And there goes Juantorena down the back straight, opening his legs and showing his class.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Juan Hernandez was an actor out of New York, but what made Juan so great and what made Omar so great was that they both already knew how to box, so we didn't have to take them into a gym and teach them how to throw a left jab.
Just to see him come on the stage was an event. They had very high risers, and back a little bit, so he'd walk around behind the risers and right across the front of the stage to the podium, remember?
He slides into second with a stand up double.
When the student is ready... the lesson appears.
I think Juan stopped short - he got halfway to the destination and got off the train. He is certainly an excellent writer and a good person, but I'm not a nationalist.
Not content to have the audience in the palm of his hand, he goes one further and clinches his fist.
There's a picture of the real Coach Gary Gaines in the book and he's sitting in the locker room after a game, and he just looks so much like Billy Bob, that we went to him.
It was funny, when I thought of it afterward, how Ruth and Gehrig looked as they stood there. The Babe must have been waiting for me to get the ball up a little so he could get his bat under it.
The catcher is in the middle of everything. He sees it best.
When I first asked my boxing coach, two-time Olympic champion Hector Vinent, what made the Cuban style of fighting distinct from the rest of the world, he smiled and told me to sit on a bench in Prado and watch the Cuban women walk.