, he didn't just build it because it looked pretty.

He knew that eventually it would have a purpose in Major League Baseball.

So he had already a plan in place.

This guy was, you know, an entrepreneur, a businessman, but also a lover of baseball and looked at baseball as something that could unite people.

Not only people in his own country but later, when he left Cuba and actually worked for many years in the Commissioner's Office of Major League Baseball, looked at baseball as a way of a unifying force.

He's someone that lost everything twice - lost everything that he built in Cuba as a result of the revolution and then when he came to the U.S. and tried to start franchises and had the ill-fated Inter-American League in 1979 lost everything again.

And so, but he never lost hope in what, how, the greatness of the sport.

Cuban talent stood out in the major leagues in the 1950s.

The New York Yankees' Willy Miranda shined with his glove at shortstop.

Sandy Amors made the catch of the decade for the Dodgers.

And the Cuban Comet, Minnie Minoso graced the baseball world with his great skills.

The '50s also brought Cuba one step closer from attaining a major league franchise.

"Un pasito ms y llegamos."

"One more step and we're there" was the slogan for the Cuban Sugar Kings, which were bought by Bobby Maduro in 1954.

Ironically, as Cuban baseball was inching closer to getting a franchise in Cuba, the island itself was crumbling with political unrest.

Fulgencio Batista's regime seemed to be falling apart.

A group of unknown, seemingly nave guerrilla fighters took power when Batista fled the country on January 1st, 1959.

The Cuban Revolution initially yielded Hope and inspiration to many.

However, as events began to unfold, the revolution and its leader, Fidel Castro, headed in a radically different direction.

Ah - Fidel Castro.

Had he had a little bit more on the fastball, there would have been no Cuban revolution.

This, this was not true at all and no one would say that in Cuba because in Cuba we know that's not true.

It began here with a story that Don Hoak, who was a third baseman, an infielder for the Dodgers, spread, in the, I think, in the early '60s that when he was playing in Cuba, he said in 1951, a bunch of students protesting against Batista jumped into the field and Fidel Castro went to the mound.

And he was about to be up to the plate and Fidel Castro began to throw and said, "Get up there and hit," and so forth.

This was misinformation from the first, from the date in '51.

Batista was not in power.

Hoak played in the Cuban League in '53, '54 not in '51.

It didn't happen.

We don't have a single picture of Fidel Castro in a baseball uniform until after the revolution.

By 1961, professional sports were banned from Cuba.

Despite being separated from their country and loved ones, several athletes managed to excel in the big leagues.

It wasn't easy.

It was very hard because you had a family that you had left back in Cuba.

So it was very difficult to adapt to a new system and the different things that, "What am I going to do after the first year, 1961?"

So the whole thing, not only for me, I'm talking about in general, all of our players that stayed back, it was very difficult to do.

You gotta understand, they be, most of them were teenagers in the late '50s, early '60s, right when Castro came in.

They were just starting their careers in the major leagues, minor leagues, major leagues.

Boom!

They go, and they have, they have the, the door closed behind them.

I mean, literally closed behind them.

Once we leave this year's winter ball, we need to go and not look back.

Take your family, mainly your immediate family, your wife and your kids and not look back.

And that's what those guys did.

And then los panameos, los mexicanos, dominicanos, los venezolanos, they're all going, "Okay, hey, I can't wait to go back home.

The baseball season's over."

They couldn't go back home.

They're not going to Cuba.

They're going to go play winter ball in Venezuela or wherever, anywhere but Cuba.

And that was very difficult for them in the early years to, you know, to assimilate that, to understand and, and the envious situation of hearing all these other Latin players that played an eight-month season in the major leagues between spring training and the, the, the grind of a season, that you can't go home and go see your grandparents or your aunt and uncle and, and touch your land.

Eso todava, to this day it, it, you know, my skin, you know I get, I get worked up.

[Vocalizing] [Vocalizing] [Vocalizing] [Vocalizing] [Vocalizing] [Vocalizing] [Vocalizing] ["Cuba linda" plays] ["Cuba linda" plays] ["Cuba linda" plays] ["Cuba linda" plays] ["Cuba linda" plays] ["Cuba linda" plays] ["Cuba linda" plays] ["Cuba linda" plays] ["Cuba linda" plays] Baseball served as an elixir for many heavy-hearted exiles.

