Cuban Baseball
The daily life of baseball in one of the most complex and politically challenging places in the world.
"I have been living in communism since I was conscious," a Cuban told me on my first day in Havana. Yet one thing persists. Baseball. A shared heartbeat on the island nation, baseball is a constant. Competing with soccer as the national sport, it gives life and spirit to a place oppressed by its government. Kids play barefoot in the streets as the older generation watches from the steps of the bright and colorful homes, and each Sunday afternoon after church, wives watch as their husbands lace up their leather cleats and play a children's game.
A game loved by all in Cuba, including Fidel Castro. He loved the purity of it and was against the corruption of it in America. In 1961, Fidel Castro banned all professional sports, effectively forcing players to remain in Cuba and creating an amateur league to stray away from capitalism. The idea was for the players to represent their nation, not themselves. Today, it remains a struggle for players to pursue a professional career in the United States. Players have been known to flee to the surrounding countries in the Caribbean to create new opportunity.
Yet the game doesn't care about politics or know borders. A universal language spanning miles on end and connecting generations.