Out of Left Field: Béisbol en Cuba

Over spring break, I got to visit Havana, Cuba on an educational trip. Part of that education was learning about the Revolution, Fidel and the political history of Cuba. But the other part was learning about the culture of baseball on the island. From walking around Havana to visiting the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes to running into a random bar at night that happened to be showing the World Baseball Classic semifinal, baseball was ubiquitous.

One of the first things I saw in Havana was our neighbor watering his flowers wearing his Jordan Zimmermann Tigers’ shirsey -- definitely unexpected. I kept a running tab during the trip of the shirseys I saw, totaling one Zimmermann, one Miguel Cabrera, two Alex Rodriguez’s, one José Fernández and one Yoenis Céspedes. The most popular hats were the New York Yankees, Los Angeles Dodgers, Chicago White Sox and Miami Marlins. People seemed to drift toward MLB teams that either their family in the United States lives near or teams that signed their favorite Cuban players. Most of the White Sox fans I talked with mentioned how they were big fans of José Abreu, with one guy at a market saying that Alexei Ramírez was his favorite player. I also passed a guy on the street wearing a shirt that read ‘A-Rod Saves.’ As as Red Sox fan, if I knew more Spanish, I would have loved to tell him that A-Rod does not, in fact, save. 

One of the coolest things in Havana for me was to get to visit Esquina Caliente, the Hot Corner. It’s just a bench in the corner of Parque Central where people gather literally every day to debate baseball. I showed up at 12:30 p.m. and for the next half hour I sat alongside these mostly old men and listened to them debate baseball. It got heated at points, with people yelling at each other about how poorly Cuba had performed in the World Baseball Classic, but the guy who welcomed me into the circle and mercifully spoke English told me at the end that they’re all friends. One of the things I was able to pick up at the Hot Corner was the baseball fanatics lamenting how stupid it was for Cuba to forbid defectors from playing for the national team in 'El Clásico.' Getting to sit in and listen to these 30 or so men talk baseball was incredible and something I wish we had in the United States.

When visiting the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (the National Museum of Fine Arts), one thing that stuck out was the number of baseball-related paintings. I can’t remember a single painting in any of the big American art museums about baseball, but in Havana, there were at least four that I caught, speaking to the importance of baseball in Cuban culture.

The Cuban baseball season had already ended by the time I got to the country, but even in the offseason, it was easy to see how fundamental baseball is in Cuba, a change I would enjoy seeing in the United States.