cuba Page 2 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Red Sox Sign Rusney Castillo, Proving It's A Good Time To Be A Defector
MLB.com's Jesse Sanchez is reporting that the Boston Red Sox have reached a deal to sign Cuban outfielder Rusney Castillo to a six-year, $72 million deal. Baseball is officially in the golden age of Cuban defectors....

In Search Of Cuba's Best Boxer, Who Betrayed His Country
Excerpted from Brin-Jonathan Butler's new Kindle Single, A Cuban Boxer's Journey: Guillermo Rigondeaux, from Castro's Traitor to American Champion, which is available now on Amazon. Annotations from the author appear throughout. This story originally appeared at Sports on Earth....

Life, Death, And Yasiel Puig: <em>LA Mag</em>'s Jesse Katz Is Here To Chat
Los Angeles Magazine's Jesse Katz, who wrote that great story on Yasiel Puig's defection from Cuba—you can get a refresher here—is in the comments below, ready to take your questions. Follow Jesse on Twitter @byjessekatz, stop by his website, and/or check out his book The Opposite Field, a memoir on...

Yasiel Puig's Defection Story Is Crazier Than You Could Imagine
Over at Los Angeles Magazine, Jesse Katz has a story in which he attempts to reconstruct Yasiel Puig's journey from Cuba to the major leagues, which you should absolutely make some time to read in full. It's a great story full of scenes that feel ripped straight from a screenplay, but above all it r...

Watch This Baseball Player Try To Murder A Pitcher During A Brawl
Last night, there was a ballgame in Cuba, between Matanzas and Villa Clara. Mantazas took a 3-0 lead after a solo home run in the 7th inning, and then shit got ridiculous....

Was Diana Nyad's Cuba-To-Florida Swim Legit? Haters Want To Know.
Proving once again that no significant achievement becomes official until it's picked apart by people on the internet, Diana Nyad's historic swim from Havana to Key West is now coming under fire....

Diana Nyad Completes Cuba-To-Florida Swim, Is Better Than Us
Diana Nyad became the first person ever to complete the swim from Cuba to Florida without a shark cage on Monday, because she is not human....


Where Yasiel Puig Comes From
A couple of months before Yasiel Puig announced himself with three hits and a game-ending Scud missile launched from the warning track in right field in my hometown of Los Angeles, I found myself in his: Cienfuegos, Cuba....

Cuba Libre
Check out "Kids Not Poor in Spirit," a story about pickup baseball in Havana written by Bonnie DeSimone for the Chicago Tribune back in 1998:...

Here's A Japanese Announcer Calling The Netherlands' Upset Over Cuba, Because International Baseball Is Awesome
I will admit to having been a WBC Doubting Thomas. Even as the first two editions produced their share of exciting moments, there was no lasting image, or huge shake-up of the baseball hierarchy. This year, though? I take back every use of the word "exhibition." Between the U.S.'s two stirring comeb...

Google Translating WBC Coverage: The Medieval War's Pitchers Can Not Stop Cuba's Gunfire
Cuba demolished Chinese Taipei on Saturday, eliminating Taiwan from the World Baseball Classic, by a score of 14-0. three Cuban pitchers held Chinese Taipei to just three hits. The game ended under the mercy rule in the seventh, following an eight-run sixth inning for Cuba. According to Google Tran...

South Korean Pro Team Cancels WBC Exhibition Against Cuba Because The Cubans Brought Weird Balls
Mildly scandalous behavior continues to plague the run-up to the World Baseball Classic. Yesterday, we had Taiwanese scouts disguising themselves as umpires and infiltrating a South Korean exhibition, and today we have a South Korean pro team refusing to play against the Cuban national team because...

Pole Vaulter Realizes It's Not His Day As His Pole Shatters Mid-Vault
Cuba Lazaro Borges finished second in the world at last year's championships. But when he cleared 5.90 in South Korea, presumably he did it with a pole that didn't snap into three pieces underneath him....

The Happiest Man In The World: Teófilo Stevenson And Cuba's Lost Fighters
Teófilo Stevenson won his first Olympic gold medal in 1972 and his last world amateur championship in 1986. He won 302 fights and once went an unbelievable 11 years without a loss. Had Cuba not boycotted the 1984 Summer Olympics, many think Stevenson would have won an unmatched four gold medals in...

Ozzie Guillen Said Something Crazy About Fidel Castro
Ozzie Guillén said he loved Fidel Castro. Can you believe it? Guillén said he respects Fidel Castro. Are you hearing this? In Miami, with a large demographic of people who have fled Cuba to get away from Castro, people are losing their shit. Or, at least, we are being told that people are losing th...

If You Have Front-Row Seats At An Indians-Sox Game, What Else Are You Going To Do But Shotgun Beers?
Your morning roundup for May 25, the day we were "spoon-fed gold leaf and pharmaceutical cocaine by Ferran Adria himself." Image courtesy tipster Rosina....

Finally, A Basebrawl With Two Separate Felony Assaults
How often does SportsCenter tease a bench-clearing brawl, only to disappoint you when it turns out the hitter doesn't chase the pitcher into the outfield with his bat? Here's one that lives up to the promise inherent in every beanball....

Cuban Baseball Defector Already Fitting In Nicely
Aroldis Chapman's agents have been showing the Cuban baseball phenom the sights and sounds of America. And he likes what he sees! Either they just posted Facebook pictures from a strip club or Boston is unseasonably warm right now. [BigLeagueStew/BustedCoverage]...
