The Pride of Havana

The Pride of Havana PDF Author: Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195349172
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 513

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Book Description
From the first amateur leagues of the 1860s to the exploits of Livan and Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez, here is the definitive history of baseball in Cuba. Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria expertly traces the arc of the game, intertwining its heroes and their stories with the politics, music, dance, and literature of the Cuban people. What emerges is more than a story of balls and strikes, but a richly detailed history of Cuba told from the unique cultural perch of the baseball diamond. Filling a void created by Cuba's rejection of bullfighting and Spanish hegemony, baseball quickly became a crucial stitch in the complex social fabric of the island. By the early 1940s Cuba had become major conduit in spreading the game throughout Latin America, and a proving ground for some of the greatest talent in all of baseball, where white major leaguers and Negro League players from the U.S. all competed on the same fields with the cream of Latin talent. Indeed, readers will be introduced to several black ballplayers of Afro-Cuban descent who played in the Major Leagues before Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier once and for all. Often dramatic, and always culturally resonant, Gonzalez Echevarria's narrative expertly lays open the paradox of fierce Cuban independence from the U.S. with Cuba's love for our national pastime. It shows how Fidel Castro cannily associated himself with the sport for patriotic p.r.--and reveals that his supposed baseball talent is purely mythical. Based on extensive primary research and a wealth of interviews, the colorful, often dramatic anecdotes and stories in this distinguished book comprise the most comprehensive history of Cuban baseball yet published and ultimately adds a vital lost chapter to the history of baseball in the U.S.

The Pride of Havana

The Pride of Havana PDF Author: Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195349172
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 513

Get Book Here

Book Description
From the first amateur leagues of the 1860s to the exploits of Livan and Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez, here is the definitive history of baseball in Cuba. Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria expertly traces the arc of the game, intertwining its heroes and their stories with the politics, music, dance, and literature of the Cuban people. What emerges is more than a story of balls and strikes, but a richly detailed history of Cuba told from the unique cultural perch of the baseball diamond. Filling a void created by Cuba's rejection of bullfighting and Spanish hegemony, baseball quickly became a crucial stitch in the complex social fabric of the island. By the early 1940s Cuba had become major conduit in spreading the game throughout Latin America, and a proving ground for some of the greatest talent in all of baseball, where white major leaguers and Negro League players from the U.S. all competed on the same fields with the cream of Latin talent. Indeed, readers will be introduced to several black ballplayers of Afro-Cuban descent who played in the Major Leagues before Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier once and for all. Often dramatic, and always culturally resonant, Gonzalez Echevarria's narrative expertly lays open the paradox of fierce Cuban independence from the U.S. with Cuba's love for our national pastime. It shows how Fidel Castro cannily associated himself with the sport for patriotic p.r.--and reveals that his supposed baseball talent is purely mythical. Based on extensive primary research and a wealth of interviews, the colorful, often dramatic anecdotes and stories in this distinguished book comprise the most comprehensive history of Cuban baseball yet published and ultimately adds a vital lost chapter to the history of baseball in the U.S.

Son of Havana

Son of Havana PDF Author: Luis Tiant
Publisher: Diversion Books
ISBN: 1635765420
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 510

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Book Description
A memoir by the mustachioed baseball pitcher who went playing rocky, trash-ridden fields in Castro’s Cuba to becoming a Boston Red Sox legend. Luis Tiant is one of the most charismatic and accomplished players in Boston Red Sox and Major League Baseball history. With a barrel-chested physique and a Fu Manchu mustache, Tiant may not have looked like the lean, sculpted aces he usually played against, but nobody was a tougher competitor on the diamond, and few were as successful. There may be no more qualified twentieth-century pitcher not yet enshrined in the National Baseball Hall of Fame. His big-league dreams came at a price: racism in the Deep South and the Boston suburbs, and nearly fifteen years separated from a family held captive in Castro’s Cuba. But baseball also delivered World Series stardom and a heroic return to his island home after close to a half-century of forced exile. The man whose name—“El Tiante” —became a Fenway Park battle cry has never fully shared his tale in his own words, until now. In Son of Havana, Tiant puts his heart on his sleeve and describes his road from torn-up fields in Havana to the pristine lawns of major league ballparks. Readers will share Tiant’s pride when appeals by a pair of US senators to baseball-fanatic Castro secure freedom for Luis’s parents to fly to Boston and witness the 1975 World Series glory of their child. And readers will join the big-league ballplayers for their spring 2016 exhibition game in Havana, when Tiant—a living link to the earliest, scariest days of the Castro regime—threw out the first pitch.

