Outsiders

World Baseball Classic or not, the game is very much alive on Cuba's side of the fence

In Cuba, the Hot Corner isn't so much a location as it is an institution. It can be any group of men yelling about baseball, blowing off steam in the absence of all-sports radio. One contentious crew convenes daily in Parque Central, down the street from the Capitolio, a near duplicate of the U.S. Capitol built to celebrate the cozy relationship between Washington and Havana 76 years ago.

Today's topic, lucky for us, is the World Baseball Classic. It's 11:30 on a bright December morning when we walk up, and the aficionados already are dabbing their brows. They're overheated at the prospect of Equipo Cuba, the storied national team, gold medalists at three of the past four Olympics and 11-0 at the world amateur championships last September, finally getting the chance to compete against the world's best pros.

For the moment, a tall, beer-gutted guy in a green polo shirt has the stage. The Dominicans? Are you crazy?! With our pitching, we won't even beat the Puerto Ricans! He scrunches up his nose at a pie-faced fellow as a buzz runs through the group of two dozen or so. Pie-face spits as he shouts: The Puerto Ricans can't even win a game at the Caribbean Series! You're worried about them? Ridiculous!

This is what we came for. Three baseball tourists from North America-a reporter, an editor and a photographer—looking to see how the game is faring in what the U.S. government hopes is the twilight of the Revolution. It's a nervous time for Cubans. For 43 years, it has been American policy to deny commerce and tourism to this island of 12 million people 90 miles south of Key West. Fidel Castro is 79, and although he's still making fivehour speeches, international attention is focused on the inevitable "transition." This is why, we learned, we'd twice been denied journalist visas by the Cuban government. We could come as tourists, a ploy that's legal from a U.S. standpoint because we'd be gathering material for this story. But knowledgeable folks told us that if Cuba's Interior Ministry, which has eyes and ears on every block in every town, finds out we're working, we'll be detained and then sent home. In the end, while we can't conduct interviews, we can watch and listen. And it wouldn't take much more than a trip to Parque Central to see and hear that the embargo has failed to loosen the grip of either the comandante en jefe or the multinational pastime.

¡Béisbol! a chubby man at the Hot Corner proclaims, waving us over after a moment of eye contact. There is no hostility, only a barrage of questions. Where are you from? Did you see the World Series? How about Contreras and El Duque? Incredible! Want to buy some cigars? How about milk for my babies, could you help me with that?

Days before the Bush administration blocks Equipo Cuba from the WBC, we have a question of our own: will Fidel let the stars play? This one's met by bravado: ¡Claro! Of course! One guy flips the question back at us, asking who'll play for Team USA. We tick off the names: Bonds, Clemens, Jeter, maybe A-Rod. The group nods with each one, and then a guy named Álvaro murmurs, Parece un mito. Seems like a myth.

HAVANA, DEC. 13
They treat tourists differently at Estadio Latinoamericano, home of Industriales, the Yankees of Cuba. They charge you the equivalent of $3 for a ticket (Cubans pay one peso cubano, roughly four cents, which is only fair since their average income is $10 a month), seat you in a separate non-Cuban section behind the plate and keep the jineteros, the hustlers who try to sell you cigars or women, at bay.

Built in 1946 for the old Cuban pro league-15 years before Castro locked down Cuban baseball, decreeing the players must be "amateurs" and play for their local teams-Latino is symmetrical and straightforward. Massive green bleachers beyond the outfield bring the capacity past 50,000. The Dodgers came here in 1947 to protect Jackie Robinson from the spring-training spotlight. El Duque once ruled the pitcher's mound. But it's the lack of signage that is most striking to us. There's only propaganda on the light towers: El deporte, derecho del pueblo. Sport, right of the people.

The 5,000 or so in the stands tonight would settle for baseball played right. Five innings in, Industriales and Granma have combined for three errors and two passed balls. The atmosphere is raucous, fueled by cheap rum sipped straight from juice boxes, as Equipo Cuba second baseman Rudy Reyes drops down a suicide squeeze in the sixth to put Industriales ahead 4-2. By the time fellow national teamer Carlos Tabares makes a sliding catch on the warning track in right-center to complete the 9-2 win, most of the crowd is gone.

When we get to the gate, maybe five minutes later, all the lights are out. There's no public transportation, no taxis, no bicitaxis, nothing. It's three miles back to our hotel. Along with a few stragglers, we start walking. This turns out to be a very bad idea.

As we make our way through the Cerro district, our companions drift off into their crumbling apartment blocks. We're alone on a long, dark stretch of the Calzada de Infanta when three teenagers come up rapidly from behind. A pair of them jump two of us; the other chases after our photographer, Rob Delahanty, and it looks like he's got a knife. Rob's a gentle guy, but he's big, and he yells, "This is not going to happen!" Amazingly, it doesn't; the kids scatter and we run up the street toward Máximo Gómez, a big boulevard with taxis. We climb into a cab, pulses racing, thinking about the foreigner-Cuban separation and how it ends once the lights go out. In Cerro, late at night, it's every man for himself.

