Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro is the subject of That’s Amaury’s News and Commentary of what would have been if Castro played baseball instead of ruling Cuba (USA Today file photo)
Fidel Castro and Baseball – Never a Serious Prospect-
That’s Amaury News and Commentary
By Amaury Pi-González
There is one thing that unites most men born in Cuba; baseball. For years there have been stories about Fidel Castro playing baseball (like that was something extraordinary) but in Cuba if you are born a male, if by the time you are ready for T-Ball as a kid and you show little interest for baseball, there is a good chance your family might take you to a psychiatrist.
Just like in Brasil, where fútbol/soccer is played religiously, same thing happens in Cuba, but with baseball. As a kid we played for hours after school in Havana, some played baseball for more hours than attended school.
It is part of the DNA of each of us Cubans. However, some write the story of Castro’s refusing a major league team contract, because he wanted to study law. That has as much truth as the promise he made when he took over Cuba, and told the people during a long speech that there will be free elections in the country.
Castro’s biographers and those that saw him “play” agree that as a pitcher he threw hard, but was wild. He never even made the Junior Varsity team of the University of Havana and the story that the New York Giants authorized Alex Pompez (their man in Cuba) to offer a $5,000 bonus to Fidel Castro was ridiculous since no Latin prospect were offered that kind of money in 1950.
In 1950 the average salary of a Major League Baseball player was approximately $13,000. In 1959 before a game between the Havana Sugar Kings and the Rochester Red Wings (AAA affiliate of the Cincinnati Reds) in Cuba, Fidel Castro took to the mound with Los Barbudos team (The Bearded Ones) for a two inning exhibition game against a military squad team.
He pitched the two innings, striking out two and grounding to shortstop for an out during his only at bat. And that was his whole “career” as a baseball player. No more, no less. Castro controlled and ruled Cuba, but the narrative about his baseball “career”, is one that he could not control.
Because, its very simple, he wasn’t good enough and was never a serious prospect. Until 1960 Cuba was heavily scouted by major league scouts of many organizations. The most famous scout in Cuba was Joe Cambria, aka “Papa Joe”.
Cambria worked for the Washington Senators and had a yearly-permanent residence on the island. Cambria signed Roberto Estalella, René Monteagudo, Roberto Ortíz and others who went on to play with the Senators at the beginning of their major league careers.
If Fidel Castro showed any serious promise you can be assured Joe Cambria would have signed him, because until that time, Cuba was “número uno”, sending their talent to the US. A year later, in 1961 Castro banned all professional sports in Cuba, including baseball.
Since then, all athletes in Cuba are basically property of the government. They cannot travel freely in or out of the island without the authorization of the government. Many Cubans currently playing in the Major Leagues have escaped the island, or defected while their team was playing an international tournament.
Fidel Castro died on November 25, 2016 and according to Forbes, he had a fortune of at least $1 billion which was kept in shells slush funds around the world. For decades he blamed the US for just about everything under the sun, including Capitalism, however he was the biggest Capitalist in Cuba.
In that case he was consistent with politicians, his hypocrisy was palpable, even today we can see how hypocrisy and politicians go hand and hand. Yes, he did loved baseball, but as I stated before, in Cuba to love baseball is a given, is like asking any kid if they like ice-cream.
The fact remains that Fidel Castro never played any type of professional baseball in Cuba or outside the island. Today many Cuban baseball stars make less than $2,000 a year and some of them (Liván Hernández, plus others have told me) have other duties aside from just playing baseball, like driving the bus among their “requirements.”
Baseball is a game of failure, where even the most successful fail more times than none. For Fidel Castro, even as much as he loved the game he decided it was easier for him to become a communist dictator than a good baseball player.
Even Hollywood has never attempted to do a film on the topic of Fidel and his baseball “career”, which would have been a fantasy and that is a Hollywood specialty. My favorite quote on this topic, comes from Hall-of-Famer Monte Irvin, who played for the New York Giants and also for Alacranes del Almendares in the 1948-49 Cuban winter league in Havana, once said that is he had other Cuban leaguers of the late ’40s known that the young student Castro who hung around Havana ballparks had designs of being an autocratic dictator, they would have been well served to make him an umpire.
Happy New 2021. Stay tuned and stay well.
Amaury Pi Gonzalez is the vice president of the Major League Baseball Hispanic Heritage Hall of Fame Museum and does News and Commentary at http://www.sportsradioservice.com
