ESPN THE MAGAZINE’S “CUBA ISSUE” STIRS STRONG FEELINGS

Published

11 years ago

February 24, 2014

ESPN-The-Magazine f40ec

The Feb. 17 issue of ESPN The Magazine, like so many that preceded it, was largely devoted to a particular theme. In this instance, the cover photo, of the Los Angeles Dodgers 23-year-old phenom, right fielder Yasiel Puig, hinted at much of what was inside: a series of articles about Cuba, which the publication proclaimed was the launching point for the “opening (of) the next great pipeline in sports.”

That pipeline has been free-flowing from Cuba to the United States and other countries for many years, predating the Fidel Castro-led revolution that toppled the admittedly corrupt regime of President Fulgencio Batista in 1959, although any use of the word “free” doesn’t come close to describing living conditions in the island nation located just 90 miles south of Key West, Fla. The Soviet Union might have formally dissolved on Dec. 26, 1991, which led to the tearing down of the concrete-and-barbed-wire Berlin Wall and the figurative but no less real “Iron Curtain,” but the “Sugar Cane Curtain” that continues to separate Communist Cuba from the U.S. remains in place. That reality is much to the chagrin of the large Cuban-American population in south Florida and more than a few government dissenters in Cuba’s population 11.3 million, who dream of making it to our shores, or at least of the restoration of the freedoms which are denied them in their homeland.

“Some Americans who have never experienced anything else don’t understand how important freedom is,” said Maria Alejandra Santamaria, a retired educator in Miami who came to America from her native Havana in 1968. “Freedom should never be taken for granted. You have to fight for what you want. You have to earn your happiness, and that only comes through hard work and dedication. It’s not easy; nothing worthwhile ever is. But when you have been through so much to even get to the United States, and to live free, you realize what a precious gift that is.

“There are so many young Cubans who live there now who are as desperate to leave as we were because they know there is something else, something better, than they have grown up under.”

Cubans know there is something better in no small part because of breakout athletes like Miami Marlins pitcher Jose Fernandez and Puig, Cuban defectors who finished first and second, respectively, in the voting for the 2013 National League Rookie of the Year Award, and, in their early 20s, already are millionaires. They know something of the repeated attempts by those players, often at the risk of their own lives or of imprisonment, to reach the U.S. They are familiar with the story of WBA and WBO super bantamweight champion Guillermo Rigondeaux, the two-time Olympic gold medalist (2000 and 2004) who tried on seven different occasions to escape Cuba before he finally reached the U.S. and freedom. In doing so, Rigondeaux – who was incarcerated after one failed defection attempt and was stripped of his national-hero status and his most prized possession, a car – made the gut-wrenching decision to leave behind his wife, 5-year-old son, 15-year-old stepson and seven siblings.

“You are a champion, and it means nothing,” Rigondeaux is quoted in the ESPN piece about him and other Cuban boxers who made it out. “We are like dogs. After all your time is over, you end up telling stories on a street corner about how you used to be a star.”

What is not so widely known are the success stories of Maria Alejandra Santamaria and her husband Jose (known to his many friends and family members as Pepe), who arrived in New York City with little more than the clothes on their backs and, over time, forged new, prosperous lives for themselves and their three children, all of whom were born in the U.S. Including brothers, offspring and in-laws, there are 18 members of the Santamaria clan who live in and around Miami.

“Many Americans believe that what has happened in other countries, including Cuba, can’t happen here,” said Roxana Santamaria, the youngest of Pepe and Maria’s grown children. “That is the danger.”

