Painting the Corners Again

by Weintraub, Bob;

  Anyway, we all stayed around the hotel that day and tried to recover from the night before. Some of our players did better than others, but when it was time to leave for the stadium I could see we were in no condition to play our best. The guys went out there and tried hard, but everything we did looked like it was happening in slow motion. The worst was trying to run after hitting the ball, and our outfielders trying to catch up with fly balls hit in the gaps. The crowd in the stadium had a great time cheering for their team the way they beat up on us. The score was 19–5, and it could have been worse except some of the Cuban guys were moving up a base at a time when they could have had two, or in at least a couple of cases even three. They were too tired to keep pouring it on. So everyone on both sides shook hands when it was over, and they left, probably went home to their families. We went back to the hotel, ordered off the menu whatever we thought we could handle, and flopped back down into bed.

  Monday was a travel day, and we had a bus leaving at 10:00 a.m. Our next two games were going to be played in a place called Cienfuegos, about 250 miles away, along the southwest coast of the island. We left on time, right after most of the team finished breakfast, stopped for lunch at a fish shack along the way the driver recommended, and got there just before six o’clock. Some of the guys asked why we didn’t fly instead of spending the whole day on the road, and Mr. State Department said the Cuban government was in charge of all our transportation on the island. “How we get there or anyplace else is up to them, not me,” he said. “If you’ve got a complaint, talk to Castro. I’m sure he’ll do whatever you say.” That was about the funniest thing he said the whole trip.

  Anyhow, there wasn’t much to see on the ride, but what caught my eye were the American cars that passed us going in the other direction. Most of them were old, some even from before the war, but then every so often there’d be one from the fifties go by. I loved those cars they made in the mid-fifties, and I could tell one from the other pretty easy. Just had to see their grills and tail fins, or the tire guards some wore, or whether they had twin exhausts or what their hood ornaments looked like. It wasn’t just the Fords and Chevys. You had DeSotos, Hudsons, Chryslers, Studebakers, Packards, some of the most beautiful cars in the world. You know what I’m talking about, Emo. So I had fun pointing them out for the guys.

  The name of the stadium in Cienfuegos was the easiest one for me to remember. It was Estadio 5 de Septiembre, and September 5th is my boy’s birthday. It was a lot bigger than the one in Santiago, and you could see they took good care of it. Thirty thousand could watch a game there, and everyone had a good seat. I was impressed when we took the field and saw they had three cameras set up for shooting videotape of the game. One was in the center field bleachers, right on a line with home plate, and the other two were behind first and third.

  Our guys did some good hitting in that first game, but so did they. The lead went back and forth almost every inning, and we were down a run going into the ninth. After a beautiful bunt single put a runner on first, our catcher caught hold of a slow curve he’d been looking for and we jumped ahead again 12–11. The Cubans put men on second and third with one out in their ninth, and the next guy hit a bullet I was sure was the game winner for them. But our second baseman—one of the two Holy Cross players I’d put on the team—gloved it with a dive to his right and then touched second before the runner got back. It was a sensational backhand stab and double play. We ran on the field to lift him up and carry him back to the dugout, and I remember seeing the fans behind third standing and clapping for us. It felt good to know they appreciated a great play, and it felt terrific that we’d beaten a team of what I could tell were semi-pros.

  The Wednesday game was a whole different story. I’d given our players a pep talk in the locker room about winning that afternoon and wrapping up the series in our favor. We were starting the kid who pitched seven terrific innings in the first game in Santiago, and I knew from watching him in our league at home he was used to going on three days rest. He got through the first couple of innings okay, but then the roof fell in and they began pounding him. I left him in there until the Cubans had six runs on the board in the next two innings, and our three relievers gave up ten more in the four innings they threw between them. All of them got scorched. We had a meaningless rally in the ninth getting a bunch of runs, but the final score was still an embarrassment.

