For the first time US fans interested in following Cuban League baseball--both the National Series and the adventures of the national team--can now do so in English. The Havana Radio COCO Official Cuban League website has now launched an English-language page (http://www.radiococo.cu/cocobeisbol/ingles/principalsite.htm) which will provide regular updates on Cuban League activities. The first major posting will occur August 2-12 with daily updates on the World Port Tournament in Rotterdam. I will be posting daily stories on the scene from this showcase international event matching Cuba, Team USA, Japan, Chinese Taipei and the host Dutch National Team. Throughout the upcoming Cuban National Series (beginning December 2 this year and lasting into May) I will be posting weekly columns on the Radio COCO Cuban League site, updating events, actions, important developments and statistics from Cuban League play. 

It is a record unsurpassed and not even reasonably approached in the entire history of team sports--professional, amateur, collegiate, scholastic, youth league, men's or women's, or any format imaginable. The Cuban national baseball team, in its many different editions over the past half-century, has now gained the championship, or at least reached the deciding gold medal game, in every major international tournament it has entered since 1959, a string that now includes 48 straight events. (If the survival of Fidel Castro for a half-century has bordered on miraculous, how about the invincibility of the Cuban baseball squad over the same couple of human generations!) Yes, forty-eight straight tournaments either won--or at the worst barely lost, with an appearaqnce in the final championship game. An international baseball championship at the highest level over the past full 50 summers and autumns without Cuba in the final championship game has been equally as rare as a major league World Series without the Chicago Cubs sitting helplessly home on the sidelines.

Just how remarkable Team Cuba's streak is can be summarized in the following data. The string now includes the grand sum of 43 gold medal victories. The only final game losses occurred in the 2006 World Baseball Classic (to Japan), the 1967 Pan American Games (USA), the 1997 Intercontinental Cup (Japan), the 1981 Intercontinental Cup (USA) and the 2000 Sydney Olympics (again to the USA). Over the mind-boggling stretch the Cubans have captured 11 Pan American Games titles, 11 Intercontinental Cup crowns, three Olympic banners, and 18 World Cups (aka, the Amateur World Series before 1988). In the Pan American Games alone the tally now runs to ten straight titles (back to 1971) in which the Cubans have won a total of 74 individual ball games while dropping a mere five contests. This has been done, recall, in a sport where a .600 winning percentage usually means a championship celebration while a .700-plus winning percentage unquestionnably stretches credibility. Write a Hollywood film script version of this runaway Cuban success story and I guarantee you could never sell it to agent or producer as convincing or even passingly believable.

Today's 3-1 title win over a scrappy team of USA collegiate all-stars and future major leaguers came in most traditional fashion for the current version of the Cuban juggernaut. Ironically it also duplicated exactly the 3-1 victory of Cuban ace Norge Vera over USA prospect Jered Weaver in this event four years back in Santo Domingo. With their vaunted offensive held in check for most of the tournament, Cuba relied on solid pitching once again as veteran southpaw Adiel Palma (earlier winner over Mexico) wove his second masterpiece of the week, scattering four hits and allowing a single tally across 7.2 solid innings. Pedro Luis Lazo closed down the predominantly left-swinging American lineup in the ninth for this third straight flawless mop-up effort. The Cubans banged out 10 hits with the biggest being a third-inning game-deciding two-run double by slugging first sacker Alexander Mayeta. Freddie Cepeda, whose bat was silent all week, provided the key defensive play with a brilliant running catch to end the seventh. And .370-career hitter Osmani Urrutia awoke from a week-long slump to pound out four straight hits and end the tournament with a .417 average. It seems that whatever brief rough spots he might encounter, Urrutia would likely hit somewhere around the .400 plateau no matter what the playing venue--Las Tunas, Pinar del Rio, Rio de Janeiro, Wrigley Field, or perhaps even the planet Mars. The Cubans once more proved in Rio this week that they almost never beat themselves. Although highly critical Cuban fans back home (and what do we expect in a land where continual winning on the diamond is almost a foregone conclusion) complained all week about the dearth of Cuban hitting, this team in the end was as dominant as almost any Big Red Machine edition before it. The Cuban defense didn't commit a single error, its pitching never allowed more than a single run in any frame except the fifth-inning fiasco against Panama, and the confident Cubans played with the lead through every game but the first. It was indeed a winning combination. And it is indeed an ongoing Cuban baseball tradition.

At this point it came as no surprise when Thursday morning's anticipated gold medal clash between Cuba and Team USA (along with the Mexico-Nicaragua bronze medal shootout) fell victim to yet another night of heavy rains; downpours in Rio Wednesday evening left both Rock City Stadium fields entirely unsuitable for early morning play. The only international tournament in recent memory which suffered as badly from excessive downpours and poorly designed stadium facilities was the 2005 World Cup event staged in the Dutch cities of Rotterdam, Haarlem, Almere, Eindhoven and Amsterdam. On that earlier occasion, Team USA elected to forfeit its fifth-place consolation game rather than play on a slick field in Amsterdam and risk the health of top-dollar big-league prospects. The Cubans also slogged through a near monsoon to upend Panama 15-2 in their own frigid semifinal. And both medal games (Rotterdam for gold, and Haarlem for bronze) were contested on soaked venues that were left in swamp-like conditions by days of rain and apparently inadequate drainage. But at least in Rotterdam and Haarlem there were few delays and no cancellations.