I know the Santamarias’ saga well, because Pepe is my wife’s first cousin. My beloved Anne is half-Cuban, her late mother, the former Georgina Ortiz, having met and married my future father-in-law, the late J.E. d’Aquin, in 1948 while he was in Havana as an employee of the U.S. government. Anne I met on a blind date as high schoolers in New Orleans in 1965 and we married 3½ years later. Although I am not Cuban – my lineage is a hodgepodge of Spanish, English, French, Irish and Swedish – our four children are part Cuban, as are our five grandchildren. Havana is a city that for many years I have felt connected to, although I have never been there and probably never will. Maybe that is because I have become so immersed in the Cuban culture through our trips to Miami, which sadly are less frequent than I would prefer. When Anne and I are visiting the Santamarias, Maria – better known by her nickname, “Marita” –makes sure I am always well-fortified with café con leche, a particular favorite, and mounds of black beans and plantains. While platters of food are not being passed around the dinner table, tales of what was and hopefully will be again are also exchanged.

“Castro was putting people in concentration camps,” Marita told me of those harrowing days for those who opposed the bearded one’s totalitarian rule. “I didn’t want Pepe to go into a concentration camp. I asked a relative, who used to live here in Miami, to send Pepe money for airfare so he could go to Madrid, Spain. The day before Castro’s people came to arrest him, he left for Madrid. He stayed there for a few months before, with the help of the Catholic Conference, he was able to join me in New York.

“It was terrible being separated. Many Cubans went to one country or another and they never were able to get back together with their families. It was hard for Pepe to make the decision to leave, but it was his only chance to stay out of the concentration camp, where I know that some people died.”

Anne returned with her parents for a brief visit to Havana when she was an infant, and again in 1955 or ’56 (she doesn’t recall the exact year), when she was 6 or 7. What she does recall is the sound of gunfire echoing in the hills when she and her parents went to see her mother’s aunt.

“It was machine guns, I think,” she said. “We knew that there was fighting between Castro’s supporters and Batista’s soldiers in the mountains. I remember being terrified. I think we stayed there for just a day or two before we went back to Havana.

“All my life I’ve wanted to go back there, but after Castro took over we never did, of course. I hope someday, if things are different, I’ll be able to visit again.”

As a sports writer for these past 43 years, and even before, Cuba and Cuban athletes have drifted in and out of my consciousness with surprising regularity. For reasons I still don’t quite understand, one of my favorite pitchers as a kid was Camilo Pascual, the Cuban righthander with the big overhand curveball who performed with distinction for the Washington Senators and Minnesota Twins. I also liked the flair with which outfielder Minnie Minoso played both in the field and at the plate, a style which is replicated by the swashbuckling Puig. Then again, a bit of showmanship has always been an integral part of the Cuban approach to sports. What Minoso brought to the diamond the great welterweight champion Kid Gavilan, with his signature “bolo punch,” brought to the boxing ring.

Said Jose Fernandez, the Marlins pitcher, in ESPN The Magazine: “I am who I am. I come from a different place. Baseball in Cuba’s a lot more emotion, a lot more passion. At the end of the day, it’s a game, and you’re supposed to have fun, right?”

I’m not sure if it was fun I was seeking when I requested the assignment from my editors at the Philadelphia Daily News to cover the 11th Pan American Games in Havana, which if nothing else would have given me an opportunity to report back to Anne all that I had seen of the land of her mother’s birth. But much to my regret, a columnist with more pull and seniority, Bill Conlin, got that gig.

I did, however, cover the 10th Pan Am Games in Indianapolis, Ind., in 1987, which produced no shortage of sights and sounds that made clear the wide gap, ideological and otherwise, that existed between Castro’s Cuba and the U.S.

One of the stories I wrote was about the conundrum in which members of PAX-I, Indianapolis’ Pan Am organizing committee, found themselves while trying to smooth the ruffled feathers of the Cuban delegation after an anti-Castro group paid for a private plane to fly over the Pan Am site towing a banner urging Cuban athletes to defect.