  Mr. State Department came into the locker room to let us know the travel plans for the next day, and I told him to get me copies of the video the Cubans took of our two games there. Donnelly couldn’t believe all four of our kids could get hit that hard in one game. I agreed with him, and wanted to see if they were somehow telegraphing their pitches. State Department said he’d ask about it, and then told me at dinner there was no video. The stadium manager said those guys were just practicing camera shots. What they were really doing woke me up in the middle of the night. That’s when it hit me the guy in center field must have been sending signals to their hitters at the plate, probably holding up one or more fingers when he saw what pitch our catcher was signaling for. The other two guys were just part of the show. So now we’d lost one game on account of food poisoning, and another on them stealing our signs, with the final game coming up on Friday night in Havana.

  We were back on the same bus again in the morning, but we knew the ride would be much shorter than the last one, so there was almost no griping about it. For a while we stayed close to a bay on our left side and we could see a long sandy beach there. The driver pointed to it and called it the Bay of Pigs, but it didn’t mean anything to me until the Cuban invasion a couple of years later when Kennedy was president. The pitchers who were in the game the day before all felt better about themselves when I explained how our signs were being stolen, and everything was upbeat until we were almost at the hotel. That’s when Mr. State Department told us our game on Friday night wasn’t going to be played at the main stadium, called Estadio Latinoamericano, which I had been telling everyone about, but at a smaller one in another part of the city. Its name, we found out later, was Estadio Pedro Marrero, and with twenty-eight thousand seats was just half the size of where we expected to play. That was a downer for everyone.

  On Friday, our English-speaking tour guide from Santiago showed up and we got driven on the same bus all around Havana to see the sights. We stopped for lunch after a couple of hours, and then spent another hour on the bus listening to him mostly point out more of the memorial statues and buildings around the city. I remember him telling us the population was getting close to two and a half million people, and there were plenty of places where you could see the living wasn’t very comfortable.

  Again, the biggest attraction for me was the American cars on the streets, and there were a lot more of them here. The tour guide said Cuba used to get most of its cars from Mexico every year, but that while the dictator was there—now I remember his name, Batista—while he was there, they imported cars from the US for the Cubans who had money and could afford them. When the bus stopped across the street from the Presidential Palace, there was a 1954 Buick Roadmaster Convertible, green and white, four portholes on the side, parked right in front. It looked like it just came out of the showroom. If I had the money and could have chosen one car for myself in the fifties, it would have been that one. Instead, I was driving an eight-year-old Chevy my uncle sold me for a hundred forty bucks. The Roadmaster belonged to Castro, our guide said. I asked him if I could walk over and sit in it. He said sure, it was okay if I didn’t mind getting shot by one of the three soldiers who were standing there with their rifles at parade rest. That got a laugh from the kids, so I kept the joke going by telling him I’d ask Mr. State Department to arrange for me to get a ride in the car out to the stadium.

  “Not in that car,” he said. “That car never goes anywhere.”

  So that was the end of that, and when we pulled away I saw the license plate read “CUBA 1.”

  The game that night moved along qui
ckly, and we led 8–1 after seven innings. I felt good about the fact we were going to win the series, and I could already imagine the nice write-up I’d get in the Worcester papers—and probably the Boston papers too on account of Donnelly being from B.C.—for coaching the team. I was thinking maybe some college that pays better than Holy Cross might see it and be interested in talking to me about a job.

  Before the eighth inning started, some guy in civilian clothes came out on the field and walked over to speak to the home plate umpire. I figured the police on duty near the two dugouts knew who he was because no one tried to stop him. Anyway, after a couple of minutes the umpire waved for me and the Cuban team manager to join them. When we did, the civilian guy first spoke in Spanish to the Cuban manager who kept nodding his head up and down as he listened. Then he told me in English that Fidel Castro had intended to be at the stadium that night but was detained by some important business. He definitely wanted to see the game deciding the winner of the series, so it couldn’t be the one we were already playing. Castro said this game and the one scheduled for Saturday night would both be considered practices, or warm-ups, and the deciding one would be played on Sunday afternoon when he could be there. I didn’t like what I was hearing, but there was nothing I could do about it. We were two innings away from winning the series, and now it was being taken away from us. I figured the silver lining in it was the guys who hadn’t played much so far would be able to get a whole game under their belts without worrying about whether they won or lost. The good news he gave us was the game would be played in the main stadium, which he called the Grand Stadium of Havana. I guess I looked confused because then he said it’s what Estadio Latinoamericano was called when it was built about thirteen years earlier, and many Cubans still use that name. Anyhow, since I figured this guy must be close to Castro, I asked him if there was any chance of someone giving me a ride in that Buick convertible in front of the Presidential Palace.

