Politics

Put Me in Caudillo, I'm Ready to Play!

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You do know that the story about Fidel Castro having a major league baseball tryout is an urban legend, right? Anyway, as this Granma translation of El Jefe's commentary on the World Baseball Classic makes clear, he shoulda been a sportswriter:

I am trying to follow the events of the Baseball Classic, thanks to our national television services. […]

The dangerous and emblematic Ichiro, who had already failed on three occasions, hit a single.

And so on (link via Baseball Primer).

Meanwhile, another very small sign that Raul's regime will be slightly less airbrushy than his brother's:

Havana on Tuesday debuted a baseball video game which includes famous Cuban-born defectors long expunged from official memory here after they abandoned the Communist island to play in the United States.

The country's first baseball video game, MVP Cuba 1.0, features a number of Cuban stars who triumphed in the US major leagues, including star pitchers Orlando Hernandez—nicknamed "El Duque"—and Jose Contreras.

The game was unveiled at a state information science center over the weekend, according to Juventud Rebelde daily newspaper.

Link via 3 Days of Cryin'. I wrote about the censored and since-deceased Cuban baseball historian Severo Nieto a few years back.