Also on the political front, officials of the American Legion, who had agreed to allow the use of their outdoor mall for the closing ceremony, withdrew that consent when it was learned that a central theme would be the honoring of Cuba, which was to be the site of the 1991 Pan Am Games. The venue for the closing ceremony was shifted to the Hoosier Dome, but even that move wasn’t without incident. PAX-I had hired Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine, a popular salsa-rock group, to provide entertainment sure to please the glut of Spanish-speaking visitors. But the Cuban delegation reacted to the Miami Sound Machine with the same lack of enthusiasm they might have shown Sylvester Stallone had he paraded through the athletes’ village dressed as Rambo. Cuban Olympic Committee president Manuel Gonzalez Guerra noted that Estefan’s father once was a bodyguard for Batista’s wife. Guerra said the selection of Estefan was a “provocation” of the Cuban delegation and he threatened to boycott the closing ceremony.

The Cubans did, in fact, attend the party, but when Estefan and Miami Sound Machine took the stage, Guerra and his athletes stood up, turned their backs and remained still and silent throughout the show. I have sometimes wondered how many of the protesting Cuban athletes later defected, or tried to.

There was intrigue in competition, too, not the least of which was in boxing. Although the U.S. led the way with 370 total medals and 169 golds, Cuba finished second in both categories, with 175 total medals and 75 golds. Ten of those golds and a bronze went to Cuban boxers, while American fighters were limited to one gold, four silvers and four bronzes.

“Everybody is dwelling on the Cuban thing,” one of the U.S. boxers, future WBA super middleweight champion Frankie Liles, said of the bitter rivalry that was developing in the ring between the two countries. “One of the things that’s in the back (of the American boxers’ minds) is stopping the Cubans – not just beating the Cubans, but stopping them.”

Liles and his teammates came up way short, and four years later, at the Pan Am Games in Havana, the Cubans were still kicking American butt inside the ropes: 11 golds (no silvers or bronzes) to one gold, four silvers and four bronzes for U.S. fighters. It’s little wonder American promoters were so hot to get their hands on some of the more accomplished Cubans.

Then again, not every Cuban superstar, in boxing or baseball, viewed defection as a path to paradise. In 1974, Bob Arum and Don King each tried to entice celebrated heavyweight Teofilo Stevenson, then 22 and the winner of the first of his three Olympic gold medals, to come to America to fight an aging Muhammad Ali. But Stevenson, who was 60 and pretty much broke when he died last year, refused to be swayed. “What is a million dollars,” he reasoned, “compared to the love of eight million Cubans?”

The baseball equivalent of Stevenson, according to Conlin, was Omar Linares, whom Conlin observed at the ’91 Pan Am Games in Havana. “The best third baseman I have seen not named Mike Schmidt,” wrote Big Bill, who also noted that Linares was a “devout Fidelista” who wasn’t going to defect for anything so crass as stacks of U.S. dollars.

All I know is that the Havana I have heard about so often, the one of the Santamarias’ pre-Castro memories, remains an alluring destination for those of us who have ever read a Ernest Hemingway novel. You don’t have to fire up a contraband Cohiba to know something has been lost to Americans who are prohibited from traveling to Cuba, or to realize that even more has been lost to Cubans who haven’t been able to make it to this land of the free.

Comment on this article

Post Views: 1,444

Share The Sweet Science experience!

Bernard Fernandez

Bivol Evens the Score with Beterbiev; Parker and Stevenson Win Handily

Published

14 hours ago

February 22, 2025

David A. Avila

Bivol-Evens-the-Score-with-Beterbiev-Parker-and-Stevenson-Win-Handily

It was labeled the best boxing card in history.

That’s up for debate.

And there was some debate as Dmitry Bivol avenged his loss to Artur Beterbiev to become the new undisputed light heavyweight world champion on Saturday by majority decision in a tactical battle.

“He gave me this chance and I appreciate it,” said Bivol of Beterbiev.

Bivol (24-1, 12 KOs) rallied from behind to give Beterbiev (21-1, 20 KOs) his first pro loss in their rematch at a sold out crowd in the Venue Riyadh Season in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Like their first encounter the rematch was also very close.

Four months ago, these two faced each other as undefeated light heavyweights. Now, after two furious engagements, both have losses.

Beterbiev was making his first defense as undisputed light heavyweight champion and made adjustments from their first match. This time the Russian fighter who trains in Canada concentrated on a body attack and immediately saw dividends.