The anticipated Cuba-USA showdown has now been penciled in for Friday at 8 am EST, but that time slot is still up in the air depending on the amount of rainfall that could conceivably again attack Rio this evening--for the fourth consecutive day. A smooth and uncontroversial conclusion to this much-plagued tournament is now more questionable with each passing day and each further climate delay. Earlier in the week USA Baseball spokepersons hinted that the Americans might indeed abandon the event if it stretched past its original Thursday concluding date (which it now has). Team USA is scheduled to open a five-game exhibition series with the Chinese national team in Hank Aaron Stadium (Mobile, Alabama) on Monday evening, before hosting the Dutch national squad in North Carolina next weekend, and then heading to Rotterdam for the August 2-12 World Port Tournament event.

Today's postponement does allow some space here for a number of personal reflections on what has been a chaotic and sometimes downright embarrassing tournament throughout its first rain-sogged six days. The biggest story, of course, has been the uncooperative elements, alongside the inadequate baseball facilities at Rock City's dual stadiums. Built on the site of a popular venue for rock and roll concerts, the ballparks display poor drainage, and no covering (itself not such a negative for baseball purists, but a disadvantage nonetheless when big-league-quality field-covering tarpaulins are absent. Another Achilles' heel of the event--often the case in such Olympic-style baseball matches--has been the absence of the luxury of build-in free days for make-up games during the tightly scheduled six-day event. Most disastrous of all, however, has been the failed lighting system in the complex which has dictated day games only and made nearly impossible the completion of any contests commencing after 2 pm.

The biggest surprise of the week has been the performance of the defending champion and perennial powerhouse Cuban team. Not the fact that the Cubans lost their opener to Panama and thus had to come from behind to make the finals. Certainly not the fact that they are now poised to take the field for their tenth straight Pan Am Games gold medal clash. The surprise, indeed, is that Cuba has accomplished both of these things with quite miniscule offensive production from their potent lineup of sluggers featuring Yulieski Gourriel (Baseball America's choice as the best non-MLB prospect in the 2006 WBC), Freddie Cepeda (an awesome slugger who has been the team's biggest offense weapon and truest clutch performer in international play since the departure of Omar Linares), Ariel Pestano (offensive hero and MVP of both the Athens Olympics and 2003 Pan Ams affair), Osmani Urrutia (a lifetime .370-plus hitter who has batted over .400 in five of the last six Cuban League seasons), and a slew of other veterans including Goirvis Duvergel, Yoandry Urgelles and Eduardo Paret. The Cubans have homered (three times) only against Mexico; in yesterday's semifinals they left five runners stranded in the final two at-bats, when insurance runs seemed necessary if not vital; Cepeda and Urrutia had their first hits of the week in yesterday's semifinal; and the team batting average has hovered near .250--a shocking fact no matter how bad the visibility might admittedly be in the inadequate Rio venue. (I saw these same Cuban hitters annihilate Panamanian pitching in a 2005 Rotterdam World Cup match in which it was so misty that the mound was hardly visible to those of us seated in the press box!)

Cuba has won only because of stellar pitching which has emerged from some surprising quarters. Lazo has been rock-solid in two relief outings as universally expected. But the biggest hero to date has been young southpay Elier Sanchez (pictured here) who blanked Nicaragua for seven frames in the game that pushed Cuba to the finals. Even in his losing opening effort against Panama, Sanchez tossed four shutout frames before being victimized by a single bad inning--the only frame in four contests in which Cuban pitching has allowed more than a single tally. Also responsible for strong permormances on the hill have been crafy veteran Adiel Palma (ten Ks against Mexico), who has often sumbled in big international games in the past, and rookie reliever Aroldis Chapman, who closed out yesterday's vital victory in polished fashion.

Unsurprising have been the performances of the American, Panamanean, Dominican or Mexican teams. Staffed with a squad of talented and hungry young college stars, the Americans have been adequate even if not brilliant. They have also benefitted from an opening round assignment in the tournament's admittedly weak division. It is doubtful that Team USA would be 4-0 if its qualifying round games had included Cuba, Venezuela, Mexico and Panama. The strength of Team USA will only be more measurable after the now-delayed gold medal shootout. Several days back I discussed the regular and almost anticipated total collapses of Panama in numerous international tournaments, a history which seems to get more desperate with each passing summer and fall. Panama never seems to rise to the occasion when its back is up against the wall. Mexico tends always to accomplish what the Panamanians never pull off--especially when playing the Americans. Recall that it was Mexico that grew stronger with each outing and dumped Team USA from contention in both the 2004 Olympic Qualifying tournament (Panama City) and the more recent 2006 WBC. The Dominicans with a roster containing a healthy (more likely unhealthy) dose of big league retirees (Raul Mondesi, Luis Polonia, Jose Offerman) has once again proven in Rio that the level of these international tournaments is now quite elevated and that major league "has-beens" can now longer hope to successfully complete in such Olympic venues.

Tomorrow the final chapter will finally unfold, unless of course there is still more rain. We seem to be rapidly sapproaching the moment when the biggest question might not be Cuba's readiness (devoid of its much celebrated hitting of the past) to ring up a tenth straight crown, but rather Team USA's willingness (locked into a money-making travel schedule back home) to stick around long enough to defend the so-often tarnished international baseball image of Old Glory.

