Athletes Bring Home Memories of Cuba

A month after hosting the Pan American Games, the Cubans probably are still celebrating their victory over the United States in gold medals, 140 to 130. The Cuban athletes, subsidized by the government and a source of pride for President Fidel Castro, had been waiting for something like this for more than 30 years.

But back in the Southland, some of the Latino athletes who represented the United States in Havana are more eager to talk about their visit to the Communist-controlled island than about who rounded up the most hardware.

“It was better than some of us expected,” said Lisa Fernandez, a pitcher on the U.S. softball team, which won a gold medal. “The people there were fantastic. They did everything they could do for us. There must have been 2,000 people at every game. They were playing music in the stands. They were having a blast.”

Fernandez, a junior at UCLA, was on her first trip to Cuba. But two others, baseball players Dan Melendez and Steve Rodriguez, had been there before with the U.S. national team. They told stories of a spirited people who are keen on everything American and who keep their chins up despite difficult economic and living conditions.

“I spoke to them (the Cubans) in broken Spanish a little bit,” said Melendez, a Pepperdine first baseman who is of Mexican descent. He batted .297 with three home runs and seven runs batted in during the Games. “They ask you about baseball. They wanted to know where I live. They really wanted to know where my parents were from because they have a couple of players with the same last name. . . . Overall it was a good experience.”

The athletes said they noticed a lot of scarcities in their limited travels around Havana.

“Everywhere you looked there was poverty,” Fernandez said. “There were bread lines. The people were dressed poorly. We would be warming up and the kids would be asking for Chicle (gum).”

Said Rodriguez, a second baseman from Pepperdine and whose father was born in Puerto Rico: “Nobody there really looked happy.”

Rodriguez batted .295 with eight RBIs for the Americans. Another Latino on the squad, shortstop Chris Gomez from Loyola Marymount, batted .346. But their efforts couldn’t quite get the U.S. team into the game for the gold medal against Cuba.

The United States lost to Puerto Rico in the semifinals, 7-1, in a game marred by an altercation between U.S. Coach Ron Polk and Cuban umpire Nelson Diaz Blanco.

Diaz Blanco poked Polk with a finger during an argument over a balk call against U.S. pitcher Kennie Steenstra that cost the Americans a run, sending Polk into a rage. He was promptly ejected.

“In every game that we played there were a couple of Cuban umpires, and every time a call went against us it seemed like it was a Cuban umpire involved,” Melendez said. The United States had to settle for the bronze medal with a 2-1 victory in 15 innings over the Dominican Republic in the game for third place. Rodriguez said the American team had been gearing up to play Cuba, which won the gold with an 18-3 pummeling of Puerto Rico. The U.S. team was hoping to avenge a 3-2 loss to the Cubans earlier in the tournament.

“We were concentrating on the gold medal, and when we lost to Puerto Rico it was kind of hard to get motivated (for the Dominicans),” Rodriguez said.

Much more fortunate, however, were Fernandez and the softball team, and also the U.S. soccer team, which surprisingly took the gold medal with a 2-1 overtime victory over Mexico.

Fernandez, who pitched 37 no-hitters while at Lakewood High School, was pivotal in the U.S. quest for the Pan Am gold. She went 4-0 and allowed only three runs in six games pitched, some of them in relief. In a 6-0 victory over Venezuela, for instance, she struck out 16 batters in 6 1/3 innings of relief.

But Fernandez’s agenda in Cuba included more than beating opposing teams. “It was important for me to go see where my dad had grown up,” Fernandez said.

Fernandez’s father, Tony, is a Cuban exile who came to the United States in 1961. He had no inclination to accompany Lisa to Havana--”He’s definitely anti-Castro,” Lisa said--but supported her desire to go there.

“He told me that the country was beautiful and that the beaches were fabulous,” Fernandez said.

Rodriguez found the scenery intriguing. “The structures and some of the architecture they have is great,” he said. “It must have been a gorgeous place before the revolution.”