I remember Dad, he took me to a, a game and it was, it was quite exciting.

I heard the, the organ being played and to my - it, it was really strange because although being an afternoon, an early afternoon game, it was packed.

Number 1, Jos Cardenal - We were like, "Yeah, that's our man!

He's Cuban!"

It softened the transition to being in, growing up in a, in a rural town in Cuba in the outskirts of, of Havana and going to the concrete jungle of, of, of New York City in the late '60s.

Baseball was the constant.

I mean it was the thing that sort of connected me to the world and, and, and that I was no different.

I was not a different person, in a way, because I could still play that game.

In 1975, two Cuban stars, Tony Prez and Luis Tiant faced off in the fall classic.

Both players shined during the series.

One ball, two strikes.

Crown on its feet here at Fenway on an overcast, raw day.

And Petrocelli gloves it - the throw in time.

And the Red Sox have drawn first blood in the 1975 World Series.

Luis Tiant with the help of a 6 run 7th, spins a 5-hit shutout to give the Sox the victory.

Runners on 2nd and 3rd, nobody out.

Tony Prez with that infield drawn in against him.

He hits a blast into deep left center.

That's gone.

Way back.

There it is.

A high drive.

He's waiting for that one.

That one is gone, over everything.

Prez timed that blooper pitch and slammed it over the screen out onto Lansdowne Street and now we have another one-run ball game.

For Cubans living in the United States it was a moment of great pride.

You see this imposing figure on the mound with that thick, big mustache and then you see Tiant and how well he could play and hit.

They were both very good.

So, you know, immediately you think to yourself, "Wow, you know?

Maybe this isn't this hard to attain.

Maybe this is something that I could do.

Or I could reach.

You know?

If I work hard enough or if I have the talent.

And then it's a very proud moment for my parents, you know?

Talk to a Cuban about baseball and they're going to light up.

And they definitely did.

And what bigger stage than the World Series?

Within Cuba, not a word was mentioned to the population.

Major leaguers were officially banned from their homeland's media and record books.

In the 1980s, Cubans had come into their own in Miami.

["San Zarabanda" plays] Hoy es el da de Zarabanda Toda la gente vamos a... The once sleepy, southern city was transforming itself into an international destination.

Cuban-Americans were at the forefront of the city's identity shift.

["Cuba" plays] Quiero bailar la salsa... The seeds planted in the little league fields of Hialeah, Westchester and Perrine were now taking root.

Drops down and it's drilled to deep left center field and Jos Canseco on a two-two pitch has hit it out.

These players' style of play was as brash as their city.

Dan Marino was, was in town, but as a Cuban in Miami there was nobody like Canseco and Palmeiro.

Those guys were the talk of every cafeteria, every caf cubano they were talking about what Canseco did the night before.

And he was really the first crossover of a Latin to be able to cross over to the American market.

He had the looks, he had the talent, and he had the ability to do that.

Those two specific individuals were the tops.

I mean, to see Palmeiro swing a bat was probably the prettiest thing you could ever see.

I mean, that kid could hit since he was, you know, five or six years old.

So it was incredible.

You know, Jos kind of developed, um, but it was just incredible.

The pride you could feel in Miami with these two guys was incredible.

And they were, they were pretty much larger than life, specially in Miami.

Grew up in Miami.

Went to Mississippi State, where he started college.

What a career!

Hall of Fame career.

Here's the stretch and the two-two pitch.

Swung on.

Line drive down the left-field line.

This one is a fair ball into the corner.

There's number 3,000 for Palmeiro.

Riding third, heading home is Melvin Mora.

Rafael Palmeiro is on at second with an RBI double with his 3,000th career base hit in the major leagues.

Congratulations, Rafael Palmeiro!

It was like us making it to the major leagues.

I remember the excitement, my dad, "Hey!

Palmeiro's gonna play.

I remember seeing him at Mississippi State, where they called him, what did they call him?

It was "Thunder and Lightning."

It was ridiculous.

And my dad would be like, "Palmeiro's gonna make it.

He's gonna make it and when he does... oh my God! "

It was like winning the lotto for us.

We, this guy's from our neighborhood.

I remember when Danny Tartabull made it.

I was like, "Oh my God!

D.T.

is making it to the major leagues!

We know this guy!"

You know?

It's like a personal thing.

I can't describe it.

-Did you feel that way?

-Oh, absolutely.

