Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Post two -- The Cuba Adventure


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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