With all the steroids and money in U.S. baseball it is Cuba and Japan laughing last!

Journeyman · Mar 19, 2006

Oh the irony of it all..Cuba, a team without a training facility, a team without enough baseballs to play with because the U.S.A. cut them off...

Can you imagine, your national team not even having quality balls to use, to practice with?

Cuba's great pitcher said it best..."The major leagues?" Pedro Luis Lazo said. "We've shown they're in Cuba." :103631605

he shut down the dominican (the other world power who has moved ahead of US baseball) with a lineup of , Tejada, Pujols, Ortiz, Beltre, Alou and Soriano !!!!

After the game he shook hands with Albert Pujols, perhaps the best hitter in the world today, imagine this, the best hitter and this legendary Cuban pitcher, one making more money than he could spend in 5 lifetimes, the other making 20 dollars a week, yet on the baseball field they are equals.

Somehow I doubt the Cuban team is juiced up on steroids either, when you can barely afford uniforms....this is an amazing story .

Journeyman · Mar 19, 2006

How tempting it has to be for this pitcher who could be playing for 10 million dollars somewhere in the USA in 2006, 10 million dollars or 1000 a year?

What must go thru these Cuban ballplayers minds when they look around while away from their homeland....they leave, they never see their family again for ther most part.

Money isn't everything but, when you're practically a prisoner, the freedom and better life, who can blame them, after all they are human beings, just like the MLB players, they're just a little more talented.

BlueWolf · Mar 19, 2006

Good posts!

It is often a question of motivation. When you spend most of your adult life working as opposed to fighting for your team, it becomes difficult to regain that motivation and excitement you once had as a kid.

Not taking anything away from Cuba and Japan accomplishments. In fact, I am applauding their determination and team spirit. Imagine MLB where players would be paid minimum.

As for the use of steroids, I'll use this quote from a friend of mine: impotence doesn't pay.

BlueWolf

Journeyman · Mar 19, 2006

Of course MLB isn't as motivated to a degree, yes not every single U.S. player who could be on this U.S. team is playing for the U.S. At the same time, when you look around at these international rosters, the rest of the world, Japan, the Domincan, Cuba, Venezuela, they are on the same level.

The rest of the world has caught the U.S.A. , even in the sports once dominated by us. I just find it very ironic that a country with players so poor like Cuba , with so many drawbacks, so much less given to them, food, nutrition, playing conditions, equipment, just getting by each day to them, takes an effort, yet they are playing with the worlds best and winning...

I hope Cuba wins.

RobFunk · Mar 19, 2006

Wow, great posts.

It never really dawned on me at how much of a disadvantage Cuba was at coming into the tournament.

Journeyman · Mar 19, 2006

RobFunk said:
Wow, great posts.

It never really dawned on me at how much of a disadvantage Cuba was at coming into the tournament.

thanks Rob...It's not that I am rooting for communist CCastro-Cuba, the players can't be to blame though.

You can just imahine what the Japanese people and Cuban people are thinking about this....'Bah, Americans, we're better' etc...

I really don't like Japan personally.

JudgeWapner · Mar 19, 2006

Pitching and defense.

Journeyman · Mar 19, 2006

One thing i noticed about the Cuban game they play with pitching and defense, it really is 60's 70's style MLB . The way the Orioles dominated the game in the late 60's early 70's they don't have much pop on their teams...

These bulldog pitchers they produce though, El Duque, Livan, Contreras and this guy they have now Lazo...

These are throwback baseball players, guys who can pitch 150-170 pitches a game and come back on 3 days rest LOL...this is old school baseball guys!

Maybe the biggest key to the White Sox winning last years Wold Series was that inning El Duque came in and got out of a bases loaded no out jam when Boston was about to take total control of that division series...

I don't think there has EVER been a better pitcher at getting out of bases loaded jams than El Duque.

Journeyman · Mar 19, 2006

The USA should start making pitchers pitch longer on shorter rest like they use to, go back to 4 starters....how is it, every other aspect of conditioning has improved but pitcher can't pitch past 100 pitches and must rest 4 days now, when they were going 25% longer 20 years ago?

Lawrence · Mar 19, 2006

J-Man- Would be even scarier if Cuba would have brought all it's young talent with them..there are many other young players back on the island that were not allowed to come, because they have no wife and kids that can be used as motivation against defections by the Gov...I feel for that Cuban 2nd baseman who could probably make millions playing over here, when he has to go back to $100 a month, and back to the bread line..

SportSavant · Mar 19, 2006

Imagine what a match up it would have been if the USA had gone through?

