Orioles: Turning back the clock
Ten years ago at this time, I was rolling out of bed at the Havana Libre Hotel to get ready for the historic goodwill game between the Orioles and a Cuban All-Star team at Latin American Stadium.
The Orioles won an exciting extra-inning game, but the outcome was secondary to the geopolitical football game going on at the same time. Fidel Castro made quite a show of marching onto the field to the rowdy cheers of an invitation-only crowd of politically correct fans. He sat in the front row with Orioles owner Peter Angelos and baseball commissioner Bud Selig, which didn't sit well with the Cuban ex-patriot community in Miami which had come out strongly against the friendly baseball overture by the Orioles.
It was a bold stroke by Angelos, which many thought was an attempt to position the Orioles better to sign Cuban players if Castro ever decided to allow them to legally play in the United States. That wasn't the point at all -- and Angelos actually stayed out of the Cuban market when a small wave of defectors came over afterward -- but everyone assumed he must have had some ulterior motive.
The Cuban team traveled to Baltimore weeks later and soundly defeated the Orioles at Camden Yards, bringing an interesting chapter in Orioles history to a slightly embarassing end. To this day, I'm not sure whether the trip had any effect on U.S./Cuba relations. It was compared at the time to the famous "Ping Pong Diplomacy" trip to Communist China in the early 1970s, but it ended up as more of a historical footnote than a watershed event.
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Comments
Pete,
I'm interested in your impressions of Cuba. You are perhaps the only person I know that actually visited the country. I talk with you frequently, most recently at Spring Training in Jupiter, but I always forget to ask you that questions. In the past I asked you about your impressions of Gene Mauch, and you gave me quite an interesrting dissertation, but I always forget to ask you about Cuba.
Dan
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Pete's reply: I spent about two weeks there between the initial trip with the delegation that organized the game and the leadup to the actual game. I'll throw up a couple observations today, but if I run into you I'll be happy to talk about it. Of course, it was 10 years ago. Don't know if my observations are all that relevant anymore.
Posted by: Dan | March 28, 2009 8:21 AM
Are you sure that's Bud Selig next to Castro? Looks more like Harry Reems.
Posted by: terpfan | March 28, 2009 8:45 AM
Pete,
Thanks. I'll look for your comments, and I'll certainly ask you about your impressions the next time I see you.
Whatever your impressions were, I wouldn't imagine that things have improved there over the past 10 years.
Dan
Posted by: Dan | March 28, 2009 8:53 AM
Perhaps Mr Angelos took efficiency
lessons from comrade Castro or his cousins in north Korea . That would explain why the Orioles have spring training camps on two coasts, one a relic of days gone by and the other apparently not fit to host minor league exhibitions
Posted by: Paul L Williams | March 28, 2009 9:26 AM
Pete,
People in life make dumb decisions. I certainly have made mine and regretted them. Well, the Orioles are about to make theirs in regard to Montanez. To keep Ryan Freel over Montanez as the fourth outfielder will qualify as that dumb decision, as was the dumb decision to go after Pie when we had Reimold ready to come out of the oven. Sometimes, when people do these kinds of things, the frustration is overwhelming. I hate these two decisions so much that if AM was close at hand, he’d get one of an ear full.
What’s your take on this? Am I wrong?
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Pete's reply: I can't say it's a mistake because it hasn't played out yet. It's certainly a big gamble that could backfire badly.
Posted by: alcoates | March 28, 2009 9:52 AM
Manny , Moe , and Jack .
Posted by: the artist formerly known as jack in hebron | March 28, 2009 12:22 PM