Cuba:
A home run for peace

President Fidel Castro greeted the Cuban national baseball team on their 
return from the USA where in May they defeated champion team the Orioles in 
the city of Baltimore, the second of their two matches. The first game, won 
by the Orioles, was held in Cuba. It was the first match-up on US soil 
between a Cuban team and a north American Major Leagues team. Banners and 
placards were banned at the game but thousands wore T-shirts and baseball 
caps that proclaimed, "Let Cuba Live: End the Embargo".

The team was welcomed home on the steps of the University of Havana, where 
Fidel raised the significance of this landmark sporting event:

It can be described as a historic event for many reasons; among others, 
because it is the first time in the history of the hemisphere that an 
amateur team — made up of young and modest fellow countrymen — has taken 
part in a match with a United States Major Leagues team.

For a long time we had wished for the possibility of measuring the advance 
of our sports. Saying "The Major Leagues" is saying it all. Saying "The 
Major Leagues" is to say the best, the cream of the crop in this sport that 
we call "pelota" here and they call baseball there, the favourite, the most 
traditional and famous of sports in the United States of America.

In many sports — boxing for example — we have already played strong non-
professional American teams. For many years we have sustained the World 
Championship in that sport where we are soundly and increasingly strong.

We had a lot of contests with the Americans, both here and there, in 
volleyball, track and field and in many other sports. But some sports have 
special characteristics that make them big shows, with an enormous 
following ... and the possibility of generating large revenues.

Other sports have different characteristics. Soccer is one of them. Great 
soccer players are very well paid. Great baseball players — I am going to 
use the word "baseball" — are very well paid, and so are others, like 
boxers.

But baseball is the favourite sport in the nation with the largest economic 
resources, the richest nation in the world and also the one that owns the 
most important radio and television stations and the press, that is, the 
predominate nation in terms of the mass media.

The one that has all the money and travels the world buying scientists, 
researchers, artists. It is very difficult to compete with them.

What can we offer our athletes and what have we offered them throughout the 
years of the Revolution? Efforts, sacrifices and a modest life. Alongside 
this, the possibility to be educated, to develop their capabilities and to 
choose their favourite sports.

I remember that when sports development began gaining ground it was the 
factory workers or employees who took part so it was necessary to grant 
them sports licences and pay their salaries.

Then, every sport started on its own development, including baseball. A few 
years later the athletes could no longer come basically from the factories 
but from the schools because sports were massively practiced there, some 
from very early ages.

With the passing of time, the athletes came from the middle-level sports 
schools or from the higher sports faculty.

We said: what can we offer these youngsters? Well, the opportunity to 
graduate from the universities in the field of physical education and 
sports, which would later allow them to make a living decently as sports 
teachers or researchers and coaches for new athletes.

That is why most of the outstanding athletes in different sports were, at 
the same time, students at the Manuel Fajardo Higher Institute of Physical 
Education and Sport. Our primary concern was that every one of them could 
graduate from the university.

The sports schools were multiplied because practicing a sport was not 
perceived as a profession. As it has often been said, it is the people's 
right, an achievement of the people.

Throughout these years more than 30,000 physical education and sports 
teachers have graduated in our country. Thanks to the efforts made on the 
basis of this concept our country now has, without a doubt, the largest 
number of physical education and sports teachers per capita of all the 
countries of the world, just as we do grammar school teachers and doctors.

Actually, at the beginning of the Revolution when sports were boosted there 
really existed amateurism in international competitions, and only amateur 
athletes took part in the Olympic Games, like the old days in Greece.

But these ideas were distorted, changed and corrupted by mercantilism.

Now, professional athletes are allowed to take part in the Olympic Games 
and that is how the so-called dream-teams have come into being. It happened 
in Barcelona where a team of the best professional basketball players from 
the United States attended.

This often does little other than humiliate the countries with very little 
resources, those who do not have coaches, teachers, teaching centres or 
sports facilities.

Those competitions often serve to try to prove the national and even racial 
superiority of the rich countries and developed nations and to humiliate 
other peoples, although some of their best athletes often come from poor 
countries.

