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This game was a match between two concepts:
the concept of sports as the people's right, and the concept
of sports as a source of income and personal wealth

Speech given by President Fidel Castro at the reception for the Cuban sports delegation returning
from Baltimore, held on the steps of the University of Havana, May 4, 1999, Year of the 40th Anniversary
of the Triumph of the Revolution

Dear comrades,

Fidel Castro I knew that it would be difficult to escape the possibility of saying a few words in this ceremony and, in fact, there are a few things that I would discuss with you.

First of all, that for countless hours nobody here has slept. Nobody has slept --not for a minute-- due to the excitement caused by that match yesterday. It was truly amazing with that cold, the rain, the interruption of the game and the difficulties all that created for the strategy and tactics of our team. Therefore, if you are a bit patient --and if some of you over there could keep quiet, even if you cannot hear well-- then, there are a few things that I should say.

To begin with, that this joy is not common place, that this sporting victory is what we would call a truly historic event. It can be described as a historic event for many reasons; among others, because it is the first time in the history of this hemisphere that an amateur team --made up by young and modest fellow countrymen-- has taken part in a match with a United States Major Leagues team.

For a long time we had wished for the possibility of measuring the advance of our sports; we wanted to know what would happen in case there was the opportunity for such a match.

Saying "The Major Leagues" is saying it all. Saying "The Major Leagues" is to say the best, the cream of the crop in this sport that we call "pelota" here and they call baseball there: the favorite, the most traditional and famous of sports in the United States of America.

When we were students like yourselves, the baseball Major Leagues were the non plus ultra and, even today, "amateurs" in this sport are considered like fans unable to play a professional team.

In many sports --boxing, for example-- we have already played strong non-professional American teams. For many years, we have sustained the World Championship in that sport where we are soundly and increasingly strong.

We had had a lot of contests with the Americans, both here and there, in volleyball, track and field and in many other sports. But some sports have special characteristics that make them big shows, with an enormous following in the world and the possibility of generating large revenues.

It is difficult for a cyclist to obtain a high income. It is difficult to make cycling professional, nor archery or weight-lifting, or track and field in the Olympics.

Other sports have different characteristics for the said reasons; soccer is one of them. Great soccer players are very well paid. Great baseball players --I am going to use the word "baseball"-- are very well paid, and so are others like the boxers. But baseball is the favorite sport in the nation with the largest economic resources, the richest nation in the world and also the one that owns the most important radio and television stations and the press, that is, the predominant nation in terms of the mass media, the one that has all the money and travels the world buying athletes, just like it travels the world buying scientists, researchers, artists, It is very difficult to compete with them.

What can we offer our athletes and what have we offered them throughout the years of the Revolution? Efforts, sacrifices and a modest life. Alongside this, the possibility to be educated, to develop their capabilities and to choose their favorite sports.

I remember that, when sports development began gaining ground it was the factory workers or employees who took part so it was necessary to grant them sports licenses and pay their salaries. Then, every sport started on its own development, including baseball. A few years later, the athletes no longer came basically from the factories but from the schools because sports were massively practiced there, some from very early ages. With the passing of time, the athletes came from the middle-level sports schools or from the sports higher faculty.

We said: What can we offer these youngsters? Well, the opportunity to graduate from the universities in the field of physical education and sports, which would later allow them to make a living decently as sports teachers or researchers into the activity and coaches for new athletes. That is why most of the outstanding athletes in different sports were, at the same time, students at the "Manuel Fajardo" Higher Institute of Physical Education and Sports. Our primary concern was that every one of them could graduate from the university.

The sports schools were multiplied because practicing a sport was not perceived as a profession. As it has often been said, it is the people's right, an achievement of the people. It is the right of all children, youths, adolescents, adults and even the elders to practice a sport or at least to do some physical exercises if only for the sake of health and well-being.

Throughout these years, more than 30,000 physical education and sports teachers have graduated in our country. I do not know how many have graduated from the "Fajardo" Institute but it must be a good few thousand. (He is told 35,000). From the "Fajardo" Institute? From the Higher Institute? (Cuban Olympic Committee Chairman Jose Ramon Fernandez tells him that, at the higher level, in the "Fajardo" Institute it is 25,000). Yes, I see, from the whole country, because it was extended.

Are you including the physical education and sports teachers? (Fernandez tells him that, in the "Fajardo"Institute, counting coaches and physical education teachers, 25,000 have graduated because the new ones graduated and the old ones were given the chance to study) Oh, at higher level --but tens of thousands graduated from the middle-level schools. (He is told that over 30,000).