  “I will mention it to the Prime Minister,” he said, “but as far as I know that car always stays right where it is.”

  So at least I felt good that Castro knew what I wanted if he was going to send us home with a smile on our faces.

  We finished the game, holding on at the end for an 8–6 win after they rallied in their last at bats. The next night we lost by the same score, but our subs got the chance to have some fun for nine innings, and we let four of our pitchers go two innings each. The Cubans used all their regulars, so that gave our players even more confidence. Also, the tour guide told us some of the guys on their club had been good enough to play for Cuba’s national team when they were younger. I remembered back in Santiago he said the Cubans expected to beat us in all five games. Anyhow, the fans knew the second game was an exhibition and didn’t count for anything, but they filled the ballpark anyway and let us hear it with some cheering whenever one of our guys made a terrific play. I came away feeling they loved baseball for the game itself, and would show up to watch it no matter who was playing.

  I’m almost through with this story, Emo. Believe me, I haven’t been trying to drag it out, and I’m not going to give you a blow-by-blow description of every inning from the Sunday game. It wasn’t one of those games with a lot of action where the crowd is really into it, making a lot of noise and up on its feet half the time. In fact, it was just the opposite. Maybe it’s because there were fifty-five thousand people watching us, and the players on both sides had trouble getting rid of their butterflies. It was like we were waiting all game for them to make a mistake and vice versa. Today, the kind of game I’m telling you about is what’s called a grinder. We were lucky we had our best pitcher to go again on three days rest because the guy on the mound for the Cubans had all his stuff and was giving us fits.

  We had a 2–1 lead going into the stretch half of the seventh inning, and then a gal who was one of the most popular singers in the country woke up the crowd with the way she sang the Cuban national anthem. The first two guys up for them both hit doubles off the right field wall, and they scored two runs in the inning to go ahead 3–2. In the eighth, we had two on and two out when our center fielder hit a low line drive the Cuban center fielder came racing in for and tried to snag with a dive before it hit the grass. It fell in front of him, took a bounce and rolled most of the way to the wall. Both runners scored and our guy had a triple, but we couldn’t bring him home.

  We got past their half of the eighth with no problem and took the 4–3 lead into the last of the ninth. I had a left handed reliever ready on the mound to throw to their first batter, a left handed hitter, and he got him on a grounder to short. They had a righty up next, so I brought in our best right handed reliever in the bullpen. He went to a full count on the hitter, but then walked the guy on a pitch the ump could’ve called either way. The Cuban pitcher was due up next, so I figured we’d see a pinch hitter and I was waiting to see what side he hit from. All of a sudden there was a lot of noise coming from the stands behind first base, and then I saw Castro himself come through the gate in front of the box seats and onto the field. Up to that point I hadn’t thought about him at all, and had no idea where he’d been sitting. He was dressed in a fatigue uniform and holding a shopping bag in his hand. The Cuban team’s manager came running out and led Castro back to their dugout. It took about five minutes, as the noise in the stadium kept getting louder when more people found out what was going on, and then Castro came back onto the field. He was wearing the team’s shirt and cap, and had traded in his boots for a pair of spikes. But he still had on his fatigue pants.

  As everyone watched, Castro went over and began talking to the home plate umpire. Then the ump called both of us managers over. He said Castro told him he hadn’t played any baseball or even swung a bat in several years, and he wanted to take some batting practice before he pinch hit. How did we feel about that, the umpire wanted to know. Well, the Cuban manager said that Fidel—he called him Fidel—had played for the team before he went off to fight, it was an honor to have him back, and he certainly was entitled to take some batting practice. I wasn’t sure what to do. I’d never heard of anything as crazy as this happening, but the umpire obviously hadn’t ruled it out. While I hesitated, he said if the two managers disagreed, he’d have to make the call. I figured he wasn’t going to go against what he knew fifty-five thousand fans in the park wanted, so it wasn’t going to matter what I said. The ump proved my feeling about him was right when he took me aside and reminded me we were dealing with the country’s Prime Minister and its great hero of the revolution. He thought instead of his having to make the decision, I should agree Castro could take batting practice before getting into the game.