ALQUÍZAR, DEC. 14
It's a glorious, sunny day, the perfect antidote to last night's grim ending. We're in a remote corner of Havana Province, in the rural banana- and sugar-growing town of Alquízar. The provincial team, which uses the traditional Spanish name La Habana, plays in towns like this all over, and we've stumbled onto its one appearance here this year. When we pay our four cents and walk through the chain-link gate at noon, an hour before the first pitch, all 1,500 seats are filled. People are standing along the foul lines and atop the concession stands. In the outfield, fans perch on the cinder-block wall, their legs dangling into fair territory. There's no doubt about their loyalties. Alquízar resident and Equipo Cuba starter Yulieski González is on the mound for Habana against the team from distant Holguín.

Standing by the fence well past first base, it's difficult to follow the game, what with the fans lined shoulder to shoulder and the distracting smell of suckling pig roasting nearby (sandwiches are five Cuban pesos, or 20 cents, and we each have several). González, a lanky 25-year-old lefty with good enough stuff to have won three games at the world championships, starts well but squanders a 2-0 lead in the third on a wind-aided grand slam by Leris Aguilera. Habana's Ernesto Molinet answers with a basesempty blast in the bottom of the third, crushing a fastball well over the fans in left.

In the bottom of the seventh, a hit by pitch loads the bases. The lone Holguín fan standing near us is apoplectic. ¿Por qué, compay, por qué? he yells. Why, buddy, why? The folks nearby laugh; one drapes an arm around him. When two runners score, the Holguín fan sits down on the grass in frustration, as Habana fans hop around him.

It seems it's Habana's day, and as the shadows lengthen, we start checking our watches. We've left a cabdriver cooling his heels outside for four hours, and while Alquízar seems a very friendly place, the last thing we need is to be stranded

again. We give up after eight. Another tactical error. Back at the hotel, on TV, a sportscaster details the breathless conclusion: Habana has foiled a late Holguín comeback by pushing across a run in the bottom of the ninth.

PINAR DEL RÍO, DEC. 15-16
To get to Estadio Capitán San Luis, 110 miles southwest of Havana, we've rented a Hyundai and cruised the autopista alongside bicycles, oxcarts and the occasional '55 Chevy. As soon as we take our seats in the fourth row, a fan named Armando introduces himself. He's approaching 40, a cobbler by trade, and boy, does he know his baseball. What do you think of Rey Ordóñez? A wizard with that glove! What about Kendry Morales? Used to be the best young hitter in Cuba. Think he can make it with the Angels? Ever hear of Pedro Luis Lazo? Two hundred three wins in 16 seasons. If they paid Contreras $32 million, then Lazo should get $50 million. You know, of course you know, that Linares played here, right? Kid Linares! Look, there he is! The hitting coach. Omar! What's up, brother?

Armando's a lot more entertaining than the anemic Pinar offense, which sputters through a 5-2 loss to Ciego de Ávila. We're bummed to be missing the homestanding Cigar Makers' Equipo Cuba aces, Lazo and young gun Yunieski Maya, but we tell Armando we'll be back.

After a day of sightseeing in tobacco country (hey, we're supposed to be tourists), we return to the ballpark, pumped. Tonight we're here to see Dayán Viciedo, a 16-year-old third baseman/ outfielder for visiting Villa Clara, who's the brightest prospect in Cuba. Although he carries a .340 batting average into the game, Viciedo is hitting seventh for manager Victor Mesa, a hard-to-please former superstar. In the top of the second, as Viciedo walks to the plate, suddenly everything goes dark. It's a blackout, one of several we'll experience on our trip. A woman in front of us sighs. Ay Cuba, mi Cuba, we hear her moan.

We sit, mostly silent, for maybe 20 minutes. Armando swears this never happens, but we notice they have lanterns in the dugouts. By the flickering light, we can see Villa Clara packing up, so we thank Armando for the two books on Cuban baseball he's given us and climb into our taxi for the 45-minute ride back to our hotel. Along the way our driver, a 40-ish guy named Paquito, tells us midnight marks the start of San Lázaro's Day, and he's going to a fiesta at a friend's. Would we like to come along? He earnestly adds that this is his way of improving Cuban-American relations. ¡Claro!

As we bump down a dirt road, Paquito points out the mogotes, the ancient rock mounds that dominate the valley. We soon reach a four-room cinder-block house filled with neighbors and friends. On the patio, old men slap down dominoes. Inside, teenage girls dance to Daddy Yankee under a thatched roof, and in the front room, Paquito kneels down at a candlelit shrine to San Lázaro, known as Babalú Ayé in the Catholic fusion religion of Santería. He splashes a bit of rum on the statuette, closes his eyes and puts a freshly lit cigar backward in his mouth. Rolling his head, he blows smoke on Lázaro, making a wish for the coming year.