I remember going to see Bobby Muoz at the Marlins Stadium.

He was with the Phillies back then.

And he probably had the best game of his life.

He pitched a complete shut-out.

I think it was a complete shut-out in an hour and 40 minutes.

And that made me as proud as like if I was on the mound pitching, you know?

Yeah, we just couldn't wait for them to do good.

Who else?

Show me Canseco.

Show me your Canseco.

Canseco, he'd just get in there and he just kind of, he'd see the plate there and he'd just kind of put his foot like an inch next to the plate and then kind of open wide and just say, "Okay, just throw it inside and see what you can do with it."

Inside of Cuba, the government, like many Eastern bloc nations, had invested greatly in flexing its muscle in international amateur competitions.

The Cuban national baseball team was dictator Fidel Castro's most prized export.

Cuba dominated the amateur baseball world.

For Cuban-Americans, cheering for their native team was a difficult proposition.

Rooting against the Cuban national team is a pastime in my house growing up because the Cuban national team, unlike pre-revolutionary Cuba when teams were of their neighborhoods and of their cities, the team post-revolution represented the government - the totalitarian regime that used baseball as a way of, of certainly controlling the population and projecting a kind of superiority to the rest of the world.

And so it was easy.

I grew up, you know, totally understanding the difference between what that represented and when American players played against those players in either the Pan-Am Games, whenever that would happen, there was no question.

You root for America.

It's very difficult for me.

Very, very difficult and I truly don't follow any of the Cuban, the current Cuban games.

And that's unfortunate.

I think there should be a place for it but somehow the Cuban exile is always going to be resistant.

I don't care who you are, but there's always going to be some degree of resistance when you're now presented with your Cuban national team players who have done nothing against you, have done nothing wrong to you.

But are you going to root for them?

You're not.

You're going to root for the American team.

Even though I was born in Cuba, this is my country.

Okay, this is a country that allowed me to come here and gave me an opportunity to be somebody.

No other country in the world would give you that type of opportunity.

So my first responsibility is toward the United States and toward the anthem and toward the flag because a lot of people did die giving me that opportunity to, to, to live here.

And that's the reason I root for the United States.

And, and yeah, I always saw the, the Cuban team as a propaganda tool for the Castro brothers, for the cops, for the criminals.

At times, I criticize the players because they stayed with the team rather than come here, but I understand that some of them they had families in Cuba and if they were to come here then their families would be subject to a lot of pressure from the regime.

But I always, I always, I always rooted for the teams of this country because this is my country.

[Speaking Spanish] Quien no tenga un corazn que se adapte al esfuerzo y al herosmo de una revolucin, no los queremos.

No los necesitamos.

In 1980, second baseman Brbaro Garbey fled Cuba through the Mariel boatlift and reached the major leagues.

Garbey was the first player to defect from Cuba's baseball juggernaut.

The most significant defection from the Cuban national squad happened in 1991 when pitcher Ren Arocha sought political asylum and then pitched his way to the bigs.

He did work into the 7th inning in his last start, five innings in his first start and so it is really important to get your team back on offense.

Popped up foul ball if it comes down, and I don't think this one's going to...

The Florida Marlins have won the World Series!

I love you, Miami!

[Cheers] I also hope in the near future the selection Andre Dawson, Tony Oliva, Luis Tiant, Minnie Mioso and Pete Rose could be here because the feeling is wonderful.

Entry into Baseball's Hall of Fame is the highest honor for anyone involved with the game.

There are presently only five Cubans in Cooperstown.

Debate remains as to why more have not been selected.

Luis Tiant, Tony Oliva and Minnie Mioso remain on the outside looking in.

Today, a new crop of speedy, powerful Cubans don major league uniforms.

Chapman is, he's a closer.

Period.

Now the one-two pitch.

Swing and a miss.

High heat got him.

103 miles an hour.

The future looks bright for them although questions remain about their homeland.

One thing is for certain, as Cubans on and off the island strive for a better tomorrow, la pelota will be part of their future for generations to come.

Underwriting for Major League Cuban provided by Badia, the soul of cooking.

Hi, I'm Dr. John Uribe.

Baptist Health South Florida salutes all the legendary figures in Major League Cuban.

If you love baseball or any other sport, don't let an injure keep you out of the game.

Let Miami Orthopedics & Sports Medicine Institute get you back on the field.