Threatening skies held off long enough in Rio on Wednesday to allow completion of one of international baseball's craziest days of unprecedented action. When Cuba's rookie reliever Aroldis Chapman (Holguin) closed the door on the final Nicaraguan hitters in the day's FIFTH game of a marathon day, fans were assured of yet another long-anticipated dream match-up between long-reigning international champion Cuba and yet another edition of the often-underachieving Team USA. Cuba's slick 4-0 afternoon semifinal victory came mostly on the strength of stellar pitching from starter Elier Sanchez (Camaguey), whose 90-mph fastball kept Nicaraguan hitters at bay for seventh innings. Chapman, an untested lefty making his first appearance in international waters for team Cuba, settled matters in the ninth with an equally tantalizing fastball that reached 96 mph. Sanchez, the earlier victim of a fifth-inning loss of concentration in a disastrous opener versus Panama, was at the top of his game in today's crucial outing which now sends Cuba back to the Pan Am gold medal game for the tenth straight time, in search of a tenth straight tournament title.

Team USA had a far steeper hill to climb during the course of a rather complicated morning-afternoon twinbill, one which saw the Americans come from behind on both occasions to upend first Brazil, 7-5, and then Mexico, 2-1. The afternoon semifinal victory was keyed by the strong hurling of starter Brian Matusz (6.1 innings) and the solid relief work of Brett Hunter (Pepperdine) and Cody Satterwhite (Mississippi). Mexico and Nicaragua also had to take the field twice, the Mexicans reaching the medal round via a 3-2 morning victory in the completition of their suspended game versus Venezuela, and the Nicaraguans winning their first game of the tournament with a 2-0 upset of the Dominicans. The latter contest was enough to put the surprising Nicaraguans in the final round, thanks to the fewest-runs-allowed tie-breaking rule in effect for these games. It was the first time in the history of major international tournaments (Pan Am Games, Olympics, Intercontinental Cup or World Cup) that the day of semifinal matches opened with six teams still eligible for gold medal action.

If today's weather-induced five-game format was unique in international baseball annuals, so will be tomorrow's calendar which will have Cuba and the Americans squaring off in a 9 am gold medal opener, with the bronze medal contest (Mexico-Nicaragua) to follow rather than precede the title match. International tournaments have not always featured a single-game gold medal "finale" but in those tournaments since 1939 that have, a Cuba-USA faceoff has occurred on nine previous occasions--three times in the Pan American Games, twice in the Intercontinental Cup, twice in the IBAF World Cup, and twice in Olympic action (if one here includes Olympic qualifying tournaments). On these nine occasions Cuba has been victorious six times and the USA on only three occasions, including the most recent in Havana last September. In that most recent collision a strong American contingent including 2007 big leaguers Skip Schumaker (Cardinals), Brandon Wood (Angels) and Jerrod Saltalamacchia (Braves) wrested victory from the Cubans in the final face-off of the 2006 Pre-Olympic matches, after both teams had already qualified for a trip to Bejing. If it was a meaningless game as far as Olympic standings went, it was nonetheless the first American victory over a top-level Cuba team in Havana in a full half century.

Results of previous Cuba-USA matches have been as follows. In the 1981 Intercontinental Cup in Edmonton the Americans pulled out a tense 6-5 10-inning win after Pedro Medina's clutch homer had tied the affair in the late innings. Cuba returned the favor in Indianapolis in 1987 with a 13-9 bashing that avenged an opening-round loss to the host Americans. In 1988 World Cup matches in Rimini (Italy) the Cubans again outlasted their rivals, 4-3, edging a USA squad featuring Robin Ventura, Ben McDonald and Tino Martinez. Intercontinental Cup action in Italy in 1993 saw Cuba coast 9-4, this time on the strength of slugging by Omar Linares and Orestes Kindelan. Cuba's biggest win, perhaps, came in the 1999 Pan Am Winnipeg finals (5-1), which saw Linares and company rebound from a pair of opening round losses at the hands of the Canadians and Americans. The top-ranked American win came a year later in Sydney when a stellar 4-0 shutout by Ben Sheets earned Team USA its only Olympic title. In November 2001 Cuba turned back the Americans 5-3 in the finale of the Taipei-based World Cup XXXIV. Cuba won again in the 2003 Pan Am Games staged by the Dominicans, edging the USA 3-1 on the strength of brilliant pitching by Norge Vera (also winner over the Orioles in Baltimore in 1999) and the slugging (homer and double) of veteran catcher Ariel Pestano. And last summer the Americans pulled away 8-5 in the late innings of the Olympic Qualifier at Estadio Latinoamericano on the strength of late homers by Brandon Wood and Jerrod Saltalamacchia.

Tomorrow's showdown will represent the third straight Pan American Games finale pairing international baseball's most celebrated rivals. This author will be glued to every pitch of the Cuban Radio Rebelde on-line play-by-play coverage as another dramatic chapter of the long and celebrated rivalry now promises to be written.

As though this year's Pan American Games baseball tournament has not already suffered enough from bad planning and uncooperative weather, the event was thrown into near chaos on Tuesday when the final first-round games featuring the Dominican Republic vs. Nicaragua and Team USA vs. Brazil were washed out by a deluge that left both playing fields at Rock City Stadium looking more like lakes than baseball diamonds. It was the second postponement for Team USA, and only the latest development in the weather saga which has left teams playing afternoon games in conditions of near zero visibility. Yesterday's crucial Cuba-Venezuela match found players on both teams complaining that the ball was barely visible on a field shrouded in low-hanging clouds. Failure of the lighting systems for both stadiums has also contributed to the difficulty and has meant that any games starting after 12 noon have only a marginal chance of reaching conclusion before the early evening Rio cloud covering decends from the surrounding hills.