Cuban Baseball

Cuban Baseball PDF Author: Jorge S. Figueredo
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 9780786464258
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
In March 1999, the Baltimore Orioles played a team of Cuban all-stars, the first time a major league baseball team from the United States had played a Cuban team since 1959. Before communism, Cuba had a rich baseball history, fielding teams that often defeated U.S. major league opponents. This text presents basic statistical information and listings for every Cuban baseball team from 1878 until 1961, when the communist government of Fidel Castro shut down professional sports. The information for each season includes the final standings, team rosters, all-time records, individual statistics arranged by team, and background information. The appendix lists the Cuban players in the first three eras, all-time leaders for batting average, runs, hits, doubles, triples, home runs, RBI, stolen bases, pitching, completed games, wins, losses, MVPs, Rookies of the Years, and much more. The book is profusely illustrated with photographs.

Cuban Revelations

Cuban Revelations PDF Author: Marc Frank
Publisher: University Press of Florida
ISBN: 0813047846
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 469

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Book Description
In Cuban Revelations, Marc Frank offers a first-hand account of daily life in Cuba at the turn of the twenty-first century, the start of a new and dramatic epoch for islanders and the Cuban diaspora. A U.S.-born journalist who has called Havana home for almost a quarter century, Frank observed in person the best days of the revolution, the fall of the Soviet Bloc, the great depression of the 1990s, the stepping aside of Fidel Castro, and the reforms now being devised by his brother. Examining the effects of U.S. policy toward Cuba, Frank analyzes why Cuba has entered an extraordinary, irreversible period of change and considers what the island's future holds. The enormous social engineering project taking place today under Raúl's leadership is fraught with many dangers, and Cuban Revelations follows the new leader's efforts to overcome bureaucratic resistance and the fears of a populace that stand in his way. In addition, Frank offers a colorful chronicle of his travels across the island's many and varied provinces, sharing candid interviews with people from all walks of life. He takes the reader outside the capital to reveal how ordinary Cubans live and what they are thinking and feeling as fifty-year-old social and economic taboos are broken. He shares his honest and unbiased observations on extraordinary positive developments in social matters, like healthcare and education, as well as on the inefficiencies in the Cuban economy.

All the Way to Havana

All the Way to Havana PDF Author: Margarita Engle
Publisher: Henry Holt and Company (BYR)
ISBN: 1250184568
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 40

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Book Description
So we purr, cara cara, and we glide, taka taka, and we zoom, zoom, ZOOM! Together, a boy and his parents drive to the city of Havana, Cuba, in their old family car. Along the way, they experience the sights and sounds of the streets—neighbors talking, musicians performing, and beautiful, colorful cars putt-putting and bumpety-bumping along. In the end, though, it’s their old car, Cara Cara, that the boy loves best. A joyful celebration of the Cuban people and their resourceful innovation. ALSC Notable Book

Escape from Castro's Cuba

Escape from Castro's Cuba PDF Author: Tim Wendel
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 149622292X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
In this visionary sequel to Castro’s Curveball, former Minor League catcher Billy Bryan finds himself back in Havana in 2016 with a small film role. He soon realizes that this place and his past remain as star-crossed as when he played winter ball in the Cuban capital decades before.

