Industriales and the bad Cubans

HAVANA – The game isn’t over till it’s over, goes one of the baseball sayings most used and overused by athletes, announcers and fans. Like the one that says that the ball is round and comes in a square box. Either saying suits the classical duel FIU vs. Industriales, which has just begun and is missing several innings.

The day before, it was learned that Florida International University (FIU) backed off its decision to host a dream clash between veteran Industrialists from both shores, Aug. 10-11, and left Somos Cuba [We Are Cuba] Entertainment Group, sponsors of the game, dangling in midair.

Some believe that the school chickened out under political pressure. Miami would have to change a lot for these last-minute obstacles not to appear.

From the stands, everybody boos. How dare FIU rain on the parade of Industriales, now celebrating their 50th anniversary? Veterans of Cuba’s most charismatic baseball team – which is to Havana what the Yankees are to the Big Apple – would go to Miami.

Armando Capiró, Pedro Chávez, Javier Méndez, Rey Vicente Anglada, Juan Padilla, Pedro Medina, Lázaro Valle, Enrique Díaz, Antonio González and Armando Ferreiro, and Pablo Miguel Abreu, would face off Orlando “El Duque” Hernández, Angel Leocadio Díaz, Euclides Rojas and Rey Ordóñez.

Explaining its last-minute cancellation, FIU claimed “a contractual situation” and apologized after pulling the rug from under the hopes felt between Havana and Miami for the past several weeks.

“At this moment, we’re making a desperate effort to play those two games somewhere else, perhaps in a stadium with fewer facilities that can guarantee the presence of the fans,” said Alejandro Cantón, president of Somos Cuba.

Cuban-American blogger Yadira Escobar said it clearly: “This low blow from FIU makes more than evident its growing politicization and its sympathies with the extreme positions of the Cuban-American right.”

“This same university welcomes with exaggerated honors the worst annexationists and enemies of any reconciliation among Cubans, but slam the door on a nonpolitical event that helps to unite Cubans,” Escobar wrote. “While the Cuban Research Institute organizes academic conferences on campus to mock Cuban nationalism, [FIU] tricks the good will of those who love and build bridges for unity.

“These bad Cubans, enamored of the expensive neckties and suits provided by [U.S.] intelligence, conspire to keep Cuba immobile, so they can continue to live off the old tales,” the blogger writes.

Cantón scheduled a press conference for Tuesday, July 23, where he will provide more information. Maybe he’ll announce alternatives or simply postpone the duel until further notice. So far, intolerance is winning, 1-0.

For the time being, an initiative has emerged in the Facebook social network to gather one million “Likes” for an Internet page promoting the playing of these “blue” games in Miami. In less than 24 hours, the page has garnered more than 200 “Likes.”

Many fans live in Cuba and have become passionate activists. Others, from Florida, also lend support. “Industriales is a lot more than a government or a confrontation that’s too absurd to continue,” wrote @Jorge de Armas from Miami Beach.

The group CAFE (Cuban Americans for Engagement) has declared that “we Cubans want amity and reconciliation. CAFE supports the celebration of baseball games like this one and asks the Cuban-American community to demand an end to the McCarthyism that permanently hampers these exchanges.”

Here in Havana, the Industriales veterans wait, their suitcases at the ready. Will the local pressure in Miami hit a homer that will reverse FIU’s last-minute cancellation?

The outcome of this historical event will tell much about what we can expect from the correlation of forces between the deep-rooted right and the newly arrived Cubans, who increasingly want to have peaceful relations with their homeland and be part of its future.

“In the end, the idea is to build bridges and bring people together, despite what may have happened sometime in the past,” Cantón said. “Here, there is no political angle whatsoever, although anyone can think what they want. I have always said that we’ll fight hard to take ballplayers from here to Cuba.”

El Duque Hernández playing at the Estadio Latinoamericano del Cerro to roaring crowds? That would be a second grand slam.