Quality of Home Runs

Carter Thomas F. Carter

Description

In parks and cafes, homes and stadium stands, Cubans talk baseball. Thomas F. Carter contends that when they are analyzing and debating plays, games, teams, and athletes, Cubans are exchanging ideas not just about baseball but also about Cuba and cubanidad, or what it means to be Cuban. The Quality of Home Runs is Carter's lively ethnographic exploration of the interconnections between baseball and Cuban identity. Suggesting that baseball is in many ways an apt metaphor for cubanidad, Carter points out aspects of the sport that resonate with Cuban social and political life: the perpetual tension between risk and security, the interplay between individual style and collective regulation, and the risky journeys undertaken with the intention, but not the guarantee, of returning home.As an avid baseball fan, Carter draws on his experiences listening to and participating in discussions of baseball in Cuba (particularly in Havana) and among Cubans living abroad to describe how baseball provides the ground for negotiations of national, masculine, and class identities wherever Cubans gather. He considers the elaborate spectacle of Cuban baseball as well as the relationship between the socialist state and the enormously popular sport. Carter provides a detailed history of baseball in Cuba, analyzing players, policies, rivalries, and fans, and he describes how the sport has forged connections (or reinforced divisions) between Cuba and other nations. Drawing on insights from cultural studies, political theory, and anthropology, he maintains that sport and other forms of play should be taken seriously as crucibles of social and cultural experience.

Sujets

• Histoire
• Béisbol
• History of the Americas
• Cuba
• Baseball

Informations

• Publié par: Duke University Press
• Date de parution: 13 novembre 2008
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780822381426
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

The Quality of Home Runs

T H O M A S F. C A RT E R The Quality of Home Runs T H E PA S S I O N , P O L I T I C S , A N D L A N G U AG E O F C U B A N B A S E B A L L

Duke University Press Durham and London 2008

∫2008 Duke University Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper$ Designed by C. H. Westmoreland Typeset in Quadraat with Magma Compact display by Keystone Typesetting, Inc. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data appear on the last printed page of this book.

C O N T E N T S

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≥ ∂ ∑ ∏ π

Preface: Entering the Field vii Acknowledgments xv Introduction. The Theoretical ‘‘Stretching’’ of Sport and the State 1 Baseball and the Language of Contention 17 Circling the Base Paths: Baseball, Migration, and the Cuban Nation 36 The Spectacle of and for Cuba 63 The State in Play: The Politics of Cuba’s National Sport Fans, Rivalries, and the Play of Cuba 111 Talking a Good Game 136 The Qualities ofCubanidad:CalidadandLucha in Baseball 159 Conclusion: Touching ’Em All: Recalling and Recounting Home Runs 183 Notes 203 Works Cited 213 Index 231

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P R E FA C E

Entering the Field

I stood on the pitcher’s mound staring toward home plate. Home had never looked farther away from me that it did on that bright afternoon. Victor, a former baseball player him- self, stood next to me as we took in the empty surroundings ofEstadioLatinoamericano. It was odd, really. I had stood on mounds like this thousands of times, but had never before noticed how distant home plate was. From the stands, sixty feet, six inches appear almost negli- gible; a pitched ball covers the distance in a couple of seconds, at most. Standing here now, it was as if I were staring across a canyon. I told him how far away it looked. ‘‘That’s how you know when it’s time to leave’’ was his sage reply. I have, for better or worse, spent my life in a love a√air with baseball. I was taught the game by my father. From him, I learned not just the physical motions but the emotions inherent in the game. He was my first teacher. I have had many more since those boyhood days. I have had many teachers throughout this project instruct me on various aspects of base- ball, Cuba, Cuban baseball, and the qualities of home runs. Often, I did not appreciate the lessons until after the fact, much later after the fact. I doubt that I am unusual in this regard. That this book is so long in coming is tantamount to my own stubbornness and ability to only appre- ciate lessons long after they were first taught to me. TheQualityofHomeRunsis about baseball as it is experienced in Cuba. This book examines facets of Cuban baseball that embody and express the very sense of what it means to be Cuban. In trying to address these issues, various other questions arose that made it clear that baseball is complexly interwoven into the rest of the fabric of Cuban society and imagination. This book, then, is an ethnography about and situated in Cuba. Broadly speaking, ethnographers attempt to understand events by assuming that what is experienced and observed cannot be judged as an isolated incident but takes place within a system of meaning generally recognized as culture. Each event that is lived through, whether experi-