For most of the first six rounds it seemed Beterbiev would slowly grind down Bivol until he reached an unsurmountable lead. But despite the momentum he never could truly hurt Bivol or gain separation.

Things turned around in the seventh round as Bivol opened up with combinations to the head and body while slipping Beterbiev’s blows. It was a sudden swing of momentum. But how long could it last?

“It was hard to keep him at the distance. I had to be smarter and punch more clean punches,” said Bivol.

Beterbiev attempted to regain the momentum but Bivol was not allowing it to happen. In the final 10 seconds he opened up with a machine gun combination. Though few of the punches connected it became clear he was not going to allow unclarity.

Using strategic movement Bivol laced quick combinations and immediately departed. Betebiev seemed determined to counter the fleet fighter but was unsuccessful for much of the second half of the fight.

Around the 10^th round Beterbiev stepped on the gas with the same formula of working the body and head. It gave Bivol pause but he still unleashed quick combos to keep from being overrun.

Bivol connected with combinations and Beterbiev connected with single body and head shots. It was going to be tough for the referees to decide which attack they preferred. After 12 rounds with no knockdowns one judge saw it a draw at 114-114. But two others saw Bivol the winner 116-112, 115-113.

“I was better. I was pushing myself more, I was lighter. I just wanted to win so much today,” said Bivol.

Beterbiev was gracious in defeat.

“Congratulations to Bivol’s team” said Beterbiev. “I think this fight was better than the first fight.”

After the match it was discussed that an effort to make a third fight is a strong possibility.

Heavyweight KO by Parker

Joseph Parker (36-3, 24 KOs) once again proved he could be the best heavyweight without a world title in knocking out the feared Martin Bakole (21-2, 16 KOs) to retain his WBO interim title. It was quick and decisive.

“Catch him when he is coming in,” said Parker, 33, about his plan.

After original foe IBF heavyweight titlist Daniel Dubois was forced to withdraw due to illness, Bakole willingly accepted the match with only two days’ notice. Many experts and fans around the world were surprised and excited Parker accepted the match.

Ever since Parker lost to Joe Joyce in 2022, the New Zealander has proven to be vastly improved with wins over Deontay Wilder and Zhilei Zhang. Now you can add Bakole to the list of conquests.

Bakole, 33, was coming off an impressive knockout win last July and posed a serious threat if he connected with a punch. The quick-handed Bakole at 310 pounds and a two-inch height advantage is always dangerous.

In the first round Parker was wary of the fighter from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He kept his range and moved around the ring looking to poke a jab and move. Bakole caught him twice with blows and Parker retaliated.

It proved to be a very important test.

Parker refrained from moving and instead moved inside range of the big African fighter. Both exchanged liberally with Bakole connecting with an uppercut and Parker an overhand right.

Bakole shook his head at the blow he absorbed.

Both re-engaged and fired simultaneously. Parker’s right connected to the top of the head of Bakole who shuddered and stumbled and down he went and could not beat the count. The referee stopped the heavyweight fight at 2:17 of the second round. Parker retains his interim title by knockout.

“I’m strong, I’m healthy, I’m sharp,” said Parker. “I had to be patient.”

Shakur Wins

Despite an injured left hand southpaw WBC lightweight titlist Shakur Stevenson (23-0, 11 KOs) won by stoppage over late replacement Josh Padley (15-1, 6 KOs). It was an impressive accomplishment.

Often criticized for his lack of action and safety-first style, Stevenson was supposed to fight undefeated Floyd Schofield who pulled out due to illness. In stepped British lightweight Padley who had nothing to lose.

Padley was never hesitant to engage with the super-quick Stevenson and despite the lightning-quick combos by the champion, the British challenger exchanged liberally. It just wasn’t enough.

Even when Stevenson injured his left hand during an exchange in the sixth round, Padley just couldn’t take advantage. The speedy southpaw kept shooting the right jabs and ripping off right hooks. At the end of the sixth Stevenson briefly switched to a right-handed fighting style.

