I don't know if anyone had a chance to catch the match today between the womens' volleyball teams of Cuba and the USA. Not only was it a decent match with some excellent play by both sides, but one could hardly ignore the NOISE being made in the stands!! Perhaps there were a hundred or two hundred Cubanos in the stands (and/or Cuban fans), and they showed them in the upper decks...the rafters...the nosebleed sections...waving flags, dancing in the aisles, yelling and screaming and cheering and booing what seemed like every single point, right up to the end of the match!
Imagine what it's like to see a baseball game in Havana, when the Industriales play the Forestales...it's all that and more.
___________________ Santa Cabilla...patron saint of Quericæstan. VIVE COULTER! VIVE CPD!
Posts: 10292 | Location: Avenida de las Nalgas, Quericæstan | Registered: May 02, 2002
Note about Olympics and water sports. The Cubans have not been able to field a swimming team, or a sailing or rowing team, or ANY sort of competitive water-sports team, since about 1966. Anyone who COULD swim, sail, row, or otherwise be good enough to compete in any formidable water-sport has already left!!
___________________ Santa Cabilla...patron saint of Quericæstan. VIVE COULTER! VIVE CPD!
Posts: 10292 | Location: Avenida de las Nalgas, Quericæstan | Registered: May 02, 2002
Breath of fresh air when sports are played and witnessed in a relatively pure arena.Pure in the sense of,well you know,fair play no jack($)and pride.Shear will and determination are cool too.lol.I kinda think the "lesser" sports are far better than the others as the Olympics now go.NO PRO ATHLETES!They have thie own venues allready. Baseball in Havana must be a SERIOUS good time.
It is possible you have the palate of a Billy goat. #162 comes after #376
Posts: 395 | Location: Louisiana | Registered: September 08, 2002
I was at a game last year where Cuba played Panama for the final game of the championship of an international baseball tournament played at El Estadio Latinoamericano. There were more than 65,000 people inside the stadium (official count), and the place was ROCKING! I sat with the family I attended with in the stands. Well, the benches, stands, box seats, whatever it is you call them, were just flat concrete slabs at varying heights...no assigned seats, per se. Right there on the ground. It was a very raw experience, I must confess. There is a small area behind the home plate area that has fold down built-in seating, usually for the tourists who pay a whopping $3 - $5 to get in, and/or for State officials and dignitaries. Sitting among the people there was Teofilo Stevenson, the champion boxer, now part of the Sports program of Cuba (a title and some money and other benefits for not defecting in order to become a professional fighter). Anyway...
what amazed me then was what happened when they played, VENCEREMOS, the Cuban National Anthem. Not only did everyone stand, and remove their hats, everyone...EVERYONE...stood at military attention with a salute...and no one screamed, hollered, yelled, or otherwise interrupted the anthem before its final note. Well, except for me, as I filmed the scene. But it was quite striking. I did smoke a wonderful Monte 2 during the game...and the game ended on a very controversial play where a Panamanian player was caught stealing at second base...he thought he was safe, and as all hell was breaking loose because the Cubans saw their team win, the player got into a fight with the base umpire and they had to be physically pulled apart!
Several years ago, I was fortunate enough to be able to watch a game from the dugout of the Forestales of Pinar del Rio who was playing the Industriales. On the hill for Havana was none other than Duque Hernandez!! HISTORICAL NOTE: It is no accident that Hernandez' number is 26...in Cuba, the number 26 is important because it is THE number that is representative of the modern revolution that began as an insurgency of rebels at the Moncada army barracks in Santiago de Cuba, July 26, 1953. Fidel Castro was captured and imprisoned until he was granted amnesty by Batista in 1955. From there, he went into exile in Mexico, where he hooked up with Ernesto "Che" Guevara. In 1956, Fidel and Raul Castro, along with Guevara, Camilo Cienfuegos, and about 75 others, along with weapons, munitions, supplies, and barrel after barrel of fuel to complete the trip that occupied virtually every inch of the yacht, GRANMA, embarked for Cuba. Of the original 82 or so, less than half survived. They got lost in a storm, and the trip lasted much longer than anticipated. The landing in Cuba was described more as a shipwreck. It was from those beginnings that the rebels mounted power and force eventually to overcome Batista, who was ran out of Havana on January 1, 1959, when revolutionary forces took control of Havana. Revelers in the streets ransacked casinos and tossed the gaming machines and roulette wheels into the streets. Such were the ideals of the revolution. What would "Che" say now??
Anyway, the popular revolution was known as the Movimiento de 26 de Julio...or M-26-7...and ultimately, just "26". So, Duque, all decked out in his duds on the cover of a famous magazine, yelling and screaming for the retention of little Elian rather than sending him back to dismal Cuba, actually pays a very obvious tribute to the revolution that gave him the chance to excel in the sport of baseball.
___________________ Santa Cabilla...patron saint of Quericæstan. VIVE COULTER! VIVE CPD!
Posts: 10292 | Location: Avenida de las Nalgas, Quericæstan | Registered: May 02, 2002
Saw most of the match and enjoyed how US rallied in first game. Especially liked the short shorts some Cubanas wore. Disagree there is no "jack" in the game. V-Ball is a big time sport in much of the world and sponshorship money flows into it, as it does in every "fringe" sport to some degree (at least it pays for equipment). I have no problem with dedicated atheletes getting a piece of the cake. Nice story in today's WSJ on a staffer winning gold as coxswain on US men's 8 rowing squad.
Although you can't hear them because the stadium is outdoors, those same fans appear to be screaming their lungs out as Cuba beats up on Australia in the gold medal game for baseball...
___________________ Santa Cabilla...patron saint of Quericæstan. VIVE COULTER! VIVE CPD!
Posts: 10292 | Location: Avenida de las Nalgas, Quericæstan | Registered: May 02, 2002