enced as either direct participant or as observer seen, is examined for what it means and how it fits, changes, amplifies, or confirms the eth- nographer’s understanding. Experience is played o√ against other expe- riences, against models in the literature, against social theories, and against the ethnographer’s own models of explanation. It is this constant attempt to use experiences as elements of understanding, while simulta- neously acknowledging the incomplete and impossible-to-complete na- ture of those experiences, that makes ethnographic experience di√erent from just experience and turns those experiences into doing ethnography. Ethnography has had to be conceptually redefined as more attention is paid to the transnational circulation of people, ideas, objects, and prac- tices. Indeed, ethnographers no longer conduct research ‘‘with the sense that the cultural object of study is fully accessible within a particular site’’ (Marcus 1999: 97). In a similar vein, ethnographers also no longer ap- proach the object of study as if it exists solely in one specific site. Re- search for this book has taken me to varied and far-flung places to watch, talk about, and generally experience Cuban baseball. Neighborhoods, parks, cafés, and various other public spaces throughout Cuba were the primary locales, but in pursuing Cuban baseball I also ended up ventur- ing farther afield. Places such as the Czech Republic, Ireland, Mexico, and the Bahamas (among others), as well as several cities throughout the United States and Canada, all informed one aspect or another in this study. Yet despite the disparate locations in which I found myself pursu- ing Cuban baseball, ultimately I ended up ‘‘circling the bases and heading for home,’’ turning back to Cuba. The time I spent in Cuba was among the most intense and pleasurable I have spent on or around the diamond. This book draws on several sites throughout Cuba, although it is pri- marily based on ethnographic fieldwork in several places around Havana. The reader will quickly identify at least two places that are relatively well known both in Havana and in the international press when Cuban base- ball is discussed. Those two sites are the Latin American Stadium and Central Park, although I prefer to use the Spanish namesEstadioLatino- americano andParqueCentral. There was no point in obscuring these two sites, for there is only one major stadium in the capital in which theSerie Nacional(Cuban national league) plays. Similarly, if a foreigner expresses any interest in Cuban baseball to other Cubans, then invariably the sub- ject ofParqueCentralandLaPeñacomes up. The group of men who meet there daily and their location inParqueCentralknown throughout are

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Cuba. It is no secret. For those reasons, these two sites are identified, although individuals’ identities within each site are pseudonyms for rea- sons explained below. A further note must be made in regard to team names and the use of Cuban terminology in this book. Team and division names in theSerie Nacional along with all foreign words are italicized. Teams are italicized because many have the same name as the region they represent. In order to avoid confusion, I italicize team names,PinardelRío, for instance, when discussing the team but leave the respective place-names unitali- cized. Cuban terms are also italicized because, while a translation is provided for each of these terms where appropriate, the actual term loses some of its nuances in being translated into English. Thus, I have found it preferable to use Spanish terms throughout for many concepts in order to convey the subtlety involved in using cultural metaphors. Taking these concerns into consideration, all translations are my own. In no way was any translation conducted in isolation, though. Col- leagues in the United States, United Kingdom, and Cuba all provided assistance, ensuring intended nuances were captured with the transla- tions provided here. A particular concern was the two poems discussed in chapter 6, where translations were corroborated with professors of Span- ish and bilingual Cuban journalists, and their assistance is gratefully acknowledged.

That this book is situated in Cuba is one reason why it has taken so long to be produced. The political situation between the United States and Cuba has fluctuated in its degree of hostility over the past couple of decades. Yet the ongoing impasse still turns seemingly simple questions into epic quests. Another reason I have been somewhat slow in producing this text is a concern over the potential ramifications of publishing this material. The first time I went to Cuba to propose my study to Cuban baseball o≈cials, they were very interested but explained that, alas, they could not provide o≈cial approval for my study. The reasons for any o≈cial unwillingness to publicly sponsor my project, I later discovered, was that there was an ongoing political struggle within Cuban sport at this time and no one knew which faction would emerge victorious. Any bureaucrat who o≈cially put his name to my project could lose his career if the opposing side was victorious. Yet without any exceptions, every single individual I met and spoke with, having already said that they could

preface

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