Today's postponements mean that the two final contests in Group A (necessary to decide first and second place between the Americans and Dominicans) must be replayed tomorrow morning, on the day originally tabbed for the semifinals. A third contest between Mexico and Venezuela (who tied 2-2 in their opener, in a game suspended by darkness) must also be played tomorrow in order to determine whether Mexico or Panama joins Cuba as Group B's second entrant for the medal round. At the moment, Cuba is the only team whose qualification position is already set in stone. It is almost certain in the midst (if not the mist) of all this rescheduling that semifinal games will now have to be rescheduled for Thursday and the finals for Friday, though no official announcement has yet been forthcoming.

In all this reshuffling it appears that Cuba is easily the biggest beneficiary of the uncooperative weather. The Cubans seem now guaranteed of an extra day's rest (two days in total) before the medal round begins, a big boost especially for ace reliever Pedro Lazo, whose 90-plus mph fastball has been "unseeable" during his closing three-inning stints on both Sunday (Mexico) and Monday (Venezuela). With two days rest Lazo would again be again fresh for closing roles in both the semifinals and finals, and an extra day now also guarantees manager Rey Anglada considerably more flexibility in electing his starters for the final contests.

Whatever obstacles these delays may pose for Team USA, the only remaining team with an unblemished record, they are garnering altogether little notice on the homefront where the Americans' performances in Rio continue to go almost entirely unnoticed. Total ignorance of Team USA's Pan Am Games trials is not surprising, of course, in a baseball culture that shows little interest in athletes who don't already boast top-dollar paychecks and household name recognition. Baseball America--the self-anointed organ of amateur, collegiate, and international baseball news--has to date not carried a single on-line story about the talented squad of collegiate all-stars performing in Rio during the first three days of tournament action. And USA BASEBALL's own on-line website is spo far carrying only box scores and wire-service recaps to summarize the American team's daily performances. If baseball does in any sense remain "America's Game" it clearly only does so for those with an eye placed squarely and solely on the corporate Major League Baseball's televised version of the ancient diamond sport.

No "franchise" in baseball's long history--whether we are talking about the Mudville Sluggers of the Pottstown Little League or the vaunted New York Yankees of the professional American League--has ever found more ways to consistently and miraculously win just about every crucial championship-round contest it plays than has the gutsy Cuban National team. And this is a tradition that stretches over more than a half-century of world class international tournament action. Today was no exception as this year's fortune-blessed Cuban Red Machine fought off an inspired Venezuelan challenger for a 4-3 victory that guaranteed a first place finish in Group B and thus a spot in the semi-finals of this year's Pan American Games being staged in Rio's Rock City Sports Complex. It was quite a comeback for the Cubans, who needed both back-to-back victories over Mexico and the Venezuelans, plus a little help from the Mexicans (9-0 shutout victors today versus the suddenly punchless Panamanians), to survive Saturday's opening round defeat at the hands of upstart Panama. Cuba now seems headed toward a destined showdown gold medal clash with arch-rival Team USA (8-4 winners today over hapless Nicaragua) in Thursday's championship finale.

Cuba's lineup, stacked with such vaunted sluggers and WBC veterans as Freddie Cepeda, Yulieski Gourriel, Alexei Ramirez, Ariel Pestano, Eduardo Paret and Osmani Urrutia, has been surpisingly impotent throughout the tournament's first round, and today was no exception. Cuba's opening run game in the first without benefit of a single hit (Gourriel walked, raced to third on a pitcher's pickoff throwing error, and then scored on a wild pitch); two go-ahead runs in the third came as a result of a sac fly by Gourriel and yet another wild pitch. The Cubans salted away victory in the bottom of the seventh when Cepeda (sofar hitless in three days) tapped as weak infield grounder that forced Alex Mayeta at second but brought home the speedy Giorvis Duvergel. Not a single Cuban run was knocked home by any of the victor's six hits (all relatively tame singles). Yet it was enough to earn victory, thanks to a strong six-innings of starting pitching by veteran Norge Vera (who first came on the international scene back in 1999 with his stellar long relief outing versus the Baltimore Orioles) and a second straight day of brilliant three-inning relief work by the incomparable Pedro Luis Lazo (pictured to the left).

The most shocking event of the tournament's third day had to be Panama's complete collapse in a 9-0 shellacking at the hands of Mexico. The loss left Panama deadlocked with Cuba at 2-1, but the nine Mexican tallies meant that the tournament tie-breaker procedure (fewest runs allowed) left Panama in slot two of Group B. Team Panama boasts a remarkable recent history of such inexplicable acts of self-destruction. In the 2005 World Cup in Rotterdam the Panamanians fell apart both defensively and emotionally in a 15-2 semifinals clobbering at the hands of the Cubans (though they did rebound to capture a bronze medal a day later versus the Netherlands). Two years earlier at the 2003 Havana World Cup they fought Cuba tooth-and-nail in the finale until two late homers by Freddie Cepeda spelled destruction. In last summer's Pre-Olympic tournament in Havana a nearly identical Panamanian line-up jumped all over Cuba 5-0 in the first two innings of an opening round game, yet couldn't hang on in the late frames and finally lost on the strength of Alexei Ramirez's solo blast in the seventh. And worst of all, Panama was one pitch away from knocking Cuba out of contention in the opening round of the WBC in San Juan when Ruben Rivera unaccountably dove out of the way of a soft pitch (tossed by Yunieski Maya) about to graze his shoulder that would have forced home the winning run with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth. A switch from Anibal Reluz to the seasoned Cuban Alfonso Urquiola hasn't seemed to alter Panama's ill-fortunes when it comes to fast starts resulting only in dramatic tournament-ending flameouts.

