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.