Considering I was born in Santa Clara, my wife in Jovellanos and my offspring in Vedado, I have come to the disturbing conclusion that in baseball terms I’m sleeping with the enemy and raising a traitor. So I tend to be an extremist…
I know it’s a bad time to come out and confess my tortuous Orange prediction: Villa Clara, the team I love and suffer from childhood because of his current executioner, has left me wanting once more. I should be used to but not…
The problem is that one can change faiths, ideologies, tastes, habits, women, airs, but never teams. No matter how many times thou forsake him, you end up forgiving him, and each time you renew your faith that “this year yes, this is good.”
One takes these things too seriously, as if your identity, your moral and human integrity depended not on you, but on the performance of strangers, they don’t know you or get a heart attack like you after an infamous move and a bad running, or losing a game .
That masochism always reminds me the movie A Bronx Tale when Sonny told the young Calogero: “If your father can not pay the rent go and ask for the money to Mickey Mantle to see what he tells you. You do not matter to Mickey Mantle … so why should you care about him? “the mobster played by Chazz Palminteri philosophized
That’s a truth as a temple. But there are things stronger than reason, and we know that our baseball is not logical, and far less serious…
Baseball is the religion with more devotees in this blessed Republic of Siguaraya, and each faithful has its own temple. My sanctuary is Sandino, a stadium packed with crazy, criers and nostalgic people for the days when we won three crowns in a row.
Watch the game on TV is more convenient and cheaper. You can see it in your underwear, go to the bathroom whenever you want, grab a snack, see slow motion and the only setback would be the insufferable chatter of the sportscasters, but still … nothing compares to going to the stadium and participate in their screams, the wave, the everlasting “umpire, son of a gun” pandemonium that breaks when the home run leaves the field, or doing the countdown to a pitcher that is ousted. And then say “I was there”.
Beyond that, the stadium can also be an anthropology classroom, if you look not only to the field, but the usual fauna. From the girls that believe they are already women and use corridors as a catwalk, to peanut, roses, coffee, chewing gums and greaves sellers. But, mostly, there are iconic characters…
As a child, I remember Cucaracha, an obese and crazy mulatto, who as “ampaya” (umpire) was more infallible and professional that umpires of today. There was also the Devil, a guy who used to wear a red coat, cardboard horns and a mockup trident who ran the stands fanning passions. Apparently one day Satan really possessed him, and killed his woman with a hammer… Closer in time were here famous Yuri and Negron, who went from one end of the stadium to the other “fajándose” (brawling) or “interviewing” people with a cardboard camera. Orange, of course…
I lived there unique moments of happiness. Bitter too, but I prefer to remember the best, like the days when we skipped school to see the Duke against Arrojo, Victor steal home or Misifú, the batboy selling cakes, making himself heard above the Fuan, Fuan … pa-pa-pan.
I have traveled many stadiums of my country. From the Cándido I was kicked out for mocking the home team, in the Martires de Barbados I had to report the game from the roof of the dugout hosted by the local group of reggaeton; in the Cepero I endured the verses of an old lady, more enthusiastic than poet, and in the Latino… well, the Latino is something else: nobody knows what the baseball is until you feel 55 thousand souls roaring for their Lions.
Yet I suffer my little, but not as much as before, when I would hit the wall if Villa Clara lost. I realized that, either I calmed down, or I would lose my knuckles. Over the years I take baseball in stride, among other reasons, because the myocardial attacks are all around and I have a baby to rise… A babe that, oh God, sure will become Industriales fan…
