Get Free Ebook The Pride of Havana: A History of Cuban Baseball, by Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria
Be the first to obtain this e-book now and obtain all reasons why you need to review this The Pride Of Havana: A History Of Cuban Baseball, By Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria Guide The Pride Of Havana: A History Of Cuban Baseball, By Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria is not just for your duties or necessity in your life. E-books will certainly constantly be a buddy in every single time you read. Now, let the others learn about this web page. You could take the advantages and discuss it likewise for your close friends as well as individuals around you. By in this manner, you could truly obtain the meaning of this publication The Pride Of Havana: A History Of Cuban Baseball, By Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria profitably. Exactly what do you assume concerning our concept here?
The Pride of Havana: A History of Cuban Baseball, by Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria
Get Free Ebook The Pride of Havana: A History of Cuban Baseball, by Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria
How if your day is started by checking out a publication The Pride Of Havana: A History Of Cuban Baseball, By Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria However, it is in your gizmo? Everybody will certainly still touch and us their gizmo when getting up as well as in early morning tasks. This is why, we intend you to also review a book The Pride Of Havana: A History Of Cuban Baseball, By Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria If you still confused ways to obtain guide for your gizmo, you can adhere to the method here. As here, our company offer The Pride Of Havana: A History Of Cuban Baseball, By Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria in this internet site.
To get over the issue, we now offer you the innovation to obtain guide The Pride Of Havana: A History Of Cuban Baseball, By Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria not in a thick published file. Yeah, checking out The Pride Of Havana: A History Of Cuban Baseball, By Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria by on-line or obtaining the soft-file only to read could be one of the means to do. You may not really feel that reviewing a book The Pride Of Havana: A History Of Cuban Baseball, By Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria will certainly serve for you. However, in some terms, May individuals successful are those that have reading routine, included this sort of this The Pride Of Havana: A History Of Cuban Baseball, By Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria
By soft documents of guide The Pride Of Havana: A History Of Cuban Baseball, By Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria to check out, you could not should bring the thick prints almost everywhere you go. Any kind of time you have going to check out The Pride Of Havana: A History Of Cuban Baseball, By Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria, you can open your gizmo to review this publication The Pride Of Havana: A History Of Cuban Baseball, By Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria in soft data system. So simple and rapid! Reviewing the soft data e-book The Pride Of Havana: A History Of Cuban Baseball, By Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria will certainly give you easy method to review. It can also be much faster due to the fact that you could review your book The Pride Of Havana: A History Of Cuban Baseball, By Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria anywhere you desire. This online The Pride Of Havana: A History Of Cuban Baseball, By Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria can be a referred book that you can take pleasure in the remedy of life.
Considering that book The Pride Of Havana: A History Of Cuban Baseball, By Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria has fantastic advantages to check out, many individuals now expand to have reading practice. Assisted by the industrialized modern technology, nowadays, it is easy to purchase the e-book The Pride Of Havana: A History Of Cuban Baseball, By Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria Even guide is not alreadied existing yet in the marketplace, you to search for in this internet site. As exactly what you can locate of this The Pride Of Havana: A History Of Cuban Baseball, By Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria It will actually reduce you to be the first one reading this e-book The Pride Of Havana: A History Of Cuban Baseball, By Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria and get the advantages.
From the first amateur leagues of the 1860s to the exploits of Livan and Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez, here is the definitive history of baseball in Cuba. Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria expertly traces the arc of the game, intertwining its heroes and their stories with the politics, music, dance, and literature of the Cuban people. What emerges is more than a story of balls and strikes, but a richly detailed history of Cuba told from the unique cultural perch of the baseball diamond.
