by Amaury Pi Gonzalez

ANAHEIM–The US Embassy in Havana which had the flag raising last week is located in the same place where the last group of diplomats left it when the flag was lowered for the last time in 1961 when President Fidel Castro took over Cuba. I’m one of the few guys to live long enough to remember I was in Cuba when the US flag went down after Castro declared Cuba a communist country and he claimed he had been communist all his life.

That’s when the US and Cuba broke relations and a few months later I left Cuba to come to the US, my family sent me, then my younger brother and my family came in. I’m one of the few guys who can tell that story and I’ve seen it on TV and I haven’t been there but last week the flag was raised there at the Embassy. I was there in 1960-61 I was a young kid but I remember and that building the US Embassy is right on the waterfront in downtown Havana.

It’s a beautiful building where it’s located. The US Embassy when the flag came down in the early 60s and the diplomats left Cuba it was like an emergency evacuation, they weren’t chased out or put in jail but left under international interest. Cuba broke relations in haste that the diplomats had to leave the US Embassy and put the flag down.

It’s good that the people in Cuba probably benefited a lot Cuba is still a very repressive system, there’s no free press, there’s no free ownership, or private ownership. So hopefully things will change and Castro won’t live forever and that system will eventually collapse and hopefully Cuba will have freedom.

People don’t realize that Cubans don’t have access to the internet and their cell phones are being bugged or listened into by the Cuban government. Cuba is 90 miles from the US but they might as well be on another planet and they still live in the 50s. It’s good for the people of Cuba and of course the baseball players it’s a panacea. Basically they would be able to leave without any problems they won’t have to escape the island like the way they used to.

For example the Royals Kendrys Morales whose a great DH player, I get to talk to Morales all the time and he’s a great guy he’s the DH for the Royals whose got the best record in the American League. He tried to escape Cuba eight or nine times and in the end he succeeded so those days might be over. Players might be able to get on the plane and come over to the states and play MLB.

Amaury Pi Gonzalez is the Spanish radio voice for the A’s, the TV Spanish voice for the Angels, and does Podcast, News, and Commentary weekly at http://www.sportsradioservice.com