Stevenson used his right jabs and hooks to perfection. Double right hooks to the head and body seemed to affect the British challenger. A clean left to the body of Padley sent him to the floor for the count in the ninth round. It was a surprising knockdown due to his injured left. Padley got up and the fight resumed. Stevenson unloaded with right hooks to the body and down went the British fighter once again. He got up and tried to fight his way out but was met with another left to the body and down he went a third time. Padley’s corner tossed in a white towel to signify surrender. The referee stopped the fight at the end of the round. Stevenson scored his 11^th knockout win.

Photo credit: Mark Robinson / Matchroom

To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE

Post Views: 597

Share The Sweet Science experience!

Early Results from Riyadh where Hamzah Sheeraz was Awarded a Gift Draw

Published

17 hours ago

February 22, 2025

Arne K. Lang

Early-Results-from-Riyadh-where-Hamza-Sheeraz-was-Awarded-a-Gift-Draw

After two 6-round appetizers, British light heavyweights Joshua Buatsi and Callum Smith got the show rolling with a lusty 12-round skirmish. Things went south in the middle of the seven-fight main card when WBC middleweight champion Carlos Adames locked horns with challenger Hamzah Sheeraz. This was a drab fight owing to a milquetoast performance by the favored Sheeraz.

Heading in, the lanky six-foot-three Sheeraz, whose physique is mindful of a young Thomas Hearns, was undefeated in 21 fights. Having stopped five of his last six opponents in two rounds or less, the 25-year-old Englishman was touted as the next big thing in the middleweight division. However, he fought off his back foot the entire contest, reluctant to let his hands go, and Adames kept his title when the bout was scored a draw.

Sheeraz had the crowd in his corner and two of the judges scored the match with their ears. Their tallies were 115-114 for Sheeraz and 114-114. The third judge had it 118-110 for Adames, the 30-year old Dominican, now 24-1-1, who had Ismael Salas in his corner.

Ortiz-Madrimov

Super welterweight Vergil Ortiz Jr, knocked out his first 21 opponents, begging the question of how he would react when he finally faced adversity. He showed his mettle in August of last year when he went a sizzling 12 rounds with fellow knockout artist Serhii Bohachuk, winning a hard-fought decision. Tonight he added another feather in his cap with a 12-round unanimous decision over Ismail Madrimov, prevailing on scores of 117-111 and 115-113 twice.

Ortiz won by adhering tight to Robert Garcia’s game plan. The elusive Madrimov, who bounces around the ring like the energizer bunny, won the early rounds. But eventually Ortiz was able to cut the ring off and turned the tide in his favor by landing the harder punches. It was the second straight loss for Madrimov (10-2-1), a decorated amateur who had lost a close but unanimous decision to Terence Crawford in his previous bout.

Kabayel-Zhang

No heavyweight has made greater gains in the last 15 months than Agit Kabayel. The German of Kurdish descent, whose specialty is body punching, made his third straight appearance in Riyadh tonight and, like in the previous two, fashioned a knockout. Today, although out-weighed by more than 40 pounds, he did away with Zhilei “Big Bang” Zhang in the sixth round.

It didn’t start out well for Kabayel. The New Jersey-based, six-foot-six Zhang, a two-time Olympian for China, started fast and plainly won the opening round. Kabayel beat him to the punch from that point on, save for one moment when Zhang put him on the canvas with a straight left hand.

That happened in the fifth round, but by the end of the frame, the 41-year-old Zhang was conspicuously gassed. The end for the big fellow came at the 2:29 mark of round six when he couldn’t beat the count after crumbling to the canvas in a delayed reaction after taking a hard punch to his flabby midsection.

Kabayel remains undefeated at 26-0 (18 KOs). Zhang (27-3-1) hadn’t previously been stopped.