Team USA, after thrashing a weak Nicaraguan nine, seems poised to finish undefeated in Group A, which would mean a USA-Panama semifinal on Wednesday. The Dominican Republic, buoyed by today's 14-2 8-inning knockout of host Brazil, is the likely runnerup in Group A and thus also the likely opponent for the Cubans in Thursday's second semifinal match. The almost-Hollywood-scripted scenario would provide yet another Cuba-USA gold medal showdown, a contest which has fallen to the Cubans in the great majority of cases down through the decades. In recent years, however, Team USA has twice upset the Cubans in featured gold medal shootouts--first in the 2000 Sydney Olympics ("the Ben Sheets game"), and more recently in last-summer's Havana-based Olympic Qualifying tournament. Though few in the USA will be aware it is even happening, millions of Cubans will hang on every pitch of the anticipated "true world championship" game that now promises to be the highlight of international baseball's topsy-turvy summer 2007 season.

For all its near-boring domination of international tourrnament competitions over the past fifty-plus years, Team Cuba somehow always seems to find a way to trip and stumble (before usually recovering with a vengeance) during Pan American Games competitions. A 7-1 thrashing at the hands of Mexico in the opening round at Santo Domingo in 2003 was the only blemish on en route to the country's 11th gold medal in 13 Pan Am tournaments; yet at the moment it sent shock waves throughout Havana and its environs. In 1999, in Winnipeg, the Cubans sleepwalked through the opening round while losing to Team USA as well as host Canada, before rebounding in dramatic to beat both rivales in the crucial medal round. And this year's event opened with a bang when the favored Red Machine was rudely stunned by Panama in yesterday's lidlifter, a loss which left the Cubans desperately needing consecutive victories over Mexico and Venezuela to make it into the championship round.

On Sunday, however, it was back to business as usual for the Cubans, who completed their first test successfully with a 8-1 thrashing of outmanned Mexico. Today's main hero was starter Adiel Palma (Cienfuegos), who stuck out 10 and gave up a mere four hits in six solid innings. Palma (pictured below) received plenty of offense support from Yulieski Gourriel, who smashed a solo shot in the third, and first sacker Alex Mayetta, who homered in the second and again in the ninth. The tournament favorites salted the game away with five markers in the top of the ninth and finally looked every bit like the international powerhouse expected, and not the apparent pretenders that seemed to provide such a lackluster performance only 24 hours earlier.

In the day's other tournament action, Team USA rang up an opening victory with a 5-1 cake walk versus the Dominican Republic, mostly on the strength of five-hit pitching from University of California sophomore Tyson Ross. Panama won again, this time 4-2 over Venezuela. Host Brazil (with four U.S. minor leaguers and one Japanese leaguer on its roster) thrilled the locals with a 1-0 blanking of Nicaragua. In a late game on Saturday, not reported in yesterday's summary, Mexico and Venezuela fought to a 2-2 deadlock that was suspended after nine frames due to encroaching darkness. The Mexico-Venezuela game provided a bizarre footnote to a chaotic opening day at Rock City Stadium, this being the first contest ever called on account of darkness in the half-century history of Pan Am Games action.

The short six-day tournament continues tomorrow with highlight games featuring Cuba versus Venezuela and Team USA versus Nicaragua. The Americans seem a sure bet to reach the semifinals, playing in the acknowledged weak division in which only Brazil might be considered a potential challenger. Cuba needs only to overcome slumping Venezuela to continue its march toward a showdown rematch with Panama and a potential championship faceoff with young but talented Team USA.

Vaunted Team Cuba, which has not lost a Pan American Games title on the field since 1967 (Winnipeg), and which has also not dropped a single level-one international game to heated rival Panama, fell with a loud thud in the opening game of this year's Pan Am baseball competitions today in Rio de Janeiro. The final was 4-3 in a game which saw the Panamanians explode for all four markers in the fifth frame against inexperienced Cuban starter Elier Sanchez (Camaguey), then hang on in Rock City Stadium behind excellent relief work from the bullpen trio of Rolando Herrera, Elier Gomez and Ricardo Montilla. The perhaps over-confident Cubans had several late-inning chances to mount a comeback but stumbled twice due to uncharacteristic baserunning errors and untimely hitting.

Cuba's main window of opportunity came to nothing in the top of the seventh when a poor baserunning decision by veteran catcher Ariel Pestano (who was gunned down at second trying to stretch a single to a double) and a tame doubleplay grounder off the bat of team captain Eduardo Paret snuffed out a possible resurgence. In the ninth, Yoandry Urgelles launched a second potential rally with a sharp single to right, but the game then promptly ended when Pestano followed with another perfect doubleplay roller to short.

The loss was only the fifth individual game setback for Cuba in the eight tournaments since 1967, but a most costly one in this year's shortened tournament qualifying format. The many-times champions must now defeat Mexico (Sunday) and Venezuela (Monday) without a second stumble in order the reach the semifinals and thus avoid finishing out of medal contention in this event for the first time since 1959. One great irony of the Cubans' opening-day loss was the fact that Team Panama is currently managed by on-loan former national team skipper Alfonso Urquiola, who directed Cuba's gold medal victory in the 1999 Winnipeg Pan Am Games and who also managed Team Cuba in its two showdown exhibitions with the Baltimore Orioles that same spring.

Commenting to a shocked Cuban press corps after the unexpected defeat, current Team Cuba skipper Rey Anglada issued the following warning: "I will assure you of something. We will overcome this initial blow, and although we are playing in obviously the toughest group of the competition, there is no doubt that we will reach the finals and seek the championship trophy, just as the entire nation is expecting." Anglada was the subject of much criticism in the Cuban press accounts of the game for his decision to go with relative newcomer Elier Sanchez as the opening-round starter, rather than relying on a more veteran starter like Norge Vera, Adiel Palma or Norberto Gonzalez.