USA vs CUBA?

still suprised that Pinny has JAPAN as a +102 dog in this game....

:money:

SkinsRaj28 · Mar 19, 2006

Journey, did you see the highlights from the Cuba game the other day? Don't think I'm a fan of Castro and communism because of this, but I'm absolutely a fan of the Cuban team. The passion and pride with which they play makes it impossible for me not to pull for them. The entire team running out of the dugout to see a foul ball get caught down the right field line in the 9th, an out that didn't even end the game, that's what it's all about. Players actually caring about the outcome of the game...I wish the U.S. team cared half as much as Cuba does(the baseball team doesn't irritate me nearly as much as the basketball team does, though).

Journeyman · Mar 19, 2006

SkinsRaj28 said:
Journey, did you see the highlights from the Cuba game the other day? Don't think I'm a fan of Castro and communism because of this, but I'm absolutely a fan of the Cuban team. The passion and pride with which they play makes it impossible for me not to pull for them. The entire team running out of the dugout to see a foul ball get caught down the right field line in the 9th, an out that didn't even end the game, that's what it's all about. Players actually caring about the outcome of the game...I wish the U.S. team cared half as much as Cuba does(the baseball team doesn't irritate me nearly as much as the basketball team does, though).

This is what I'm saying...to me this is me as a kid, and I can relate, you know when you have that one baseball you cherish because it still has the laces, is white, almost brand new, this is how it was and how it was meant to be....baseball was a great game, we all grew up playing, the fields in the summers were packed with kids, we'd play all summer long, from early mornig to dinner time....thise sand lot diamonds were filled.

Now you drive by a baseball field on a long summer day and you don't see any kids.

Lawrence · Mar 19, 2006

Little League used to be a rite of passage somewhat, now kids want to play basketball and football, but not baseball so much, and its a shame because there is absolutely nothing like being on a little league team..

Journeyman · Mar 19, 2006

SkinsRaj28 said:
Journey, did you see the highlights from the Cuba game the other day? Don't think I'm a fan of Castro and communism because of this, but I'm absolutely a fan of the Cuban team. The passion and pride with which they play makes it impossible for me not to pull for them. The entire team running out of the dugout to see a foul ball get caught down the right field line in the 9th, an out that didn't even end the game, that's what it's all about. Players actually caring about the outcome of the game...I wish the U.S. team cared half as much as Cuba does(the baseball team doesn't irritate me nearly as much as the basketball team does, though).

Take money out of the equasion and this is what we would still have...

We'd have a Mark Fidrych talking to a baseball, or a Pete Rose having no business going for triple, or a Fred Lynn and a Jim Rice on the cover of SI as rookies.

All that baseball lost because of M_O_N_E_Y

:missingte excuse me I am on a roll today about old school baseball...in a couple hours I will return to being greedy and hoping these college kids hit their free throws.

:money: :monsters-

SkinsRaj28 · Mar 19, 2006

There are still kids out there playing...they're just not out on the fields, they're inside some youth camp taking rips in the batting cages and getting instructed by "professionals" after dad throws down a few hundred bucks for lessons.

I still love the feeling of a freshly unwrapped baseball...and those things are whiter than white. MLB players don't know how good they have it.

As for Cuba, the best way I can describe them is to equate them to a little league team...not talent-wise, but because of the passion and love for the game they possess. It seems like only the kids in the U.S. have that deep a love and appreciation for the game, not the players who get paid millions to play the game.

JoeFalls · Mar 19, 2006

i picked up el duque's bio, "El Duque: The Story of Orlando Hernandez", by kenneth lafreniere. great insight on cuban baseball. before i read the book, i was a huge fan of el duque. i loved to watch him pitch, with his stuff, different arm angles, & being clutch. great insight to what is going on in cuban baseball.

can't believe he's not on yanks. just another example of getting rid of "true yankees".

he is my fav mlb player. don't care that he's old and broken down.

-Slim- · Mar 19, 2006

Everything in the US is artificial....even "artificial intelligence"

Add sports to the list...

Woody0 · Mar 19, 2006

Journeyman said:
I just find it very ironic that a country with players so poor like Cuba , with so many drawbacks, so much less given to them, food, nutrition, playing conditions, equipment, just getting by each day to them, takes an effort, yet they are playing with the worlds best and winning...

I hope Cuba wins.

I think a substantial amount of the economic conditions in Cuba are due to the almost 50 year US embargo. However their socialist medical and educaton system compare well with the US, for example infant mortality in Cuba is marginally less than in the US.

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/rankorder/2091rank.html