Integrating the World Baseball Classic
with Cuban Historical
Experience
by Alberto N. Jones
March 22, 2006
At first, the United States Treasury
Department tried to deny the Cuban baseball team their right to participate in
the World Baseball Classic by refusing to issue an entry visa. Then, a
compromise was worked out, based upon an offer by Cuba, that all proceeds going
to the Cuban team, would be donated to the victims of Hurricane Katrina on the
Gulf Coast.
Later, in San Juan, Puerto Rico, in an
unprecedented security deployment of the Puerto Rican police department,
hundreds of reporters and media outlets, awaited the arrival of the Cuban
national team, which has been brutally robbed of its best players over the years
by a horde of vultures, hyenas and sports prostitutes disguised as scouts,
constantly flaunting millions of dollars in major league contracts.
This revolting proselytizing method, which has
not been denounced by anyone, is no different than the petty drug dealer pushing
crack near the middle school, the pimp hanging out on the corner while his woman
works the street or the pawnbroker trafficking in stolen goods.
They fail to put their energy, and presumably
their sports expertise, into training millions of inner city youths at risk,
especially those in minority communities and helping them stave off the massive
inducements to join street gangs. They do nothing to encourage them to reject
the culture of violence which has engulfed every city in our nation. They do
nothing to reduce the propensity of the young to become statistics in the
bulging, corrupt and fossilized judicial system which is only capable of
warehousing petty criminals who achieve Masters and Ph.D. degrees in crime
within its walls. These monsters prefer, like other predators, to hide, waiting
for the right opportunity to strike an end to a productive life.
For the past 45 years, Cuba has had to live
under siege by its powerful neighbor with its immoral practices of stealing
every professional that that country is capable of training in every walk of
life. This despicable behavior has caused substantial material harm to Cuba. At
the same time, it has encouraged among many in the United States, the idea that
using the bodies of others, resorting to any and all illegal methods, is of no
consequence. Winning at any price, is the only thing that matters.
Most people around the world are acutely aware
of how professional baseball has been corrupted this way. A wide array of
sportsmanship has been eroded and replaced by bigger bags containing millions of
dollars in contracts. More and more teams cannot afford this, forcing others to
construct their line-up with less appealing athletes, which makes today’s
series, deceptive and unfair.
During a recent Congressional hearing, the
world was able to take a glimpse into the decomposing body of professional
baseball in the United States. The most fetid and revolting evidence exuded from
their dirty laundry, exposing the massive use of body enhancing supplements, the
creation of artificial sports records, with officials and owners turning a blind
eye and fostering in our children's minds the idea that, yes, it is OK for your
heroes to be crooks.
Tackling these critical issues should be the
focus of our politicians, sports leaders and moral advocacy groups. Instead,
they invest their precious time in evaluating, gathering information,
encouraging and providing escape routes to any Cuban athlete who they presume
might defect. Still living in the Cold War era mentality, it is fascinating to
see how profusely they use such terms as “fleeing communism”, “searching for
freedom” or “escaping a tyrannical regime”, in order to justify their criminal
behavior.
The Cuban baseball team finally hit the field.
Not one defected, though it would have made no difference at all, if one, two,
ten or most of the Cuban national baseball team would have decide to jump ship
as I did 26 years ago, encouraged by the hardships in Cuba due to a lack of
material goods emanating from 45 years of a wicked blockade.
Cubans are also encouraged by the existence of
a unique, preferential emigration policy which applies only to Cubans, who are
immediately accepted into the United States. Then there are the glitter and
false expectations which the United States government has pumped into Cuba
through NED, US-AID, Radio Marti, WGBY, counterrevolutionary Spanish-language
radio stations in Miami, cheap videos, pornographic materials and magazines
brought in by tourists, and so on. These will have no lasting effect on the
course and future of a country which has learned to live under siege.
Over the years, thousands of professionals in
all fields of human endeavor have defected and migrated to the United States,
attracted by hopes of financial gain and material goods, frequently provided by
the CIA and other institutions. I remember the explosive health crisis in the
early sixties which was created by the sudden emigration of 50% of Cuba’s
physicians, nurses, teachers and a lesser percentage in other fields. How much
pain, suffering and death did this cause to innocent people will never be known.
Thirty years later, each defector has been replaced by 10, 15, 20 or more
better-trained, more-qualified and professionals even more committed to their
people.
One needs only to browse through last year’s
report of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) to see how many millions of
dollars has been allocated over and under the table, not to provide pencils for
school children, not to provide hot meals for the elderly at risk, not to create
environmental projects which could benefit both countries nor participation in
joint medical research which could develop a cure for any of humanity’s
devastating pathologies.