Next Year in Havana

Next Year in Havana PDF Author: Chanel Cleeton
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0593337204
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 401

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Book Description
A HELLO SUNSHINE x REESE WITHERSPOON BOOK CLUB PICK "A beautiful novel that's full of forbidden passions, family secrets and a lot of courage and sacrifice."--Reese Witherspoon After the death of her beloved grandmother, a Cuban-American woman travels to Havana, where she discovers the roots of her identity--and unearths a family secret hidden since the revolution... Havana, 1958. The daughter of a sugar baron, nineteen-year-old Elisa Perez is part of Cuba's high society, where she is largely sheltered from the country's growing political unrest--until she embarks on a clandestine affair with a passionate revolutionary... Miami, 2017. Freelance writer Marisol Ferrera grew up hearing romantic stories of Cuba from her late grandmother Elisa, who was forced to flee with her family during the revolution. Elisa's last wish was for Marisol to scatter her ashes in the country of her birth. Arriving in Havana, Marisol comes face-to-face with the contrast of Cuba's tropical, timeless beauty and its perilous political climate. When more family history comes to light and Marisol finds herself attracted to a man with secrets of his own, she'll need the lessons of her grandmother's past to help her understand the true meaning of courage.

Cuban Star

Cuban Star PDF Author: Adrian Burgos
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 0809094797
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
Shares the story of Negro League team owner Alex Pompez's founding of a notorious Harlem numbers racket as part of his efforts to finance the New York Cubans, describing his role in retaining the team throughout integration, transitioning players to the majors, and achieving a Negro League World Series Championship.

The Duke of Havana

The Duke of Havana PDF Author: Steve Fainaru
Publisher: Villard
ISBN: 0375506691
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 578

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Book Description
In 1998, a mysterious right-handed pitcher emerged from the ashes of the Cold War and helped lead the New York Yankees to a World Championship. His origins and even his age were uncertain. His name was Orlando El Duque Hernandez. He was a fallen hero of Fidel Castro's socialist revolution. The chronicle of El Duque's triumph is at once a window into the slow death of Cuban socialism and one of the most remarkable sports stories of all time. Once hailed as a paragon of Castro's revolution, the finest pitcher in modern Cuban history was banned from baseball for life for allegedly plotting to defect. Instead of accepting his punishment, he fearlessly fought back, defying the Communist party authorities, vowing to pitch again, and ultimately fleeing his country in the bowels of a thirty-foot fishing boat. Here, for the first time and in astonishing detail, the secrets behind El Duque's persecution and escape are revealed. Moving from the crumbling streets of post Cold War Havana to the polarized world of exile Miami, from the deadly Florida Straits to the hallowed grounds of Yankee Stadium, it is a story of cloak-and-dagger adventure, audacious secret plots, the pull of big money, and the historic collision of ideologies. Present throughout are the larger-than-life characters who converged at this bizarre intersection of baseball and politics: El Duque himself, Fidel Castro, the Miami sports agent Joe Cubas, the late John Cardinal O'Connor along with scouts, smugglers, and the Cuban ballplayers who gave up their lives as tools of socialism to test the free market and chase their major-league dreams. Reported in the United States and Cuba by two award-winning journalists who became part of the story they were covering, The Duke of Havana is a riveting saga of sports, politics, liberation, and greed.

Take Me with You

Take Me with You PDF Author: Carlos Frias
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1416594043
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 374

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Book Description
An evocative and unforgettable memoir from award-winning journalist Carlos Frías about his journey to Cuba where he retraces his family's history and encounters the realities of Cuba under Fidel Castro's rule. Carlos Frías, an award-winning journalist and the American-born son of Cuban exiles, grew up hearing about his parents' homeland only in parables. Their Cuba, the one they left behind four decades ago, was ethereal. It existed, for him, only in their anecdotes, and in the family that remained in Cuba—merely ghosts on the other end of a telephone. Until Fidel Castro fell ill. Sent to Cuba by his newspaper as the country began closing to foreign journalists in August 2006, Frías begins the secret journey of a lifetime—twelve days in the land of his parents. That experience led to this evocative, spectacular, and unforgettable memoir. Take Me With You is written through the unique eyes of a first-generation Cuban-American seeing the forbidden country of his ancestry for the first time. Frías provides a fresh view of Cuba, devoid of overt political commentary, focusing instead on the gritty, tangible lives of the people living in Castro's Cuba. Frías takes in the island nation of today and attempts to reconstruct what the past was like for his parents, retracing their footsteps, searching for his roots, and discovering his history. The story creates lasting and unexpected ripples within his family on both sides of the Florida Straits—and on the author himself.