HAVANA, Cuba.- As soon as Wainwright’s first pitch came out, the rain that stubbornly fell on Havana intensified, with a brutality that forced us to turn up the volume on the television. The first moments of the clash between Cuba and the United States in the semifinal of the World Classic Baseball, they were heart attack.
The insulars started with an advantage from the very first inning, and without taking the ball out of the box. Based on bruises and a certain lack of control on the part of the American opener, the Cubans scored the first of the game.
The revelry, however, did not last long. The United States turned the score around in the bottom of the inning thanks to Paul Goldschmidt’s home run, which drove in a run. From there, Armando Johnson’s men could not recover.
LoanDepot Park was packed, with a baseball anteroom bristling with political opinions and a lot of tension for both teams, although the Cubans carried the double anxiety of emerging victorious and dodging the hot ball of “Patria y Vida” without sinking into the shit of the “Country or Death”.
The unfortunate impression caused by Yoan Moncada when he affirmed that he has nothing to do with “Patria y Vida” chilled the feelings of many Cubans who usually expect some show of empathy from their athletes. In the mouth of a Major League Baseball player, the cause for political prisoners would have much greater repercussions, and after what has happened in the last two years, half measures are not allowed when it comes to the situation Cuba is going through.
What he said came from Moncada’s soul and it was, perhaps, the worst possible response. The White Sox don’t care about Cuba beyond the personal interests he may have here. And the same could be said of the rest of the TeamAsere players, who go where they go, and of Cuba that others take care of, specifically those inside. In the end, they left, entered professional baseball, and set up businesses on the Island to support their large and impoverished families with more than just remittances. They, as they say in good Cuban, resolved.
Those who are still screwed are those who live under the boot of the dictatorship, hoping that those who left will deign to raise their voices for them. Moncada’s statements inevitably crushed the respect of many fans who know that the player could have hidden behind thousands of elegant responses, rather than choose such a hurtful and derogatory phrase.
It cannot be said that Moncada’s words caused the collapse of TeamAsere. That, according to the commentators, was the fault of the pitching, and of the offense, which was not “timely.” However, after Yoan Moncada’s response to the press, new hashtags began to appear on social networks (#TeamSingao, #TeamAserejé) expressing the disgust of the nationals at the cantinfleo and evasion.
Of course, the Cuban baseball players who attended the Classic are cowards. They cannot know of empathy, nor any solidarity, because they are also the new man, who under the Castro yoke learned to pretend, shut up and escape. In Cuba, he has always given priority to “every man for himself”. It is foolish to expect anything else from the players who were chosen by the Cuban Baseball Federation to represent the Island in the Classic.
But since they themselves are not capable of showing empathy towards their destroyed homeland, they could not withstand the pressure of a large part of the attendees yelling “Patria y Vida” at them, especially when Yoan Moncada entered the batting box. The commentators, the Cuban timber players and even some sudden performers boasted a lot about the good spirit of TeamAsere and their immunity to pressure; but the perspective changes when you realize that you are not an asere, but a pusillanimous person who does not represent anything and that, if you were included in the selection, it is precisely because of your recidivism in being a coward.
When it became clear that the United States was going to beat them to a pulp, the laments began, asking if the pitching failed, if the offense didn’t connect, if with that pressure you can’t play. And then the attempt to turn a huge beating into victory: what if this Cuba team demonstrated; that if the boys proudly wore the four letters, and marshmallows like that.
If the experience of the Clásico showed anything, it was that, if the athletes who compete in professional leagues are not summoned, no Cuban team will be able to overcome the first round in high-level competitions, because the quality of the baseball played in the National Series is through the underground.
It also proved once again that Diaz-Canel He is an Osogbo guy, and so are his wife, the spy in the shower, the waddling artists, the waddling-brained activists — like this Paquito from Cuba — and the sportscasters with their insufferable spiel.
Any good omen that comes from these people becomes salation. Cuba did not fall by the minimum. There were fourteen races for two. The shame was so great that Moncada couldn’t take it and in the eighth inning he got under a fly which was for Roel Santos, producing a silly shock. And the asere threw himself to the floor, began to complain and had to be removed. The “Patria y Vida” weighed on him as much as that Cuba that hurts, and to which he turned his back with his statements.
The posters and shouts of exile in the LoanDepot Park did not go unnoticed by Cubans, both in their homes and in front of the screens set up in public places. The regime will be able to say what it wants, but it is clear that this country is not going to gain anything until it has, first, freedom.
Painful defeat for TeamAsere. Now, to collect the husk and water, and prepare an atole for the First Chancleta of Cuba, who must be choked with gossip and embarrassment.
