Joe Torre: Baseball Can Unite Cuba and the USA
By Ronal Quiñones
HAVANA TIMES — Baseball could achieve what diplomacy has failed to bring about, or, at least, that’s what former US manager Joe Torre believes. He expressed his confidence the sport will bring the Cuban and US people closer together.
Wearing a blue jersey with stripes – horizontal stripes, to set him apart, perhaps, from the uniform he wore during his glory days with the New York Yankees – the most successful baseball manager of recent times offered Havana Times an exclusive interview.
“Baseball has but one language. I’m a positive person and, knowing what baseball means to both countries, I think everything’s going to work out,” said the current Major League Baseball chief officer.
The 75-year-old New York manager acknowledged that negotiations to normalize the contracting of Cuban players by the Major Leagues are underway, part of an attempt to satisfy both governments, and that falls outside of the realm of baseball as such.
“None of that is going to be fully settled with this visit, because, to start with, there won’t be any ‘official’ talks until both governments become involved. That’s precisely what all of us hope for, and I’m sure Cubans as well,” he said.
Currently, Cubans playing in US teams have no choice but to abandon their country of origin and many arrived in the country risking their lives, and then invoking the Cuban Adjustment Act. In view of this, the Major League Baseball (MLB) delegation headed by Torre will touched on this issue with Cuban authorities during their three-day visit to the island.
“It’s thrilling to be able to work with you. I wanted to bask in the passion that I know Cubans have for baseball. I know the game means everything to many here, as it does for us.”
If one is to talk about Torre and Cuba, there’s one name one cannot fail to mention: that of pitcher Orlando “Duque” Hernandez. “The Duque helped us win several World Series and what always impressed me about him is that he always knew exactly how to pitch. He had a competitive spirit which I’ve also seen in other Cuban players I’ve known. There’s something more than pitching skill there, and, when you can step on the mound, impress the fans and show others how competitive you are, that earns you a lot of respect.”
“For example, the Duque got to pitch during the first game of a World Series we played in. I had a star of the stature of Roger Clemens on the team, but, when I asked him who should pitch in the first game, he said: “the Duque.” That shows you how much respect he earned from his teammates.”
“I remember the first time he pitched; it was against The Mets. In the eighth or ninth inning, I went to the mound to ask him for the ball and he didn’t know what I wanted, he didn’t want to hand it over, he felt confused. It was something of a battle, because he didn’t understand I didn’t want to be disrespectful, that I merely wanted to give him a rest. The thing is, in Cuba he’d gotten used to finishing the games he started as long as he felt ok. When he explained that to me, we understood one another.”
“I’m old enough to remember when Don Zimmer and Bob Gibson spoke to us about Cuban baseball, because they’d played here as amateurs and during spring training, and one’s always curious. Later, I would get to see the Duque play and, now, I see Abreu, and I like seeing where players come from. Something I see in Cuban players in general is that they’re very competitive; they know how to play and love what they do. This isn’t a job for them, which is another reason I wanted to see junior players here in Havana, to enjoy how they experience baseball, because I know it’s a kind of religion here.”
HT: How does one succeed in the world’s best baseball leagues?
Joe Torre: To be successful, the first thing you need is good teammates. I was lucky to have that. The mere fact of having to play in a country that isn’t your own is difficult, because, much of the time, you can feel alone and, even though you’re able to connect with someone in particular, you could get transferred to another team for pure business reasons and you have to learn to deal with that.
In the past, many left Cuba risking their lives, and we hope that changes in the future, so that we can all live in harmony. In the end, baseball is just a game, and, when you finally get to put on a Major League uniform, the only thing that should matter is knowing who you’re playing with, because baseball is a universal language.
It’s not easy. Many probably know they can make it, but they have to test themselves to be sure. The ones I’ve seen certainly have the discipline; they are focused on what they want and on being competitive.
HT: You were born Joseph Paul Torre, and became renowned as a New York Yankees manager. However, out of modesty, you are reluctant to acknowledge your own merits at the helm.
