More Baseball in Cuba
Sorry for grammatical errors and typos – typing this up fast
to get something up on the blog…….
Day 3 – Game in Abreus – we played a town team so these guys
were more for our level – we again picked up a few guys from the stadium again
– those guys were very good (muh bien) while the rest of them were playing in
slip on shoes and no cleats. Lou our 69
year old pitcher toed the mound – he mixes in a great curveball with a nice
changeup and a very good located fast ball – Lou ended up pitching all 9
innings – our bats were ready and we scratched out a bunch of runs – Lou gave
up two runs – both towering home runs – one of the guys who blasted one off the
scoreboard in centerfield was a 3rd baseman for the local
professional team (14 year veteran) – he was probably in his mid 40’s – he also
make a couple nice plays in the field as well – very quick hands and reflexes. We ended up hitting well
Day 4 – Travel to Havana – long bus ride to Havana (about 3
hours total) so respect those guys who do bus trips all the time – we do have a
nice bus to tote us around so no complaints.
A great group of guys - many of
them who have traveled to Cuba a few times – we ended up staying at the Melia
Cohiba – a 5 star hotel – very nice amenities including INTERNET! I grabbed two hours for $14 CUC (which is
basically $14 American) – using it wisely connecting with the wife and my
employees – making an update here or there
on the blog and twitter (facebook).
I will upload pictures once I get home, just would take too long and
since I really want to be away from most things and enjoy the culture and
opportunities.
Day 5 – Travel to Matanzas – a great trip over, the roads
covering the northern part of Cuba and with the ocean to our north a beautiful
90 minutes bus ride. This area is more
hilly – most of Cuba is pretty flat – highest spot in Cuba is 2 KM (about 6,000
feet) the city of Matanzas has about 230,000 people. We get to the stadium, first built in 1874
and you can tell. We were greeted by the
locals (again) and this field is the best we have been to. We were given a tour of the museum that was
the field (a mini Cooperstown), all
about the baseball history in Matanzas.
The game was more of a spectacle as they played the national anthems for
each country while we stood on the foul lines.
We exchanged gifts before the game with the other players – we had a
Baseball International pin and we
received a small wooden bottle of Rum (Havana Club) and a calendar. I was slated to start this game and we were
planning on playing 9 innings today – the weather was not as warm as it was in
Cienfuegos (85-90 degrees with 80%+ humidity) so probably 85 and 65% humidity
with a slight breeze blowing in left field (which was nice since we have seen a
few home runs hit by the Cubanos). I
started off slow by giving up two hits (to right field) to the first two
batters – one play would have been tough for our fielder, the other hit was
playable – but they scored fast and we were down 1-0 in the first – I was able
to get the next three batters out. We
played our worst defensive inning in the 2nd and gave up 4 runs
while successfully not making some “easy” plays. Well it was ugly and I had to get like 7
outs – but we calmed down and now losing 5-0 – we breeze through the next few
innings without giving up any runs – we score 1 in the 5th for a 5-1
game, I gave up one more run in the 6th to make it 6-1. We score 3 runs in the 8th to make
it close at 6-4, I hold down the fort in the bottom of the eight – we get one
more run to lose the game 6-5. Fun game
good times.
Tomorrow we play in Havana – going near a steel mill – the other
team played some guys from the steel mill since the team that was supposed to
play did not show up (they thought the game was rained out).
Things are good.....
~~ "You can observe a lot just by watching." - Yogi Berra ~~
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