I played for Almendares in Cuba. Guess who was trying out for the team? Castro. Fidel Castro, as a pitcher. He could throw pretty hard, but he was wild. He didn't have any control.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Despite the situation in Cuba, I had a chance to play on the national team; and compared to other baseball players and other people in Cuba, I had the opportunity to live at a level that was not very high class but in the middle.
I had a chance to play for the Cuban national team during the 2009 World Baseball Classic, but at the time I never thought about leaving Cuba.
Sometimes I rush my swing because I am so anxious to play well. In Cuba, the quality of the pitching is not the same as it is here. There you might find one or two pitchers at 94 or 95 mph. Here, every day I find several, and each pitcher who comes along throws his hardest stuff.
Cuba wants to get rid of a dictator, and baseball needs a dictator.
When I was a little boy, my dream was to play baseball and leave Cuba.
I was a thrower. I think I'm more of a pitcher now.
Castro was always using his athletes as a way of symbolically defeating the United States in the ring, and after these Cubans defeated Americans in the ring, they were turning down exorbitant sums to leave the island.
In baseball, I was a pitcher, which I hated because there was no action there.
I wasn't ever good enough to be on the baseball team and that sort of stuff.
That first play I did in New York, Rogelio Martinez's 'When It's Cocktail Time in Cuba,' I played a young Fidel Castro.