Don’t Forget Your Fan Card

In Cuba, in the middle of deteriorating buildings and bustling city streets, a group of intense-looking men gathers in a public park. The men look like they are about to protest.

They do protest: to one another. Actually they argue. Public displays of discontent and anger in Cuba are typically something that brings the attention of the police, Cuba being one of the last bastions of totalitarian Communism after all.

A few things are different about these protests and arguments. For one, the men are arguing about baseball. And as can only happen in places like Cuba and China, arguing on the street requires a government-issued card. The card that each of the men hold, as described in this episode of the Travel Channel’s “No Reservations,” gives them the right to congregate and argue about the sport they love.

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A coworker of mine described the episode to me today. Since I don’t watch the Travel Channel very often and she isn’t exactly glued to ESPN, I was grateful for the “lead.”

Lucky for me, the Travel Channel likes to replay shows. On Monday night, they played a “No Reservations” marathon and I got to see the show.

As the show rolls along — and it’s a really good show if you like food and travel — it’s clear that there is a disconnect between the society that tourists are shown and the normal, everyday life of a Cuban. The discussion routinely returns to how fresh fruit and vegetables are becoming more readily available. It’s 2011 and the discussion in Cuba isn’t centered on how to cook the food, but simply on the fact that there is more food now then there used to be.

The gentlemen in the park and the game of baseball are featured prominently for at least a pair of segments in the show. The arguments and discussions are rich with knowledge of both Major League Baseball and the Cuban National League. The guys are so passionate that they look like they might be the Cuban version of Fansmanship.

While their country officially calls players like Orlando Hernandez, Livan Hernandez, and Aroldis Chapman traitors, the fans in the park know better. To them, players like these are still heroes.

Through the lens of sports, a real humanity is found behind the Communist curtain in Cuba. The fire in the eyes of a Cuban baseball fan is the same as that of a British soccer fan and surely equal to a fan of the major three sports in the United States.

And while I’m glad we don’t have to be “card carrying fans” in order to legally congregate in a park to talk baseball, maybe we should think about doing so more often. Media is great for getting information quickly, but grabbing a cold beverage and sitting in the sun while talking sports is something we could all use a little more of.

Perhaps we all could use some unplugged dialog about current issues through the lens of my favorite sport more often. As fun as things like sports talk radio can be, maybe the Cubans are on to something.

Now if only this Cuban would buy my favorite baseball team… .

Hey, a kid can dream, right?