Filling a void created by Cuba's rejection of bullfighting and Spanish hegemony, baseball quickly became a crucial stitch in the complex social fabric of the island. By the early 1940s Cuba had become major conduit in spreading the game throughout Latin America, and a proving ground for some of the greatest talent in all of baseball, where white major leaguers and Negro League players from the U.S. all competed on the same fields with the cream of Latin talent. Indeed, readers will be introduced to several black ballplayers of Afro-Cuban descent who played in the Major Leagues before Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier once and for all. Often dramatic, and always culturally resonant, Gonzalez Echevarria's narrative expertly lays open the paradox of fierce Cuban independence from the U.S. with Cuba's love for our national pastime. It shows how Fidel Castro cannily associated himself with the sport for patriotic p.r.--and reveals that his supposed baseball talent is purely mythical. Based on extensive primary research and a wealth of interviews, the colorful, often dramatic anecdotes and stories in this distinguished book comprise the most comprehensive history of Cuban baseball yet published and ultimately adds a vital lost chapter to the history of baseball in the U.S.
- Sales Rank: #1114622 in Books
- Published on: 2001-05-24
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 5.90" h x 1.00" w x 8.70" l, 1.59 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 512 pages
Amazon.com Review
The "national" in "national pastime" is a relative term in Yale literature professor and former semi-pro catcher Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria's meticulous examination of baseball in the land of his birth. A respected scholar, Echevarria is also a fan, and he manages to weave both objectivity and appreciation throughout a carefully researched and multi-layered narrative that draws from numerous first-person reminiscences. If Echevarria's prose is dry at times, it manages to cover plenty of interesting territory as he threads the game through the fabric of Cuban history, culture, and lore.
The island's romance with baseball has remarkable parallels and interconnections with America's embrace of the game. Ballplayers from the United States loved to barnstorm during the off-season in wide-open Havana, the Dodgers used to train there, the Cuban League--alums include Brooks Robinson, Tommy Lasorda, Don Hoak, and Don Zimmer--was a major force in the vibrant spread of baseball through the Caribbean, and, not surprisingly, several Major and Negro League standouts--Martin Dihigo, Bert Campaneris, Mike Cuellar, Luis Tiant, Minnie Minoso, Camilo Pascual, Tony Oliva, and, more recently, the Hernandez brothers--were stars in their homeland first. But there are also stunning and powerful differences, as stunning and powerful as the differences between the two countries since Castro's rise to power.
Castro's own obsession with the game plays prominently, though Echevarria is quick to strike out the myth that Fidel himself was once a prospect. "Let it be known here," he emphasizes, "that Fidel Castro was never scouted by any major-league team, and is not known to have enjoyed the kind of success in baseball that would have brought a scout's attention to him." He had to settle for the world's attention instead. --Jeff Silverman
From Library Journal
Echevarria, a literary critic and professor of Hispanic and comparative literature at Yale, has written a definitive cultural history of Cuban baseball from 1860 to the present. A former semi-pro catcher born and raised in Cuba, he currently plays in the Connecticut Senior Baseball League. According to Echevarria, baseball filled a void when Cuba rejected bullfighting and other Spanish influences. Despite all the political turbulence, the game has survived to become as much a part of Cuba's social fabric as soccer is for Brazil. The study features an excellent bibliography plus detailed notes for each chapter. The research is exhaustive, based on primary sources and interviews that include numerous anecdotes, making this an engaging read. Although this book is not for everyone, purists and historians of baseball will enjoy it. Buy where demand warrants.ALarry Little, Penticton P.L., B.C.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Kirkus Reviews
From the sugarmill leagues to the World Series impact of defectors like Livian Hernandez and ``El Duque,'' this is a catchers-mask view of Cuban culture and history. Gonz lez Echevarra (Hispanic and Comparative Literature/Yale; editor, The Oxford Book of Latin American Short Stories,1997) is a former semi-pro catcher who grew up with amateur baseball in Cubas sugarmill country, where it is the local religion. Even Castro couldnt dampen Cubas passion for baseball, which developed there into a patient, artistic game that disdained the American penchant for the beefy slugger and the specialist. Cultural ties with the US were tighter and international issues just as complex in pre-revolution days, when the nations were but a ferry ride apart. The name alone of a Negro League team, the New York Cubans, speaks volumes about the long influence of Cuban baseball, and the race issue, on Americas pastime. Cubans of African descent were often barred from the more professional Cuban leagues before the revolution. Gonz lez Echevarra will surprise fans with the salaries and Hall of Fame names of American ballplayers who played in Cuba (especially as minor leaguers) as early as the 1950s. By the '70s, the Cuban national team often dominated international competition. One solution by rivals was to deny them visas as Communists: ``If you cant beat them, dont let them play.'' Politics and baseball are stitched together here, and fans will find history and sports well served in a solid text covering most of this century, buttressed by research including interviews with sportscasters, managers, and players. Whether or not the authors predicted ``avalanche'' of Cuban players follows any political thaw in US-Cuban relations, his point about Cubas impact on the gameand vice versais strongly made. (20 b&w photos, not seen) -- Copyright �1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Most helpful customer reviews
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful.