Over 30,000 then. Thanks to the efforts made on the basis of a concept our country now has, without a doubt, the largest number of physical education and sports teachers per capita among all countries in the world, just as we do grammar school teachers and doctors. And it was done for the people, it was never conceived as a profession.

Actually, at the beginning of the revolution when sports were boosted there really existed amateurism in international competitions and only amateur athletes took part in the Olympic Games, like the old days in Greece. But those ideas were distorted, changed and corrupted by mercantilism and what has happened in the past few years is that, far from protecting the amateur athlete, practically every sport has gone professional.

Now, professional athletes are allowed to take part in the Olympic Games, and that is how the so-called dream-teams have come into being. It happened in Barcelona, where a team of the best professional basketball players from the United States attended. This often does little other than humiliate the countries with very little resources, those that do not have coaches, teachers or teaching centers or sports facilities or the things our country, for example, has today, despite it being a Third World country.

Those competitions often serve to try to prove the national and even racial superiority of the rich countries and the developed nations and to humiliate other peoples, although some of their best athletes often come from poor countries. It is very difficult for an African people to bring together a soccer team and the resources necessary to make it a really good team, as a result, the African athletes are left only with the chance to join the industrialized countries' teams.

Those countries have the resources, the money and they take away the athletes. For years, we have had to struggle very hard in that ever growing disloyal competition and against that policy of snatching away other countries' athletes.

Cuba has never snatched a single athlete from any country in the world while thousands of our teachers and coaches have worked in many countries. Many athletes have been trained here and coaches sent to other countries but we have never snatched an athlete from any country.

We have trained our sportsmen and women to serve their people, to bring joy to their people, glory to their people, honor to their people. We can say of our athletes, in the first place, that they have brought much glory and honor, great satisfaction and joy to our people. (APPLAUSE)

It was not Omar Linares --or "El Niño" (The Kid) Linares, as you affectionately call him who spoke here. (APPLAUSE) It was a son of this country, somebody who rejected a 40 million dollars contract to join professional baseball. (APPLAUSE AND EXCLAMATIONS) It could have been [Teofilo] Stevenson speaking on behalf of the old athletes; he also rejected offers of millions (APPLAUSE) and so have many others.

Now, what is it about baseball? It is the major entertainment in this country. Now, being a blockaded country we are denied the possibility to accede to other sources and improve their income at a time when practically everything is professional, as we said. Very soon, the team must begin training for the Olympics or rather for Winnipeg, which is the intermediate step for the right to compete in the Olympic Games.

We are aware that several countries are recruiting professionals left and right with the idea to knock Cuba from its place to compete in the Olympics. I hope that idea went up in smoke last night. They may get together whoever they want, still they will not be able to bring together everybody they want. There is no doubt that the American team can be very, very strong. (SOMEBODY SAYS SOMETHING TO HIM) Well, other teams --even from countries in the Caribbean Basin-- are clawing their way up with plans to use professionals to take one of the two places assigned this hemisphere for the next Olympics and have us fall by the wayside.

As I was saying, for a good part of the year our baseball players are the focus of attention of sports fans in this country. That is the truth. Baseball is to this country what soccer is to many others; it is as important as soccer is in many other countries. So, we need them here, in our country.

We do not know what lies ahead for sports in the future. But, at the present time, we need to struggle against all the attempts to deprive the country of its athletes. The first competition is the fight against those bandits called scouts. I do not mean that all scouts are bandits but we do know a number of bandits who are involved in the mercantile and political task of trying to buy Cuban athletes. That is the first battle. The United States supports them for obvious reasons of harassment and counter-revolutionary propaganda.

However, why do we have so many and such good athletes in this sport? Because, fortunately, we have many young people of extraordinary dignity and patriotism (APPLAUSE) and they deserve our people's recognition.

That is why, on the occasion of this historic match, one of the first things was to remember many of those great baseball players who brought glory, much glory to our country. Thus, over 100 former athletes were part of the delegation that cheered for our team in the Baltimore stadium. You cannot imagine their joy when they realized that they had not been forgotten, that they would attend a match that they had not been able to see, a match in which they could not take part because they could never confront their strength with that of those teams.

The years went by, a new generation of athletes sprang up and they had the pleasure of being there, in the front row, alongside the new great athletes, present at that historic event. They do not have material wealth but they are the owners of a homeland without masters which admires them and will never forget them.

We have said: those former athletes can never be forgotten. We cannot give them the millions that the scouts offered them but we can give them all the recognition in the world, all the honors they deserve and meet all their material needs --all they might need, which does not mean ambition for wealth, absolutely not. But they will always be remembered and, as the country improves its economic situation, the lives of those athletes will also be improved --and this as a priority, since they did so much for their country and did not sell for any money. (APPLAUSE)

PART II