For years we have had to struggle very hard ... against that policy of 
snatching away other country's athletes.

Cuba has never snatched a single athlete from any country in the world 
while thousands of our teachers and coaches have worked in many countries. 
Many athletes have been trained here and coaches sent to other countries 
but we have never snatched an athlete from any country.

We have trained our sports men and women to serve their people, to bring 
joy to their people, glory to their people, honour to their people. We can 
say of our athletes, in the first place, that they have brought much glory 
and honour, great satisfaction and joy to our people.

For a good part of the year our baseball players are the focus of attention 
of sports fans in this country. That is the truth. Baseball is to this 
country what soccer is to many others; it is as important as soccer is in 
many other countries. So we need them here, in our country.

We do not know what lies ahead for sports in the future. But at the present 
time we need to struggle against all the attempts to deprive the country of 
its athletes.

However, why do we have so many and such good athletes in this sport? 
Because, fortunately, we have many young people of extraordinary dignity 
and patriotism and they deserve our people's recognition.

That is why, on the occasion of this historic match, one of the first 
things was to remember many of those great baseball players who brought 
much glory to our country. Thus, over 100 former athletes were part of the 
delegation that cheered for our team in the Baltimore stadium.

They do not have material wealth but they are the owners of a homeland 
without masters which admires them and will never forget them.

We attach major importance to this historic match because it shows the 
prominence of human and moral values. I wonder if ... those values can 
bloom in a country that is not patriotic, truly honourable and 
revolutionary.

Because the flag cannot be bought! The homeland cannot be bought! Loyalty 
to the people cannot be bought! And the greatest glory of our greatest and 
most admired athletes is that they cannot be bought!

The payroll of each Major Leagues team comes to tens of millions of 
dollars, in some cases it is over $40-50-60 million. It is a matter of 
concepts. The concept of sports as a people's right, as a privilege and a 
source of well-being for all, and sports as a market commodity, a source of 
income and personal wealth. These two ideas were contending in [the 
Baltimore] match.

From now on amateur athletes will no longer be looked at condescendingly, 
they will not be underestimated again.

Despite its small size and the blockade, Cuba is indisputably today the 
only sporting rival that the United States has in this hemisphere. And its 
prestige is such that the stadium in Baltimore was completely full: all the 
seats had been sold several days before the competition. Why?

Because millions of Americans also want to see a Major Leagues team compete 
with a team from the country that is the world amateur champion and has 
been for many years.

Now then, we have to be fair. We won a victory, a great victory over the 
Orioles. Some news agencies described it as a crushing victory. We would 
not describe it like that. I would say that it was a historic victory, a 
very good victory, but we would never use the word "crushing".

We do not want to crush anybody, much less a team that gave us the 
possibility to hold such a match between two sports concepts, between a 
great team from the Major Leagues and a team from tiny Cuba.

This match was possible thanks to the efforts of the teams' leaders, of the 
main shareholder and director of the Orioles team. He had to strive for 
years before he succeeded in holding this match.

There was a lot of discussion. You should not believe it was easy because 
there were those who opposed the match ... important politicians. Others 
supported it.

The proceeds, their destination and final use, were the source of a lot of 
discussion, not because of the amount but because of the blockade 
regulations.

One of the first real obstacles was that we had agreed with the Orioles 
team — and the US authorities had accepted it — that for those two 
matches each team would travel to the other country in their own airlines.

A problem suddenly arose which they apparently had not foreseen. It is that 
they have passed so many amendments that they have created a truly absurd 
situation.

The problem was that upon arrival the two Cuban planes could be subject to 
claims by any of those notorious individuals who were Cuban citizens and 
owners of sugar mills, big landed estates, industries and various 
properties, who left for the United States thinking the Revolution was 
going to last a few short months. They can do that thanks to the infamous 
Helms Burton Act.

What better place to pay homage to our heroic athletes than these 
University steps where so many pages have been written in the history of 
our country; here next to the Alma Mater, in this University of Mella and 
Jose Antonio Echeverria, in this University of so many heroic fighters.