Joe Torre: I had very special players. People say I did a good job, but I say I had a team of players that made me proud to put on the uniform day in and day out. They know how to play but, more important, they never stopped surprising themselves with their achievements or wanting to repeat them. They were ambitious and never settled for good enough, they always felt they had things still left to do.
HT: What special moments with the Bronx Bombers do you recall?
Joe Torre: 1998 was a very good year because we won 125 games in the regular season and the post-season. It was magical. Probably my favorite year was 1996, my first title. The Yankees hadn’t won a World Series in nearly 20 years and we weren’t anyone’s favorite team. To top things off, we’d lost two successive games against Atlanta. But we then managed to win four games in a row and that will always be a special memory for me. Some think the defeat at the hands of the Diamondbacks (2001) was the most painful, but I say that was one of the most thrilling Series in history, despite the fact we lost. That was the year of the September 11 attacks and that made the post-season even more moving for us.
If we add the fact the US president went there to pitch the first ball, for the first game held in New York that year, where we won two games as if by magic, then, you can imagine how thrilling it was. Arizona simply played better. We had the lead in the ninth inning of the seventh game, and the best closer ready to finish the job, and we couldn’t do it. I always say I was blessed to have Mariano Rivera in my team. One thing that made him and his teammates the best was the fact he never looked for excuses. They gave their rivals credit when they proved better than us. I am very proud of all of them.
HT: To conclude, can you share your experiences with the Dodgers?
Joe Torre: It’s interesting, because, when I was growing up in Brooklyn, the city of New York had three baseball teams: the Dodgers, the Yankees and the Giants. When I was young, I hated the Dodgers and the Yankees because I rooted for the Giants, but, as time went by, those teams would become my baseball career. My time with the Dodgers was also very special, because we got to the Championship Series two years in a row. For me, the Dodgers are like the Yankees of the National League.
Griffin, baseball is personal to me as well so there’s some great Penn State video of their trip to Cuba that I found heartwarming. Gives me a better understanding of a small segment of life in Cuba and kudos to Penn State’s manager for some great interviews. Sidenote- didn’t know that California produces the most major league ballplayers and Pennsylvania is second. This is not only for your edification but our Cuban basedball friends as well. Merry Christmas!!
If and when the MLB sees fit to open a franchise in Havana, the capital for building a modern baseball diamond will be there. But that’s not the biggest obstacle . The more difficult challenge is to fill that stadium for a whole season of baseball with fans willing and able to pay for the tickets at MLB prices.
Cuban fans love the game, there’s no questions. But on a salary of $20 per month, they’re not going to buy many MLB baseball tickets. The cheap seats at the Rogers Centre in Toronto go for $12 each. That’s quite reasonable for even working class fans in my town. Pricier seats are out of my range, but there are plenty of buyers to keep those seats full, too.
Alas, Havana does not have the affluence to fill an MLB stadium. To be able to host an MLB franchise, the Cuban economy will have to modernize, grow and open up in new ways. The Castro clan does not want to risk that kind of change. Only free enterprise will produce that kind of broadly distributed wealth, and free enterprise is by definition anathema to dictatorship.
I would love to see it, but and MLB team in Havana is a pipe dream and will be for many years to come.
To comment on the topic of the post, I love baseball and greatly admire the contribution of Cuban baseball players to this wonderful sport. My son plays in our local Little League and watching him play gives me great joy. When these players from the MLB ventured south to Cuba, and in particular gave clinics to local Cuban children, I was moved by the players’ generosity and by the enthusiasm of the Cuban children who showed up for these clinics. I can well imagine what their parents would feel ..I think of what I felt when my son took a baseball clinic with the Toronto Blue Jays and Jose Batista offered some words of encouragement to him. These ball players are millionaires, they don’t need the overtime pay. They do it out of the sincere generosity of their hearts.
Also, when we see Cuban players like Yasiel Puig and Brayan Pena overcome with emotion at being able to come home and share with their people their knowledge and passion for the sport of baseball, we cannot help but feel their happiness.