Smith-Buatsi

The all-British showdown between light heavyweights Joshua Buatsi and Callum Smith was a grueling, fan-friendly affair. A former 168-pound world title-holder, Smith, 34, won hard-earned unanimous decision, prevailing on scores of 115-113, 116-112, and a ludicrous 119-110.

There were no knockdowns, but Liverpool’s Smith, who advanced to 31-2 (22) finished the contest with a bad gash in the corner of his right eye. It was the first pro loss for Buatsi (19-1), an Olympic bronze medalist who entered the contest a small favorite and was the defending “interim” title-holder.

This contest was also a battle of wits between two of America’s most prominent trainers, Buddy McGirt (Smith) and Virgil Hunter (Buatsi).

Check back shortly for David Avila’s wrap-up of the last three fights.

Photo credit: Mark Robinson / Matchroom

To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE

Post Views: 535

Share The Sweet Science experience!

Cain Sandoval KOs Mark Bernaldez in the Featured Bout at Santa Ynez

Published

1 day ago

February 21, 2025

David A. Avila

Cain-Sandoval-KOs-Mark-Bernaldez-in-the-Featured-Bout-at-Santa-Ynez

Northern California’s Cain Sandoval remained undefeated with a knockout win over Mark Bernaldez in a super lightweight battle on Friday on a 360 Promotions card.

Sandoval (15-0, 13 KOs) of Sacramento needed four rounds to figure out tough Filipino fighter Bernaldez (25-7, 14 KOs) in front of a packed crowd at Chumash Casino in Santa Ynez.

Bernaldez had gone eight rounds against Mexico’s very tough Oscar Duarte. He showed no fear for Sandoval’s reputed power and both fired bombs at each other from the second round on.

Things turned in favor of Sandoval when he targeted the body and soon had Bernaldez in retreat. It was apparent Sandoval had discovered a weakness.

In the beginning of the fourth Sandoval fired a stiff jab to the body that buckled Bernaldez but he did not go down. And when both resumed in firing position Sandoval connected with an overhand right and down went the Filipino fighter. He was counted out by referee Rudy Barragan at 34 seconds of the round.

“I’m surprised he took my jab to the body. I respect that. I have a knockout and I’m happy about that,” Sandoval said.

Other Bouts

Popular female fighter Lupe Medina (9-0) remained undefeated with a solid victory over the determined Agustina Vazquez (4-3-2) by unanimous decision after eight rounds in a minimumweight fight between Southern Californians.

Early on Vazquez gave Medina trouble disrupting her patter with solid jabs. And when Medina overloaded with combination punches, she was laced with counters from Vazquez during the first four rounds.

Things turned around in the fifth round as Medina used a jab to keep Vazquez at a preferred distance. And when she attacked it was no more than two-punch combination and maintaining a distance.

Vazquez proved determined but discovered clinching was not a good idea as Medina took advantage and overran her with blows. Still, Vazquez looked solid. All three judges saw it 79-73 for Medina.

A battle between Southern Californian’s saw Compton’s Christopher Rios (11-2) put on the pressure all eight rounds against Eastvale’s Daniel Barrera (8-1-1) and emerged the winner by majority decision in a flyweight battle.

It was Barrera’s first loss as a pro. He never could discover how to stay off the ropes and that proved his downfall. Neither fighter was knocked down but one judge saw it 76-76, and two others 79-73 for Rios.

In a welterweight fight Gor Yeritsyan (20-1,16 KOs) scorched Luis Ramos (23-7) with a 12-punch combination the sent him to the mat in the second round. After Ramos beat the count he was met with an eight punch volley and the fight was stopped at 2:11 of the second round by knockout.

Super feather prospect Abel Mejia (7-0, 5 KOs) floored Alfredo Diaz (9-12) in the fifth round but found the Mexican fighter to be very durable in their six-round fight. Mejia caught Diaz with a left hook in the fifth round for a knockdown. But the fight resumed with all three judges scoring it 60-53 for Mejia who fights out of El Modena, Calif.

To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE

Post Views: 502

Share The Sweet Science experience!