In the second major development of a truly bizarre opening day of competitions in Rio, Team USA's evening match versus the Dominican Republic was postponed due to a failure in the Rock City Stadium lightning system, a catastrophe which has resulted in the cancellation of all night competitions at the venue. USA BASEBALL reported on its own website earlier today that the American-Dominican game had been rescheduled for "security" reasons, but the official tournament website is reporting that difficulties with the stadium generator system is to blame for the postponement of future night games. All in all, it was the most surprising of opening days for the Pan Am XV baseball competitions. But such unpredictability has always been one of the true beauties of the international version of the diamond sport.

While MLB's version of the "world's greatest game" marches through its "dog days" towards its marathon post-season television tournament that was once so inaccurately labelled "The World Series" (a somewhat laughable designation even back in 1903), other baseball-playing nations and their fans will be riveted in coming months on action taking place in the far-flung diamond outposts of Rio de Janeiro, Rotterdam and Taipei City (Chinese Taipei). These backwater venues will host the 2007 schedule of highly competitive tournament matches that constitute the sport's more legitimate versions of "a real world series"--events staging national teams carrying the pride and traditions of their own home-flavored national pastimes.

First up (July 14-19) is the Pan American Games baseball tournament scheduled for Rio and featuring not only defending champion and perenniel powerhouse Cuba, but also promising a strong challenge from a Dominican Republic team featuring big league veterans Luis Polonia and Raul Mondesi. Team USA, under the direction of Long Beach State University head coach Mike Weathers, is comprised of a collection of university all-stars topped by 2003 National Youth team veteran Danny Espinosa, a crack Long Beach State infielder. Once again the lackluster American roster is indicative of a country that rarely takes international competitions seriously, and Team USA is a club expected to pose little threat to Cuba's World Baseball Classic holdovers or the Dominican lineup sprinkled with ex-big leaguers. Fans interested in following the action can do so on the www.baseballdecuba.com website available online ahywhere in the States. Cuba will of course again be the overwhelming favorite to defend the title it has won in every outing since 1971 (with the exception of the 2001 event, when the Cubans stayed home); the defending champs have captured 11 of 13 tournaments entered overall since the 1951 inaugural, also posting an all-time 91-13 (.875 Pct.) won-lost mark in individual games played.

Next up (August 2-12) will be the colorful ENECO World Port Tournament at Rotterdam's quaint Neptunus Family Stadium (pictured above), also the previous site of the 2005 World Cup Tournament. I will be personally returning to Rotterdam (one of my favorite international baseball venues) to cover this event for both the Cuban League website (ww.baseballdecuba.com) and New York-based Beisbol Mundial magazine. Fans will thus be able to follow the action of the Rotterdam event on this blog site, where I will file daily results and stories capturing the unique flavor of one of baseball's best international events. This year's participants will be the Cuban national team, Team USA (the same roster that will be in Rio), the host Netherlands club (featuring much of Holland's WBC roster), Japan, and Chinese Taipei. The World Port Tournament was inaugurated in 1985 and shares the spotlight of European baseball with the Haarlem International Baseball Week (staged in the rival Dutch city of Haarlem) on alternating years. Cuba has won six of the ten previous editions, including the two most recent sesssions (2001, 2003). But the host Dutch, who defeated a Cuban National B Team last year at Haarlem and then barely lost to the top Cuban squad in the November Intercontinental Cup finals (Taipei), can be expected to muster a stiff challenge.

A final chapter and climax (November 5-18) to this year's international top-flight competitions will be the IBAF World Cup XXXVII (once known as the Amateur World Series and owning a tradition that dates back to 1939), scheduled to take place in this pre-Olympic year in Chinese Taipei.  Here Cuba is expected again to peak with yet another victory in the international showcase event that it has dominated with 25 gold medals in 28 tournaments entered, plus a championship streak (nine straight) unbroken since 1984. I will post more details on this final tournament once it draws closer, but its day-by-day action will be available on both major Cuban League websites (www.baseballdecuba.com and www.radiococo.cu), as well as with daily entries in this current blog site.

Most Americans will pay preciously little attention as the colorful 2007 summer and fall international baseball pageant unfolds in Rio, Rotterdam and Taiwan. But for aficionados of the "true world series" it simply doesn't get any better than this.  It is athletes battling with deep-seated passions for the honor of their national flags and cherished homelands, always to my view a far better spectacle than professional baseball's staged exhibitions of rented athletes with usually cavalier attachments to the corporate teams that employ them for a season or two. Note: Readers wishing detailed summaries of international tournaments (champions, standings, stats, etc.), including the Pan American Games and the IBAF World Cup, can find them (along with a narrative history of the international baseball movement) in either my 2005 book entitled Diamonds around the Globe: The Encyclopedia of International Baseball (Greenwood), or my more recent A History of Cuban Baseball, 1864-2006 (McFarland Publishers). Both are available from most internet book dealers and also on my website at www.bjarkman.com.

A recent email exchange with fellow SABR member Leslie Heaphy (an expert on both women in baseball and Negro leagues history) brought to mind a notable feature of the contemporary Cuban League which seems to merit an immediate blog entry. The Cuban League once again seems to far outpace the majors when it comes to groundbreaking innovations aimed at stripping away the sport's atrocious record (at least at the North American professional level) when it comes to including black ballplayers, black managers, black executives, and (God forbid!) female ballplayers or umpires onto its playing fields or into its male inner sanctums.

