Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Somewhere Between Cienfuegos and Trinidad









As the title of the post says, "somewhere between Cienfuegos and Trinidad" I saw a baseball game in progress as our bus lurched its way towards Trinidad. I asked our driver to pull over and he did. After waking our players in the back of the bus, we all spilled out on to a real field of dreams. I should mention that we were in Cuba with a rather motley crew from my 2003 high school baseball team,  many parents and assorted hangers-on from Saint Francis High School. This trip was the brainchild of my wife, Margaret, a Spanish teacher who had long wanted to visit Cuba. I wasn't sold, after returning a week earlier from France where an unprecedented heat wave had killed hundreds of French citizens. I was beat! But here we were and I was starting to really understand why Cuba is a magical place. This impromptu stop proved to be the highlight of our entire trip. We engaged the two opposing town teams in a friendly pick-up game, talked with the locals, donated a dozen new baseballs, and left a lasting impression on both the Cubans as well as our young players. As we got on the bus to continue our trip, the Cubans were getting into a makeshift flatbed pulled by a tractor to get back to their respective towns.This was two hours I will never forget.

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