By Staff
Coaching Management, 8.6, September 2000, http://www.momentummedia.com/articles/cm/cm0806/bbcuba.htm
There are road trips and then there are Road Trips. And for two baseball coaches, taking their teams on the road last season meant much more than simply trying to overcome the opponent’s home-field advantage. For University of St. Thomas (Minn.) Head Coach Dennis Denning and Stanwood (Wash.) High School Head Coach Scott Knight, the 2000 season included trips to Cuba.
Denning took his team to Cuba in January. It marked the 12th project involving St. Thomas and the University of Havana, but the first directly involving students. The trip had been in the works for over a year and the final approvals weren’t received until just a few days before the team left.
“The University of Havana wanted to do something on the student level and they were the ones who brought up baseball,” Denning says. “When our people asked me about it, I said, ‘Sure. Why not? It would be a great experience for our kids.’”
The team was in Cuba for a week playing two games—one against Team Caribbean, a team of top Cuban college players, and one against the University of Havana. The Tommies won both games, but the baseball experience was secondary to the cultural one.
“I think they got an eye-opening experience,” Denning says. “It was unbelievable to go to a Third World country where things haven’t been commercialized yet and to see the poverty there, but at the same time meet some very, very good people who are very, very proud of their country.
“Our players all thought it was a great country and they made great friendships,” he continues. “Even though they were there just a week, they are now very informed about Cuba. They can now be ambassadors for the Cuban people.”
St. Thomas returned the favor in May when it hosted Team Caribbean in a game at the Metrodome in Minneapolis. Bolstered with several players who had been playing in the professional league when the St. Thomas team was in Cuba, this time Team Caribbean beat the Tommies, who have finished second in the NCAA Division III World Series the past two seasons.
The cultural differences became evident during the Cubans’ visit to Minnesota when one of the players defected. The local media focused much of its coverage on the defection, upsetting the Cubans who stayed with the team.
“We had a bunch of activities set up to do together as two teams,” Denning says. “One was bowling, and the media trucks were there before we were. Before we even went in, the Cubans said, ‘No. We’re not going, because the first two days they asked nothing but questions about the kid who defected.’ Their team, as a whole, thought it was wrong. They wondered, ‘Why don’t they ask about the good kids that are with the team? Don’t ask us questions about the traitor.’ So they refused to go anyplace where there were media.”
Shortly after St. Thomas’ trip, Knight put together a team of players from several Western Washington high schools after being asked to take a group to Cuba by Transports, a company that sponsors overseas trips. Knight had previously taken teams to China, Australia, and Europe, but this was his first trip to Cuba.
“We really didn’t know what to expect,” he says. “We knew a little bit about China and we had a lot of information on Australia, but going to Cuba was different. You hear about the Cubans and how good they are. You see them in the Olympics and when they play our national team, and you see their passion and love for the game. So we knew it would be exciting, but there was the anxiety of the unknown. How good are they going to be? What level are they going to be playing at? How are the people going to treat us? There were a lot of unknowns.”
Knight did see a difference in how the game was played by the Cubans compared to teams from the U.S. and other countries. “They’re very good fundamentally and they play with a little more flash,” he says. “Another thing that impressed our kids and our coaches was that all their kids could run well. They run a lot of hit-and-run, steal a lot of bases, and put a lot of pressure on you defensively. And the speed helps them on defense, too. They get to a lot of balls that some players in the States might not get to. Usually a team in the States will have one or two guys who don’t run as well, but everybody they had could run well.”
The differences extended to the fans as well. “They were really into the game,” Knight says. “Before and after the game they wanted to talk to us and shake our hands; the kids were treated like celebrities. The Cubans wanted autographs, so it was neat for our kids to see a little bit of what a big leaguer goes through.”
As with the team from St. Thomas, some mental adjustments were required off the field. “Our players saw guys out there playing with their glove held together by a shoe string,” Knight says. “And the umpire only had a mask—no chest protector or shin guards. Sometimes young kids want to take a little bit or they expect certain things. So ours got to see a society where people were getting by with the basics—where they don’t have all the Nintendos and Game Boys.”
Although Knight’s team lost all four games (the first two by a run each), he felt the squad played well. He says some of the best times, though, came when the teams were mixed and the Cubans and Americans played with each other instead of against each other.
“The kids started trading jerseys and it was a lot of fun,” Knight says. “They would let the Cuban kids listen to music on their Walkmans and they were sharing sunflower seeds and bubble gum with the Cuban kids. It was neat to see how they got along.”
And Knight came away with some new knowledge, as he usually does from his trips overseas. “I now use little field drills that the Cubans used or a conditioning technique from the Chinese,” he says. “It doesn’t matter where you are, baseball people are baseball people and they want to help you out.”