Is there a political side to this visit? Yes, there is. Will the Castro regime try to use it to their advantage? Yes, they will. Likewise, the US government, which had to have been involved in approving this visit, has an interest in how it turns out. Is there a business side to this visit? You bet. The MLB is a profit motivated corporation, they don’t invest in programs without an expected return on investment. They hope to gain something from this visit, too.
I hope that somehow, despite all these competing interests, the Cuban children who love playing baseball get something of real value from this exchange.
To clarify, Cuba has nothing to sell NOW.
Cuba could have a lot to sell, but socialism destroys wealth. The Cuban economy has been ruined by 5 decades of misrule by the Castro regime.
It is a two way street and after all of these years, Cubans do not understand how capitalism works. There is a reason that Cuba is poor, mush like the rest of Caribbean basin (think Haiti, Dominican Republic, and to some extent, Puerto Rico-even as a US territory) and it is not fully the blockade. It is the lack of transparency in business law, and money runs away from risk. The mere fact of normalization of US-Cuban relations will not bring a massive inflow of wealth-if it did, why would Puerto Rico, part of the US, be on the verge of financial default? It is unlikely that any industrial development will take place in Cuba from the US, much less Russia, the UK or China. Like the rest of the Caribbean, Cuba’s only true commodity is tourism and how well is that working out for the rest of the area right now? Once the newness of the “forbidden fruit” of Cuba wears off the US tourist, will they return? Most likely no-there are better tropical spots with world class accommodations-just to the north in the Bahamas, Costa Rica and even Jamaica. The crumbling infrastructure, Frankencars and soviet era hotels are cool once but surfing’s better in Hawaii.
Cuba will need to do its part to draw capital and that, first and foremost, it has to allow for property rights, stable investment protections and ownership. I don’t think they get that…
Incidentally, Torre is only interest in Cuba is about players for the US league-just like they do with the Dominican Republic. Buy ’em, sell ’em but always remember how many 8 year old ball players make it to a million dollar pro contract.
Poverty in Cuba is NOT a result of the prohibition of US banks being able to lend to the Castros. Chinese, Russian, Brazilian, Spanish etc. have never let the US embargo prevent them from doing business with the Castros. The problem in Cuba, as in Haiti, as in Guatemala, and so on, is a lack of substantive export revenue capacity. In other words, they got nothing to sell. The Castros biggest revenue source is the pimping of medical, engineering, and sports trainer services. This is made possible solely based on the profit potential between the bargain basement rates developing and under-developed countries pay for these services and the slave wages Cuba pays to its doctors, engineers, and trainers. It is a pipe dream to believe that but for the US embargo, the buildings would not be falling down. The biggest banks in the world are Chinese. Why are they not lending to the Castros? What can Citibank do that the biggest bank in the world, the Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Limited, can’t do?
The major reason that Cuba is poor, is our laws still forbid Americans visiting as tourists, or spending money while there if you are one of the exceptions that are allowed to go. So close and full of good people, Cuba would be thriving economically if it were not for our laws that are still trying to starve Cuba into allowing our corporations back into the country. It is changing now that our banks want in. What the banks want, they usually get.,,,,nice comments on Torre.
As a rabid Mets fan in the sixties, Joe Torre, of St. Louis fame, was our nemesis. Total clutch hitter and won many a game from us. I like him a whole lot now vs. then. Regarding the interview I agree with Torre but my observations after seeing the US players give clinics to the citizens of Cuba is there are serious problems Cuba is faced with. First off, baseball is a huge sport and the stadium, field and stands are beyond decrepit. This is another reason I like this interaction because I can see for myself what Cuba really looks like and it isn’t pretty. Secondly, not a full house so either people don’t have the luxury to take the day off or they’re just too wound up in other things. Bottom line and it’s a continuous mantra is Cuba needs to build its infrastructure and time has run out big time! If Cuba wants to hose a US minor league team they have to start immediately to make it happen.