  “If you reject his request, he will not forget you,” he said, “and when Fidel does not forget you, your troubles begin immediately.”

  That did it for me. I had to remember there were twenty-two college kids in a foreign country who were my responsibility, and we were there to impress Castro in some way, not get him mad at us. So I told the umpire I agreed and gave Castro a big smile when the ump translated it into Spanish.

  I was asked to take all our players off the field, and I did. Our pitcher was allowed to throw on the side and keep loose, but the rest of us sat in the dugout and watched Castro swing at what the Cuban manager was throwing him. He was rusty as an old gate at first, but you could see he was an athletic guy and after a while began to make solid contact with some of the balls he swung at. Finally, about fifteen or twenty minutes later he dropped the bat at the plate and showed he wanted the two managers to join him. He spoke in Spanish, and the umpire told me what he said.

  “We don’t have a trophy to give you if you win the game,” he told me. “We were sure we would never lose,”—and he laughed a little when he said that—“but I’ve been told of your affection for the convertible in front of the Presidential Palace. If you win, everyone on your team will be allowed to sit in the car, two at a time, for five minutes, but the car will not be moved. Maybe at another tim
e in the future you’ll have that chance. But if our team wins the game, you will have to give me your baseball uniform because I see we are the same size and perhaps I will wear it on different occasions.” When the ump finished speaking, Castro smiled at me and held out his hand to confirm the deal. I smiled back and we shook hands.

  Our team took the field again, and the Cuban manager sent up a pinch hitter, but it wasn’t Castro. It was a left handed hitter, and I felt I’d been outsmarted by not having a southpaw get loose also while Castro was taking his swings. The batter jumped on the first pitch and drove it off the low wall in right field, just missing a home run and ending the game right there. That gave the Cubans runners on second and third. With the crowd on its feet and roaring, Castro came to bat. In a normal situation I’d have given him a free pass to set up a double play and end the threat, but I felt pretty confident about getting him out. Well, Castro watched the first five pitches go by, three balls and two strikes, without taking the bat off his shoulder. Our guy was firing them in, one fastball after another, and Castro looked overpowered. The pitches he’d seen in batting practice didn’t come close to the speed of those he was looking at now. He didn’t step out of the batter’s box once. It was almost like he was in a trance. I was thinking the Cuban manager probably wished Fidel had never left his seat in the stands, and that he was going to either strike out looking, or walk if he was lucky, without ever taking a cut. What worried me was he’d swing late and get just enough bat on the ball to hit one of those sickening flares down the right field line that lands on the chalk with three fielders each a step away from reaching it. On the next pitch he almost did what I was thinking, but I could see right away it was slicing foul off to the right and would land in the lower boxes out there. At that point he stepped away from the plate for the first time since getting set in the box, took a few hard practice swings and then pointed out to left field. I couldn’t believe it. I wondered whether he knew about Babe Ruth doing that years ago, or was making it up himself. My pitcher turned around and looked at the outfield like he was expecting to see a loose beach ball out there. Then he raised his hands as if he was saying “What’s he pointing at? What’s going on?” I hollered out to him to forget it and shouted “Whiff this guy, throw it by him.” The seventh fastball in a row left the mound and almost reached the catcher’s glove. I think in the next twenty seconds we made Fidel Castro a bigger hero in Cuba than what the revolution did. I couldn’t tell you whether he had his eyes open or not, but he hit the pitch no more than twenty feet off the ground out to left field, 330 feet away into the bleachers, right in the direction he’d pointed. When the ball landed, the crowd made the loudest noise I ever heard in a ballpark anywhere. It was “Fidel, Fidel, Fidel,” and they never stopped shouting his name. He stood at home watching the ball until it left the park, like Manny Ramirez always does when he knows it’s gone. I watched him make his home run trot around the bases, and when he rounded third he looked my way and gave me one hell of a big smile. Then he pointed to his cap, his shirt and his pants, reminding me I owed him my uniform. I clapped my hands a couple of times just to show him I appreciated what he’d pulled off.