At the beginning of the recent 2006-2007 Cuban National Series season the league welcomed its first woman umpire into its highest level of national professional baseball. Yanet Moreno Mendinueta, 32-year-old native of Santa Clara, made her league debut in the season's lid-lifting game between Matanzas and Villa Clara on December 6, 2006. In May of 2007 she successfully completed her inaugural season with the league and all indications are that she will be welcomed back for a sophomore campaign during Series Nacional XLVII, which kicks off this coming December. A far cry from the sad saga attached to one-time MLB umpiring hopeful Pam Postema.

Yanet Moreno was the suject of a brief but revealing December 10, 2006 Granma Cuban press interview authored by Jose Antonio Fulgueiras. In that piece she revealed that she grew up playing street baseball in her Alamar neighborhood but failed to show much promise as a player in either hardball or softball. She later was encouraged a female softball instructor who suggested her switch to umpiring. The transition proved so successful that Yanet earned a spot in the Cuban national umpiring academy and rapidly worked her way up the ladder by officiating school, national youth league and eventual top category provincial league (Cuba's minors) games. Yanet's debut National Series game in Matanzas in December proved something of a trial-by-fire, as she worked behind the plate and was nearly kayoed by a foul tip in the early innings. But she survived that early scare and earned nothing but respect for her work as the season progressed.

When asked in the early-season Granma interview for her views on advantages and disadvantages of a female umpire she provided a most interesting observation. "All the players were born to a woman and all thus have a lot of respect for woman, who after all are always much stricter and also much more impartial."

Cuban baseball's very charm for those of us who know it well lies in large part in the throw-back aspects of the sport: viz. its recapturing of the days when the sport was played in small and more intimiate parks and was far more of a pastoral drama and far less of an television-orchestrated electronic sideshow. But at least with the case of Yanet Moreno, Cuban League baseball seems to have already moved far into the future when compared to its commercial big league cousin.

Game-worn Las Tunas road jersey of national team outfielder Osmani Urrutia, five-time .400-plus hitter and six-time National Series league batting champion. Bjarkman Collection

Game-worn Sancti Spiritus (2005) road jersey of national team slugger Yulieski Gourriel. Bjarkman Collection

Game-worn Super League (Centrales) jersey of national team southpaw Norberto Gonzalez, worn during 2005 Super League season. Bjarkman Collection

Game-worn jersey of Habana Industriales team from the late 1970s, worn by Arturo Linares. Bjarkman Collection

Game-worn 1960s-era flannel jersey of Constructores (Habana) team, worn by Reinaldo Linares. Bjarkman Collection

Game-worn 1960s-era flannel-style jersey of Las Villas team, worn by Jorge Valdes. Bjarkman Collection

Game-worn Pinar del Rio jersey of second baseman Alfonso Urquiola, later the manager of the Cuban National team and currently national team manager in Panama. Bjarkman Collection

Game-worn Santiago de Cuba jersey of national team ace pitcher Norge Vera, worn in 2007 championship Cuban League playoffs. Bjarkman Collection

Game-worn Industriales jersey of outfielder and national team star Yoandry Urgelles (with Industriales Chamion patch), worn during 2006-07 National Series. Bjarkman Collection

Game-worn Industriales home jersey of slugging national team first baseball Alex Mayeta (with Industriales Champion patch), worn during 2006-07 National Series season. Bjarkman Collection

Game-worn 1960s flannel-style jersey of Azucareros team, worn by Adolfo Borrell. Bjarkman Collection

Signed game-worn jersey of pitcher Julio Romero (Pinar del Rio), worn during the late 1980s. Bjarkman Collection

Game-worn Camaguey 1960s-era flannel-style jersey, worn by Antonio Eugelles. Bjarkman Collection

Game-worn road jersey of star national team pitcher and future major leaguer Jose Ariel Contreras (Pinar del Rio). Bjarkman Collection

Game-worn home white jersey of future major leaguer Jose Ariel Conteras (Pinar del Rio). Bjarkman Collection

Game-worn national team jersey of legendary Omar Linares (Pinar del Rio), widely considered the best third baseman never to play in the major leagues. Bjarkman Collection

Game-worn national team jersey of Orestes Kindelan (Santiago de Cuba), Cuban League career home run leader. Bjarkman Collection

Game-worn national team jersey of pitcher Frank Montieth (Industriales), worn in Summer 2006 Havana Olympic Qualifying Tournament (Montieth was tournament MVP). Bjarkman Collection

Game-worn national team jersey of outfielder/infielder Alexei Ramirez (Pinar del Rio), 2007 Cuban League home run champion. Bjarkman Collection

Game-worn national team jersey of veteran outfielder Luis Ulacia (Camaguey), MVP of 2001 Taipei World Cup. Bjarkman Collection

Rare flannel jersey (zipper style) of Team Cuba from the late 1960s, likely worn (possibly by Fermin Lafitta) at the 1969 Amateur World Series (World Cup) in the Dominican Republic. Bjarkman Collection

National team jersey of legendary "El Loco" Victor Mesa, long-time national team star and current manager of Villa Clara. Bjarkman Collection

Game-worn national team jersey of outfielder Osmani Urrutia (Las Tunas), Cuban League lifetime leader in batting average. Bjarkman Collection

Rare game-worn national team jersey of legendary Cuban manager Servio Borges, worn at Amateur World Series (World Cup) XIX in Havana (1971). Bjarkman Collection

