Cuban Baseball: Conga Drums & Condoms

With an embargo by the world’s wealthiest nation in force for nearly half a century, it’s no secret that Cuba is a land of some noticeable shortages. There’s a shortage of spare automobile parts, of paint, of rubber, which in turn leads to a shortage of things like balloons, and shortages of many other things. But Cubans are an eminently resourceful lot, as evidenced, for example, by the American cars from the 1950’s still rumbling through the streets of Havana.

What does all this have to do with Cuban baseball? Read on. I have been to many memorable sporting events in my life: a professional football game between the San Diego Chargers and Oakland Raiders, a San Diego Padres playoff game, a European soccer match between the national teams of Denmark and Albania, tennis at Wimbledon and the French Open, and more. But none of those can really compare the to experience I had last week: a Cuban baseball game between two of the top teams in the nation – the Industriales from Havana and Team Habana from a Havana suburb – vying for a spot in the national championship finals, the equivalent of our World Series. Here’s what amazed me about the Cuban baseball experience:

· Starting before and lasting virtually throughout the entire game, the deep sound of booming conga drums pealed through the air. Coming from fervent fans located in several parts of the stands, they were almost distracting at first, but by the 4th inning they had become an integral part of the experience.

· The passion of the crowd for their respective teams would put any American baseball crowd to shame. The first strike of the game, made by the Industriales pitcher, generated a unified cheer equal to what would be heard for a home run in an American baseball game . . . and the cheering, hooting, hollering, horn-blowing and cong-drumming only got more crazed as the game went on.

· Some of the loudest cheers, however, were not for the players but rather for a skinny ballboy who would scamper onto the feel to retrieve errant flys as they rolled down the protective net. If he got there fast enough to catch the rolling fly flawlessly before it hit the ground, he would receive a resounding cheer from the stands. If he missed, his reward would be a truly heartfelt “awwwww.”

· Perhaps the most amazing thing – well, save for the last bullet – was that all this passion was fueled by not a drop of alcohol; it’s forbidden at Cuban baseball games, replaced by soda and delicious, 2-foot-long loaves of sweet spongecake-like bread.

· Before the first pitch was thrown, an audience wave started. Ho-hum, I thought, been there, done that. But this wave quickly became something different. I have never seen a baseball audience wave move as FAST as this one. I would say it traveled fully around the stadium at least four times in about a minute. Cubans, it seems, not only do things with more passion, but also much more quickly.

· As the game progressed, white balloons cast afloat by fans slowly began appearing in the air. As one neared me, I and my fellow delegation members suddenly realized there weren’t balloons at all. Instead, in this land if supreme improvisation, they were . . . condoms. Blown up big and tied tight, they floated innocently over and onto the field of play and over our heads throughout the stadium. At one time as many as eight to ten descended on the field at once. So while balloons are in short supply here, in this country with one of the lowest rates of HIV infection in the world, apparently condoms are not.

Havana’s beloved Industriales won by the way, 3-1, and last night (Tuesday), won their 4th game against this team, making it to the Cuban World Series.