Neat surprise!
A very good friend of mine from Canada was recently in Cuba on vacation with his teenage son.
He called me after returning home from the trip and let me know that he was going to be sending me a present. He attended a memorable game on 2/17/14 between the Matanzas Crocodiles and Villa Clara. Other than the Cuban National team, the Matanzas Crocodiles are currently the best team in Cuba. Many of the players on this team also play on the Cuban National Team.
What made this game particularly noteworthy is that the pitcher of the Villa Clara team started hitting batters on the hometown Crocodiles after serving up a long home run. After 2 or 3 batters in a row got smoked by high fastballs, one of the Crocodiles came flying out of the dugout with a bat and took a swing and connected with the Villa Clara pitcher. Yikes! Shades of Juan Marichal and Johnny Roseboro...
Here is a link if you care to take a look:
http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mlb-bi...175231255.html
For those of us that don't live north of the US border, here is a view of Cuba at it's finest as well as some photos of the game my friend Ron attended with his son.
Anyway, my package from Canada arrived today. Inside was this 2014 Matanzas Crocodiles team signed game used Cuban baseball. Apparently in Cuba, fans in the stands are still required to return foul balls because new balls are so hard to come by (like early ML baseball). Here are photos of my Crocodiles team ball.
Cuba Libre!