Game-worn national team jersey of veteran shortstop and national team captain Eduardo Paret (Villa Clara). Bjarkman Collection

National team jersey of veteran catcher Ariel Pestano (Villa Clara). Bjarkman Collection

Sydney (2000) Olympics national team jersey of second baseman Juan Padilla (Industriales). Bjarkman Collection

Cuban League all-star team jersey worn by Kendry Morales in exhibition game between Cuban All-Star Game champions Occidentales and Mexican League All-Stars (2002). Bjarkman Collection

National team jersey of slugging infielder Yulieski Gourriel (Sancti Spiritus), considered by BASEBALL AMERICA to be the top WBC prospect not under MLB contract. Bjarkman Collection

Signed national team jersey of speedy outfielder Yasser Gomez (Industriales). Bjarkman Collection

Game-worn national team jersey of third baseman Michel Enriquez (Isla de la Juventud), owner of the third highest career batting average (.363) in Cuban League history. Bjarkman Collection

Game-worn national team jersey of star outfielder Freddie Cepeda (Sancti Spiritus), worn at the 2005 World Cup in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Bjarkman Collection

Game-worn red national team jersey of slugging outfielder Freddie Cepeda (Sancti Spiritus). Bjarkman Collection

Since my original posting about Cuban League websites about a month ago, both main league websites have undergo redesign and (in one case) an address change. The USA-based league website (www.baseballdecuba.com) has a new and exciting look and remains an especially valuable resource for Florida-based followers of Cuban baseball since its .com address (unlike .cu addresses) is not being jammed in the Florida area and thus remains accessible here in the "land of the free". The newly revamped Radio COCO site has a beautiful new design and features considerable information on Cuban national team players not found in other locations. This site now has a new address (www.radiococo.cu/cocobeisbol/sitio%20principal.htm) and infortunately is not available in the Florida region of the USA where baseball information out of Cuba is still being censored for political reasons. But fans elsewhere in the US can open the cite, which is an especially valuable source this summer and fall with Pan American Games (July 14-19), World Port Tournament (August 2-12) and World Cup XXXVII (November, Taipei) events on the horizon. This site will be the best source for fans of international baseball wishing to follow this year's major world tournaments. Both Cuban League sites can also be reached by links found on my website at www.bjarkman.com.

Game-worn WBC jersey of bullpen ace Yadir Pedroso (Habana Province). Bjarkman Collection

Game-worn WBC jersey of bullpen catcher Roger Machado (Ciego de Avila). Bjarkman Collection

Game-worn WBC jersey of reserve outfielder Leslie Anderson (Camaguey). Bjarkman Collection

Game-worn WBC jersey of reliever Yosvani Perez (Cienfuegos), runner-up for the 2006 Cuban League ERA title. Bjarkman Collection

This jersey worn by Pedro Lazo for the final out of the most important win in Cuban baseball history (WBC semi-final triumph over the Dominican Republic) is a prized feature of the Bjarkman Collection.

Baseball--as a game based in history and nostalgia--has its inordinate number of passionate collectors who hoard a wide variety of trinkets derived from the game. Some chase balls batted into the grandstands or over fences, many beg for signatures of worshipped ballplayers, others squirrel away cardboard images of favored athletes. It all seems to give rooters ownership of a piece of the game and to bring them a bit closer to the on-field action, present or past. My own collecting passion rests with game-worn jerseys. But not the jerseys that most ballfans might seek out. My own personal collection, amassed over the past decade, consists of more than 100 game-worn shirts from the island of Cuba and the post-revolution Cuban League. This includes national team shirts, jerseys of teams in the Cuban League itself (1960s through 2000s), and jerseys from Team Cuba in the MLB World Baseball Classic. The collection is intended for eventual donation to a projected future Cuban Baseball Hall of Fame targetted for Matanzas, the fabled birthplace of island baseball.

Details about this collection can be found on my website at www.bjarkman.com. I have also included several photo albums of prized Cuban jerseys on this blog site. I am always happy to answer questions about Cuban League and Cuban national team jerseys from fans who may be attempting to identify or authenticate particular post-1962 Cuban League game-worn uniforms. I don't sell jerseys and I rarely buy them either, most of my collection coming directly from ballplayers and other contacts during my numerous research visits to the island.

Game-worn WBC jersey of first baseman and Cuban League home run champion Joan Carlos Pedroso (Las Tunas). Bjarkman Collection

Game-worn WBC jersey of left-handed reliever Yulieski Gonzalez (Habana Province). Bjarkman Collection

Game-worn WBC jersey of veteran outfielder Carlos Tabares (Industriales). Bjarkman Collection

Game-worn WBC jersey of right-handed starter (and opener of the Gold Medal game) Ormari Romero (Santiago de Cuba). Bjarkman Collection

Game-worn WBC jersey of reserve infielder/shortstop Rudy Reyes (Industriales). Bjarkman Collection

Game-worn WBC jersey of right-handed starter (winner of key game with Puerto Rico) Vicyohandri Odelin (Camaguey). Bjarkman Collection

Game-worn WBC jersey of southpaw reliever Norberto Gonzalez (Cienfuegos). Bjarkman Collection

Game-worn WBC jersey of reserve shortstop Juan Carlos Moreno (Isla de la Juventud). Bjarkman Collection

Game-worn WBC jersey of star switch-hitting outfielder Frederich Cepeda (Sancti Spiritus). Bjarkman Collection

Game-worn WBC (semi-finals game) jersey of ace reliever Pedro Luis Lazo (Pinar del Rio). Bjarkman Collection