The first time that Enrique Núñez Rodríguez saw a ball game…

2023-05-12 18:00:43

In memory of Pedro González Brito (1911-2004), my daughter’s grandfather from Quemad Who can tell me one of these stories?

Perhaps the first time that Enrique Núñez Rodríguez saw a ball game, in his native Quemado, it was on Guillermo Triana’s farm, where the ground was presided over by a coconut tree and the Cubana team played every Sunday, a team inspired by the supersonic Pedro Jutío, who threw every game with Juan Santes as catcher, and who had Felipe Salazar, Rodrigo García, Ventura Somarriba and José González Brito (my daughter’s great-uncle) in his “irregular” lineup ».

Those were the days of Domingo Pérez’s nocturnal Academy; from uncle Cornelio Rodríguez’s coffee; the Chino Bueno and Chino Lay wineries; the Santana and Reinar bakeries; the clothing store La Colosal; the printing press of Celio Romañach; the Casa Cordero of provisions in general, “from January to January the Casa Cordero”.

The neighbors could be Turco Gordo or Cojo Évora (a relative of the journalist and jovial friend José Antonio), and where the Tito Núñez post office reminded the world that, between Havana and Santiago, was Quemado de Güines. And you couldn’t miss the Lodge where the telegraph operator met with Dr. Jova Olmos or with Pepe González Brito, the canary pigeon with dreams of mayoralty and flirtations as a poet.

Those were also the times when, from his silence as a deeply withdrawn man, the virtuous Valencian guitarist Vicente Gelabert came to Quemado to await the day of his burial, while he made the adolescent girls and music lovers of the small town dream with his unrepeatable chords, ending up in the lodging of Amaranto Alfaro (name of Garciamarquian lineage, like so many other provincial places) where he ate and slept, in exchange for his guitar lessons.

Enrique would later revive many of those close characters from his early years, such as the lame Évora: «He was one of those old-fashioned criollos […]. His name was always linked to celebrations and parties ».[1] Or when he describes how his father, in order to fulfill his son Enriquito’s dream of completing the postcard album, colludes with his Freemasonry brother, El Chino Bueno, to, in his establishment, «[…] record cookie by cookie […] in search of the polar bear[2] the great absentee in the animal sampler.

Of his primary school teacher, old Pancho, he recounted:

On the days of the World Series of baseball, when the Cuban Adolfo Luque was going to pitch, he could authorize a student, who pretended to feel bad, to be absent from the classroom. But, before he left, he would whisper in her ear: “Then you tell me the game.”

I don’t think I’ve ever had a more Creole teacher in my entire life.[3]

From those 1920s (crazy, critical, thick and thin, son and charleston, straw hat and fotingo), Enrique’s passion for baseball came to him, because this, together with his homeland, formed a common place for nostalgia, mixed with other memories of childhood and adolescence, such as the lewd claim of some taxi driver who recruited young clients to venture into the neighboring city of Sagua la Grande, shouting: “A guasa a garsín!”

It could not be less in the land of Premier Conrado Marrero, “the Lezama Lima of Cuban baseball,” according to Enrique, proud to be his countryman: “and I saw him amaze the fans, almost a teenager, with his machine manufacture strais”.[4] He also bragged about Juan el Zurdo —of the lineage of the “supersonic Pedro Jutío”—, that truncated promise that every municipality of the archipelago shares as a legend: “he was a magnificent pitcher. Conrado Marrero can attest to its quality […] the best […] that the town had in all its history».[5]

Enrique recalls:

I remember a game in my town. Juan el Zurdo, our star pitcher, momentarily lost control. Sagua’s team had three men on base, no outs, and it was his turn to hit the toughest sluggers. Someone from the audience addressed Macho, our team’s catcher, in the midst of the silence that precursors of great disasters.

“Macho, cheer up Juan.”

Macho took off his mask. He took off his cap. He unhooked his breastplate. All ceremoniously. Reserved. He turned to the one who had yelled at him and, red with anger, replied:

“And who the hell cheers me up?”[6]

In the long and tasty anecdotes about baseball, I remember a Time.news written by Núñez Rodríguez related to Orestes Miñoso and a star shortstop, Willy Miranda, one of the most spectacular Cuban gloves in that position. Both, in addition to playing in the winter league, had coincided in the Chicago White Sox, but in the mid-fifties they faced each other in “the city of skyscrapers” in opposing teams, Minnie with her White Sox, and Willy playing with the New York Yankees.

According to Enrique, who witnessed the game, some manager of the Yankees had the idea that Miranda would provoke his compatriot, yelling at him from his position in “Cubano castizo” when he went to bat, to get him out of concentration, because he was in very good shape. streak. The Creole apparently accepted the assignment, but in total complicity with Orestes, he alerted him and thus enjoyed the false provocation. I reminded Miñoso of this in one of our long conversations, and he ratified it with his usual smile. From that meeting I had the initiative to bring the man from Quemanda a ball dedicated by Perico’s most famous baseball player, a present for which he always thanked me.

About Willy, famous as a defensive player, but quite lazy as a hitter, he always recounted that in his native Velasco (the former “Cuban barn”), his father gave him a glove, a decisive present for his training as a great fielder. Already at the height of fame, interviewed for a radio program, none other than Joe E. Brown, popularly known as Bigmouth —do you remember that unforgettable scene that he starred with Jack Lemmon in the final sequence of Some Prefer to Burn ( Some Like it Hot)?—, the renowned actor blurted out: “And your father never gave you a bat?” Willy could have responded with the sharp phrase from Bocaza in the aforementioned film: “Nobody is perfect” (Nobody is perfect).

Grades:

[1] Enrique Nunez Rodriguez. The downstairs neighbor. Union Editions, 2014, p.52

[2] Ibidem, p. 65

[3] Ibidem, p. 129.

[4] Ibid., p.

[5] Ibid., pp. 132-33.

[6] Ibidem, p. 179.