Saturday, October 22, 2005

In Cuba: White Sox pitchers Jose Contreras and Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez are "non-persons"


At the anti-Ward Churchill demonstration Thursday, some of the counterprotesters were openly declaring themselves as Communists, including the man in the hat with the pink sign

These Communists should travel to Las Martinas, Cuba, and hook up with Humberto Contreras--older brother of tonight's starting pitcher for the Chicago White Sox, Jose Contreras. Maybe they'd learn something.

For instance, in America, famous people who leave here don't become "non-persons."

From the Chicago Tribune. Free registration required.

Thirty minutes before Jose Contreras throws the first pitch Saturday in Game 1 of the World Series, his older brother Humberto plans to ride a horse to a friend's wooden shack, where he will listen to the game clandestinely on a short-wave radio.

There, with the radio resting on a bed, a cigar in his mouth and a bottle of rum nearby, Humberto Contreras will hear the call of each pitch and picture his brother on the mound challenging Houston Astros hitters at U.S. Cellular Field.

"I'm always nervous, but I'm sure he's going to do well," said Contreras, 41, speaking from this impoverished farming community on Cuba's western tip. "It's tough that his family, his brother, can't watch the game."

Although the eyes of Chicago will be on Contreras as he starts Game 1, many Cuban baseball fans will be forced to go to extreme lengths to keep up with the White Sox as they pursue their first World Series title since 1917.

Though citizens of small countries take pride whenever one of their own makes it big on the world stage, Contreras and fellow White Sox pitcher Orlando "El Duque"

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