We're a big hit at the party, mainly because we're different and have cameras. The guajiros, country people, sing songs on the front porch, talk about

their crops (from rice grown in man-made paddies to yucca, bananas, garlic and tobacco) and ply us with rum and hand-rolled cigars. It's hauntingly beautiful, and before we leave I say to Paquito, Seems like you have it pretty well figured out. Smiling into the night, he replies, Like God intended.

SANCTI SPÍRITUS, DEC. 18
Yulieski Gourriel is a terrific story. The 21-year-old Sancti Spíritus third baseman is coming off an eight-homer power surge at the world amateur championships. His older brother, Yunieski, plays alongside him in centerfield. And their father, Lourdes, the Sancti Spíritus manager, was a star first baseman for Equipo Cuba back in the '80s. For his sons to get on a speedboat, as Kendry Morales did, they'd have to turn their backs on more than just their country.

Unfortunately, because we're supposed to be tourists in this small central city, we can't ask Yuli about any of that. By coincidence, we have lunch at his favorite restaurant, Don Criollo (the fried chicken is the best meal we'll have on the island), and the waiter takes us outside and points out the Gourriels' casa. It looks nice, even plush, a reflection of the perks that supplement a player's meager monthly stipend.

At Estadio José A. Huelga, we watch Yuli and Yuni work out together, playing catch and stretching before the game. Yuli is built like a young Nomar, wiry and taut, and he walks with a bit of a swagger. Last year, he hit .341 with 23 homers and 86 RBIs before his breakout at the worlds.

Today he has a quiet game, going 1-for-4 against Guantánamo, including a strikeout on a slider away and a roped single to left. The Sancti Spíritus starter, veteran Yovani Aragón, throws roughly 546 pitches, 75% of them slop, and somehow hangs on for a 3-1 win. You can almost see him sweating off the rum in the middle innings.

It's a lazy Sunday afternoon, filled with the errors, misplays and bad hops we've come to expect in Cuba. Stunted by years of isolation, the quality of play here is simply not as good as it is in Venezuela and the Dominican Republic. But there's clearly great individual talent, not to mention charisma.

In the parking lot, fans, friends and family wait for the players to filter out in various stages of undress. Some climb on the team bus, others walk home with their equipment bags slung over their shoulders. A beaming Yuli comes out last. He kisses a lady friend, signs autographs and chats with family and fans.

Forget Nomar. Totally at ease, Yuli exudes Jeter.

SANTA CLARA, DEC. 20
No one in Tampa speaks wistfully of the Rolando Arrojo years. But they do in Santa Clara, final resting place of Che Guevara. Here we are, on the last night of our road trip, finally about to see Dayán Viciedo hit, when the three Villa Clara fans in front of us start bemoaning their team's history. It's like we're cursed! says the first guy. Take Arrojo, for example. His buddy squints as if in pain. Oh, man! What a pitcher! What great control! The third guy shakes his head. But he left the country. A pause. For millions, though, you gotta go. You gotta.

In front of 15,000 intense, mostly young male fans in his home park, Viciedo doesn't disappoint. In his second at-bat, he flicks his wrists and goes oppo with a drive that's still rising as it clears the fence in right. Leading off the sixth, Viciedo slices another outside pitch down the first baseline, this time into the corner for a stand-up triple. Later he nails a Camagüey runner at the plate.

The guys in front of us are impressed. He should play for Equipo Cuba right now, says one. Too young, says another. But soon. Very soon.

HAVANA, DEC. 21
Traveling on the A-1 autopista from Santa Clara to Havana, you can sail right by your exit because it's unmarked. After we do that a couple of times in our Hyundai, some cops at a checkpoint wave us over. We pull out our passports and prepare for interrogation. Instead, they tell us we look lost, ask us where we're going and point us in the right direction.

Cuba itself should be so lucky. The ugly squabble over participation in the World Baseball Classic is only one symptom of the anxiety people on all sides are feeling right now. Change is coming. Everyone we met who was born since 1959 feels it, wants it and fears it. This is an island that has almost no boats, a place where people mimic stroking a beard rather than mention Castro by name, a place where almost nobody is starving but almost everyone is scraping to get by.

On the last day before we fly back home through Mexico, we go back to the Hot Corner, our heads full of questions. If the U.S. actually does allow Equipo Cuba into the World Baseball Classic, how many players might defect? What will happen when the Castro regime ends? Will major leaguers ever come back to Estadio Latinoamericano?

We're looking for answers. But it's overcast and drizzly, and no one is there.

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