CUBAN BORN PROTESTOR IDENTIFIED ONLY AS “ENRIQUE” HOLDS UP A SIGN THAT SAYS “DOWN WITH FIDEL” AT THE WORLD BASEBALL CLASSIC IN PUERTO RICO

And he held his crude, hand-written sign up to the cameras and the entire Cuban government trembled.

He has been identified only as Enrique, a baseball fan who attended a game being played between Puerto Rico and Cuba at the World Baseball Classic tournament in San Juan. Enrique is a non-descript sort of fellow, middle aged, bit of a paunch, smiling eyes behind wire rimmed glasses. He also has a clear sense of mission as well as a keen eye for history. He arrived 3 hours before the game with his little sign and a lot of chutzpah. Standing behind home plate near the field, he flashed part of his message to Cuban players as they warmed up:

A few moments later , Tony Castro (Castro’s son) walked by and I told him Tony , Tony , he looked around and saw directly my open sign Baseball Players YES Tyrants No , he looked down and kept walking and I shouted Eso es para tu papa (That is for your dad)...... I know he heard that…”

The whole world would hear what Enrique would be saying a little later.

During the game, Enrique and his friend Mercado left their seats behind home plate and made their way to where the sign would be visible to the TV cameras. Unfolding the other part of his sign that read “Down with Fidel” in Spanish, the image, being carried live in Cuba, flashed across TV screens and set off what in baseball is known as a “rhubarb” and in diplomacy as “an international incident.” Within seconds, the Vice President of the Cuban Sports Federation was frantically making his way toward where Enrique and Mercado were sitting with the still unfurled sign apparently intent on acting like he was on the imprisoned Isle of Cuba rather than free and democratic Puerto Rico. He was joined by another Cuban government thug who approached Enrique demanding that he stop what he was doing:

The authorities intercepted Castro’s lackeys and hustled them out of the stadium. While not under arrest, the authorities took them to a nearby police station:

Puerto Rican police quickly intervened and took the Cuban official Angel Iglesias, vice president of Cuba’s National Institute of Sports to a nearby police station where they lectured him about free speech.

“We explained to him that here the constitutional right to free expression exists and that it is not a crime,” police Col. Adalberto Mercado was quoted as saying in El Nuevo Dia, a San Juan daily.

Tell that to the Cuban government who almost immediately had their minions in the streets of Havana demonstrating against not little Enrique but the United States government and President Bush who they believe concocted this “plot” to discredit the Castro regime. The Cuban team (whose dugout resembles an armed camp with more police and security people than baseball players) protested the sign waving by not attending the post game press conference and Castro even threatened to send the team home because of a “lack of security and respect.”

Perhaps the dictator should have recalled his players anyway because they lost to Puerto Rico 12-2 the next day.

Castro is terrified of the prospect that several of his talented ballplayers will take the opportunity to defect while playing in the free countries of Central America and the United States. The hotel where the Cubans are staying in San Juan is a virtual prison:

Why are the Cuban baseball players being held as virtual prisoners?

Why aren’t they allowed to roam the hotel lobby, talk with the Puerto Rican people, drink a beer if they feel like it, dance with a Puerto Rican girl?

Why are they being held as virtual prisoners and not allowed the freedom that players from every other country are enjoying?

Why are so many security agents keeping track of the players movements all the time?

It didn’t used to be this way. There was a time when Cuban ballplayers were welcomed with open arms into the Major Leagues here in America – just as long as they were white enough.

In the cuckoo land of racist professional baseball during much of the last century, Cuban players were allowed to play for Major League teams as long as they weren’t too black. This posed some problems for those Cuban players who either were of mixed race or even if some of the darker skinned Hispanic players got too much of a tan playing in the sun. The lengths to which some teams would go to hide the racial make-up of some Cuban players was ludicrous. From changing their names, thus making them sound less Hispanic to requiring darker skinned players to play with long sleeve shirts during the entire season, the attempts to circumvent baseball’s unwritten racial purity rules would have been almost laughable in any other context.

During the 1950’s, there were dozens of Cuban players playing on Major League teams. And there was something else; protests at World Series games against the Batista regime:

More than one time in the 1950s, members of the 26th. of July movement directed by Fidel Castro, jumped into the playing field during the World Series games carrying protest signs against the Batista government. They did it because they knew that the games were being broadcasted in Cuba.

In addition to displaying their signs, the members of the 26th. of July interrupted the games by running all over the baseball field with their signs. Then, those Cubans were considered ‘heroes’ by Castro.

Now that the shoe is on the other foot and free Cubans are simply exercising their right to free speech in a free country by holding signs WHILE SITTING AT THEIR SEATS THAT THEY PAID WITH THEIR OWN MONEY, the Cuban dictator is whining and crying and threatening to pull out his slave players from the World Baseball Classic and order them to return to his island prison.

What a hypocrite this brutal dictator is!

I guess in Castro’s Cuba “What’s good for the Goose” isn’t necessarily good for the gander – especially since the Cuban people rarely see either a goose or a gander on the dinner table. The average daily intake of calories in Cuba is about 2400. Compare that to even the poorer countries in Central American whose average is 7% higher at more than 2800. More tellingly, their caloric intake from domestic animal products (348) is more than 20% less than their neighbors (460).

It will be interesting to see what Enrique’s little protest will do to the internal politics of Cuba. With Castro rumored to be in failing health, the struggle for power following his inevitable death will pit his military-security cronies against more reform minded politicians. In a struggle like that, having the people on your side will be critical. The goons may have the guns. But as long as there are people like Enrique who are willing to stand up for freedom, the forces who support liberty and democracy in Cuba will have a chance.

UPDATE

I’m surprised there isn’t more play on this story, especially from the right. There are quite a few other stories making news but this incident occurred Thursday night and we’ve had nary a peep from the blogosphere.

Dr. Sanity has a great write up on the story as does Brian Preston at Junkyard Blog who dubs Enrique “Hero of the Day.”

That, and more.