Not a Fan's Book
By A Customer
While this book provides an important "scholarly" sociological study of the connections between sport (baseball), art, dance, and politics in Cuba throughout the century (as well as an engaging portrait of the author's own personal relationship with baseball in the 40s and 50s), it is far too dense and plodding in its treatment to engage most baseball fans. Also, while the author is condemnatory in his preface of others who have treated Latin baseball with a disregard for the Spanish language, he himself often mangles Spanish and English names (Gourriel/Gurriel, Ulrick/Ulrich/Ullrich, Willie/Willy Miranda, Aldolfo/Adolfo Luque, Ron/Don Blasingame, Buck O'Neill/O'Neil, Double Duty Radcliffe/Radcliff, Zavala/Zabala, Ramon/Roger Colorao/Colorado, Bustamente/Bustamante, Almendares/Almandares, Wilbur/Wilmur Fields, Franklyn/Franklin Murray, etc.) as well as historical facts (Marrero was 25 (35) in 1946, Prieto returned to Oakland in 1977 (1997), Pumpsie Green was an outfielder (infielder), the second Pan Am games were played in 1930, etc.). This is a solid book and in some places even a wonderful book. But poor editing leaves it short of a scholarly book; and the excessive emphasis on Cuban baseball during the author's own childhood (1940s and 1950s) also leaves the volume considerably short of being a definitive historical treatment of Cuban baseball.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful.
Best book on Cuban baseball!
By F. Lennox Campello
I loved this book! From the very beginning Gonzalez Echavarria had me smelling the air in a Cuban baseball satdium and feeling the tension in the crowd as the pitchers winds up.
But what this book truly delivers, is a history lesson to those who think they know Cuban baseball, which has often been "presented" through American eyes (such as PBS specials or even through Ken Burns' documentary on Baseball).
Cubans not only exported baseball through Latin America, but because of the paradox of the intense Cuban racism at the amateur level and integrated leagues at the professional level, many young black Cuban players found fame and fortune in Mexico, Venezuela, Puerto Rico and other places (including the Negro Leagues in the US), while many US professional Negro Leagues got to play alogside white US teammates in professional Cuban teams. Even the virulent Ty Cobb!
It also tells the stories of Cuban legends - such as Adolfo Luque - who played in the US Major Leagues in the 20's through the 60's - both as pitcher and manager in a time when white Cubans were allowed to play US professional baseball while their talented black countrymen couldn't.
This is a must read - from a Cuban perspective - for fans of baseball - not just Cuban baseball!
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful.
A brilliant look at sport and history in Cuba
By Andrew Mattison
Roberto Gonzalez Echavarria is fascinated by the relationship between communal cultural activities and ideology over the history of Cuba--he has published articles about dance, popular music, and of course literature. In this book he writes about baseball in Cuba, particularly its relationship with the Cuban national consciousness and the two revolutions it created. But the book also contains vivid lives, of the author himself as well as so many baseball men and baseball fans from the island of his youth, which give the book an immediacy I haven't found in any other history of Cuban culture.
The Pride of Havana: A History of Cuban Baseball, by Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria PDF
The Pride of Havana: A History of Cuban Baseball, by Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria EPub
The Pride of Havana: A History of Cuban Baseball, by Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria Doc
The Pride of Havana: A History of Cuban Baseball, by Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria iBooks
The Pride of Havana: A History of Cuban Baseball, by Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria rtf
The Pride of Havana: A History of Cuban Baseball, by Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria Mobipocket
The Pride of Havana: A History of Cuban Baseball, by Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria Kindle
