by Amaury Pi Gonzalez

photo credit: news.yahoo,com–Cuban born Tampa Bay Rays outfielder Dayron Varona is greeted by family and friends

I forced myself this afternoon to watch the game televised live from La Habana, Cuba., my reaction was more sadness than happiness, as I remember that beautiful park in 1960 in a vibrant neighborhood, now it looks like a huge slum all around the park, as the cameras cut away something to show the area. A few miles away the Capitol Building, which is an exact replica of the US Capitol Building in Washington, D.C.

Today in the first day of spring, the most anticipated exhibition game in Havana, Cuba took place and the Tampa Bay Rays defeated the Cuban National Team 4-1,in front of 50,000 Cuban baseball fans. The game took place at Estadio Latinoamericano, once also known at Gran Estadio, or Estado de El Cerro. ESPN carried the game live, with Karl Ravich, Doug Glavine and Eduardo Perez, son of the Cuban-born Hall of Famer Tony Perez, with Cuban-born reporter Pedro Gomez in the sidelines. Next to President Obama there was Raul Castro, so called President of Cuba, but to make things clear, he did not get elected by the people of Cuba, but he was installed there as President by his older brother Fidel Castro, who is ill and did not speak to anybody. I had to made this clear, because here in America we hear about Presidents and we immediately believe they were elected, well Obama yes, he was elected by a democratic process, but both Castro’s seized power 58 years ago and they have been the rulers of Cuba since. In Cuba the people do not have the right to vote, it is the communist party members, a few thousand that make the rules for over 11 million people.

For the Tampa Bay Rays four runs five hits no errors, for the Cuban National Team, one run, nine hits, one error. Matt Moore went six complete innings did not allowed a run and was credited with the win, James Loney drove in three runs, two of those with a home run in the fourth inning. Eduardo Perez, doing commentary mentioned that this Cuban National Team doesn’t have a lot of power hitters, because most of them have defected to the United States, so this Cuban team is mostly made of contact hitters with speed. Perez also made a commentary after the game ended that now it remains to be seen if Cuban opens up, because(in his words on ESPN) “there is a lot of oppression here”, he also mentioned that lots of Cuban-Americans where not happy with Major League Baseball for this event and even went as far as saying that Cuban pitching star of the Miami Marlins, Jose Fernandez is among many Cubans in Miami who were upset about the Tampa Bay Rays going to Cuba to play an exhibition game in Miami.

It was impossible for ESPN to just concentrate on the game, because these are two countries that have not had diplomatic relations for over half century, and what I wrote in my previous article a day ago, was exactly what the ESPN commentators were talking about, basically the ball is in the Cuban government hands and what will they do in the future. How a plan can be devised for which you can preserve the integrity of Cuban Beisbol(La Serie Nacional) while allowing Cuban players to travel freely to the USA to play in Major League Baseball.As a matter of fact ESPN became CNN all-of-a-sudden as they asked President Obama about today’s world news, a terrorist attack by ISIS (the Islamic Terrorist)that killed 30 and wounded over 230 at the Brussels airport in Belgium as well as in Subways in that city. At the end, what was a major story, the first visit of a US sitting President to Cuba in 90 years became insignificant with CNN, FOX, MSNBC and other networks going LIVE to Brussels, Belgium, for another terrible Islamic Terrorist attack.

Amaury Pi Gonzalez is the Oakland A’s Spanish voice on radio and does News and Commentary each week at http://www.sportsradioservice.com