Instead, they have willingly decided to support
divisive projects intended to foment discontent, to promote parasites re-labled
as Independent Journalists, Independent Librarians and independent everything
else. We know that in reality, they are salaried operatives of a number of front
foundations, from whom they receive their 25 silver coins in exchange for being
apologists of George W. Bush, Vaclav Havel, Jose Maria Aznar or others of the
same variety.
Recently, President George W. Bush unabashedly
signed into law, nearly 500 pages of the most repulsive neo-colonial
recommendations which were co-authored by Secretary of State Colin Powell and
senator to be, Mel Martinez, which have now effectively placed Cuba’s
independence and sovereignty into the hands of the U.S. Congress and under the
boots of the United States government.
Have any of these individuals, such as Ms.
Condoleezza Rice and the people she serves, ever taken the time to read the
principles under which our forefathers and an army of men, women and children,
gave their lives for our flag, our shield, our dignity and the right of our
country to say and do as it may see fit?
Yet, what hurts most, is to see how sons and
daughters of former slaves, who were segregated, discriminated against, raped or
lynched and who saw most of their Civil Rights leaders gunned down, can watch in
silent complicity as our communities are inundated and ravaged by illegal drugs.
They ignore the despair that has blanketed entire regions and do or say nothing
about it, while remaining faithful to their masters and promoting their goals of
further dividing in order to conquer those they deem unworthy.
They should be honest, admitting and rejoicing
over the advances and successes of our Afro-Cuban brothers, letting others
around the world know that tens of thousands of sons and daughters of former
slaves in Cuba, are now the leading force in education, health, sports, science
and culture development in tens of third world countries around the world. They
try in vain to ignore these irrefutable facts. They attempt to silence and
denigrate these realities, while resorting to every measure to weaken this
community, divide its people along race lines and hopefully re-enact the race
war they instigated in 1912.
Irrespective of our political, social,
religious or sexual differences, none of us should believe or accept hundreds of
such bogus arguments presented by descendents of slave masters around the world.
Their only purpose is to further oppress the same people, which their fathers,
grandfathers or others, enslaved, segregated and ignored for centuries.
These are some of the facts that make it
difficult for the average TV newscaster in the United States to understand, as
they put it, why these highly qualified Cuban baseball players have chosen to
play for $20.00 a month and win matches against professional players who earn
millions of dollars per season.
For decades, humanity has heard grandiloquent
speeches while governments have spent billions in unfulfilled promises to end
hunger, illiteracy and sickness around the world. The world is awakening, as the
Cuban baseball team did years ago, and millions of people around the globe are
learning the flaws and limitations of wealth concentrated in the hands of few.
I was born without any athletic ability. But as
an old Afro-Cuban who lived through the horrors of Cuban white supremacy , lack
of opportunity, rejection and racism in pre-Revolutionary Cuba, it is not
difficult for me to imagine the pain, guilt and frustration that other
Afro-Cubans athletes who abandoned their baseball team, betrayed their country,
its people and unwittingly contributed to the weakening of their former team may
feel today. Today they see a young team, armed primarily with national pride,
commitment to their people, fighting to keep our flag as Jose Marti said: At the
heights of our palm trees!
As they did in sports, I did in the world of
science! No amount of wealth, no gadget or luxury will ever be able to fill the
vacuum that our decision has left in us without the love or respect of our
people. We may or may not accept this undeniable fact: without the existence of
a Revolution in Cuba, none of us would have had the opportunity to excel in our
respective fields. Neither of us, would have had the opportunity to betray and
bite the hands which enabled our success. All of us would most likely today be
occupied with those menial activities that upper class Cubans presumed were the
only things we, the Afro-Cubans, were capable of.
I hope, the extraordinary decisions which so
many of us have taken in our lives, does not mean the end of our existence.
History is full of similar experiences. Only those who are strong, who are
willing to publicly admit, review and to correct our past decisions, will be
able to free ourselves from this unbearable burden of being without a country, a
culture and a history. In this way, we will once again be able to think, talk
and honor the memory of our forefathers and our martyrs with pride, without
being an outsider.
Jose Marti lived 1/3 of his life outside of his
country in an honorable, dignified and patriotic way, consumed by the well-being
and the future of his beloved Cuba. We, who have lived similarly away from our
roots, have a guide and trail that we can follow, which was carved out with his
sacrifices and his blood.
To err is not a crime. To refuse to correct an
error, that is a crime. With courage, dedication and without fear, one day, we
may once again be admitted as sons and daughters of Jose Marti and Mariana
Grajales by our peers.