Cuba vs. Baltimore

Peter Weller
Posted: May 1, 1999

Baltimore vs. Cuba (continued...) Within the stadium, at the edge of the field, a terrific band is playing the real-deal Cuban salsa, with screeching trumpets, congas, claves, piano riffs, et al. Steve De Castro is hosting a pre-game party of chopped barbecue sandwiches and black beans. Masses of people file by, filling the stadium while our contingency eats, dances to the salsa and lights up heaters. While signing autographs for kids, I'm approached by a Time magazine correspondent who asks me what I'm smoking, and is it Cuban? Sounds like a spook question to me, and what with an entire baseball team of Cubans around, I imagine the place is abound with spooks, although no one looks like a spook, though I don't know what in the hell a spook is supposed to look like...hence the moniker "spook," I guess. I respond that my favorite brand is Fuente Fuente OpusX and, when in the U.S. of A., I obey the law and smoke what's legal. Whew! Political correctness is a bitch.

We take our second-row, right-field seats among the 47,000-plus, and no sooner has the first inning ended (with Cuba scoring zilch and Baltimore putting two on the board off pitcher Jose Ariel Contreras) than the rains come. Ducking into the concourse for kosher hot dogs, I'm approached by a colorful ticket manager who looks like a cross between Lee Marvin and Nick Nolte--a great guy named Tom Carson. Tom does the right thing, inviting us all to the private Camden Club, where we sit at a large round table in our soaked clothes (me in a ridiculous Cerruiti suit--I should have opted for the Bermuda shorts and baseball cap) and watch the field dry. Tom explains the field's superior drainage system, and we share an incongruous exchange about LRRPs (Long Range Recon Patrols--my brother was one and so was Tom) in Vietnam. After an hour we head back to the field, all of us except Nick, who says, "I'm dry where I am and I ain't moving."

The Cubans put on a powerful display of hitting, especially shortstop Daniel Castro (4-for-5 with two triples), but I'm most impressed by their relief pitcher, Norge Vera, a willowy young man who retires Oriole after Oriole for six and two-thirds innings with more junk on a fastball than I've seen since Fernando Valenzuela or Doc Gooden.

For me, the moment of the evening, other than the body slam of the protester by Cuban field umpire Cesar Valdez, was Cuba's designated hitter, Andy Morales, banging a three-run homer off Gabe Molina. Now, some in the press have pooh-poohed his histrionics rounding the bases (waving his arms, kissing the heavens). But put yourself in his place. To visit the United States, the Home of Baseball, a place that must seem to Morales like the paradise of the physical world, and hit a home run? Come on. Any man jack among us would have felt like Mohammed Ali after Foreman in Zaire. I applaud the guy.

And I applaud the Baltimore Orioles organization for hosting this exuberant and groundbreaking cultural exchange. Having the chutzpah to invite Cuba to play, to see, to experience and to live a moment in, sans jingoism, the greatest country in the world, is a remarkable breakthrough in communication. After all, if you take a farmer from Cuba and put him with a farmer from Kansas, I doubt very much they'll start talking politics. Farming, maybe?

The only bummer of the day: Before settling into Jonathan's new Lexus at midnight-plus for the three-hour ride back to Manhattan, he informs Jay, George and I that there will be no cigar smoking in his car. Horrors. That leaves me with the only alternative one has in the cramped back seat of a Japanese vehicle. Sleep.

Peter Weller is a movie actor, director, writer and jazz trumpeter.

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