March 18, 2006
Cuba Wins
The Cubans defeated the Dominican Republic 3-1 this afternoon. In looking at the boxscore, the Dominicans had plenty of opportunities. The table setters reached base four times by hits, but the heart of the order, Puljols, Oritz and Beltre only managed one hit. They wasted a great outing by Bartolo Colon. Colon pitched six shutout innings, striking out four and walking none.
The Cubans did use small ball, sacrificing twice and getting caught stealing twice. Despite giving away four outs, the Cubans still were able to score three runs, and that turned out to be enough. They only used two pitchers, and the only run they allowed were a result of an error. Three double plays made up for the two errors.
Congratulations to Cuba on making the finals. They're a better team than I realized. They appear to be very good at matching their talent against their opponents.
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Posted by David Pinto at
08:49 PM
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World Cup
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re: cuba v. japan in the finals
well it's great that cuba is the best team in the caribbean. That makes perfect sense, it's the largest island with the biggest population base. They beat legitimate pros with extensive major league experience, which tells you how great the talent base is in Cuba.
That doesn't change the fact that the Cubans are prisoners in their own country, that Cuba is a communist/fascist regime, and that Castro won't let these men go and earn the millions they deserve in pro baseball but keeps them under lock and key working for pennies on his national team by threatening to kill or imprison their families.
I hope when they play the finals we might see Richie Havens show up to play "Freedom" or Joan Baez show up to play "We Shall Overcome" for these poor pathetic souls trapped by communism, never able to show that they can hit 75 home runs or win 30 games in a season as starting pitchers.
I said I was opposed to Cuba playing in the tournament.
Well, here we have it. The spectacle of one team that is free playing a team of players that are enslaved by a communist state.
For my part, I'm rooting for the Japanese. I always did like Ichiro.
And I hope half the Cubans defect for George Steinbrenner's millions and tell Castro to go blow.
--Arthur John Kyriazis
--Philly
when i read your first paragraph i thought this was gonna be a baseball post
"well it's great that cuba is the best team in the caribbean. That makes perfect sense, it's the largest island with the biggest population base."
By this logic China should win the WBC
Oh, and neither country/team in the finals are a democracy.
Japan has a parliamentary form of government. Their legislature is called the Diet and they have a prime minister. The members of the Diet are elected democratically and they in turn elect the prime minister. Everyone over the age of 20 is eligible to vote. They have a symbolic head of state, the emperor just like Spain and Great Britain have symbolic heads of state. Anyone that says Japan is not a deocracy is bald-faced liar.
