I reached for my kodak, then restrained the impulse. A camera is of little use at a Cuban ball game. Only a recording phonograph could catch its chief novelties. An uproar as incessant as that of a rolling-mill drowned every individual sound. It was not merely the venders of “El escor oficial,” of sandwiches, lottery-tickets, cigars, cigarettes, of bottled beer by the basketful, who created the hubbub; the spectators themselves made most of it. The long, two-story grandstand behind us was packed with Cubans of every shade from ebony black to the pasty white of the tropics, and every man of them seemed to be shouting at the top of his well-trained lungs. I say “man” advisedly, for with the exception of my wife there were just three women present, and they had the hangdog air of culprits. Scores of them were on their feet, screaming at their neighbors and waving their hands wildly in the air. An uninformed observer would have supposed that the entire throng was on the verge of a free-for-all fight, instead of enjoying themselves in the Cuban’s chief pastime.
“Which do you like best, baseball or bull-fights?” I shouted to my neighbor on the left. He was every inch a Cuban, by birth, environment, point of view, in his very gestures, and he spoke not a word of English. Generations of Spanish ancestry were plainly visible through his grayish features; I happened to know that he had applauded many a torero in the days before the rule of Spain and “the bulls” had been banished together. Yet he answered instantly:
“Baseball by far; and so do all Cubans.”
But baseball, strictly speaking, is not what the Cuban enjoys most. It is rather the gambling that goes with it. Like every sport of the Spanish-speaking race, with the single exception of bull-fighting, baseball to the great majority is merely a pretext for betting. The throng behind us was everywhere waving handsful of money, real American money, for Cuba has none of her own larger than the silver dollar. Small wonder the bills are always ragged and worn and half obliterated, for they were constantly passing, like crumpled waste-paper, from one sweaty hand to another. The Platt Amendment showed incomplete knowledge of Cuban conditions when it decreed the use of American money on the island; it should have gone further and ordered the bills destined for Cuba to be made of linoleum. Bets passed at the speed of sleight-of-hand performances. The fanáticos bet on every swing of the batter’s club, on every ball that rose into the air, on whether or not a runner would reach the next base, on how many fouls the inning would produce. Most of the wagers passed so quickly that there was no time for the actual exchange of money. A flip of the fingers or a nod of the head sufficed to arrange the deal. There were no dividing lines either of color or distance. Full-fledged Africans exchanged wagers with men of pure Spanish blood. Cabalistic signs passed between the grandstand and the sort of royal box high above. Across the field the crowded sol, as the Cuban calls the unshaded bleachers, in the vocabulary of the bull-ring, was engaged in the same money-waving turmoil. The curb market of New York is slow, noiseless, and phlegmatic compared with a ball-game in Havana.
Close in front of us other venders of the mysterious little envelopes wandered back and forth, seldom attempting to make themselves heard above the constant din. Here and there a spectator exchanged a crumpled, almost illegible dollar bill for one of the sealed sobres. My neighbor on the left bought one and held it for some time between his ringed fingers. When at last a runner reached first base he tore the envelope open. It contained a tiny slip of paper on which was typewritten “1a base; 1a carrera” (1st base; 1st run). The purchaser swore in Spanish with artistic fluency. I asked the reason for his wrath. He displayed the typewritten slip and grumbled “mala suerte”; then, noting my puzzled expression, explained his “bad luck” in the patient voice of a man who found it strange that an American should not understand his own national game.
“This envelope, which is bought and sold ‘blind’—that is, neither I nor the man who sold it to me knew what was in it—is a bet that the first run will be made by a first baseman, of either side. But the man who has just reached first base is the rrri’ fiel’, and the first baseman is the man who struck out just before him. If he had made the first run I should have won eight dollars. But you see what chance he has now to make the first carrera. Cursed bad luck!”
“Rrri’ fiel’,” however, “died” in a vain attempt to steal third base, and his partner from the opposite corner of the garden was the first man to cross the home-plate. Instantly a cry of “Lef’ fiel’” rose above the hubbub and the erstwhile venders of envelopes began paying the winners. A lath-like individual, half Chinaman, half negro, whom the fanáticos called “Chino,” took charge of the section about us, and handed eight greasy bills to all those whom luck had favored, tucking the winning slips of paper into a pocket of his linen coat. But these simple little wagers were only for “pikers.” There were men behind us who, though they looked scarcely capable of paying for their next meal, were stripping twenty and even fifty dollar bills off the rolls clutched in their sweaty hands and distributing them like so many handbills.
The game itself was little different from one at home. The Cuban players varied widely in color, from the jet-black third baseman to a shortstop of rice-powder complexion. Their playing was of high order, quite as “fast” as the average teams of our big leagues. Cubans hold several world championships in sports requiring a high degree of skill and swiftness. The umpire in his protective paraphernalia looked quite like his fellows of the North, yet behind his mask he was a rich mahogany brown. His official speech was English, but when a dispute arose he changed quickly to voluble Spanish. The “bucaneros,” as the present-day pirates who had descended upon the Cuban coast were best known locally, won the game on this occasion; but the day before they had not scored a run.
Baseball—commonly pronounced “bahseh-bahl” throughout the island—has won a firm foothold in Cuba. Boys of all colors play it on every vacant lot in Havana; it is the favorite sport of the youthful employees of every sugar estate or tobacco vega of the interior. The sporting page is as fixed a feature of the Havana newspapers as of our own dailies. Nor do the Cuban reporters yield to their fellows of the North in the use of base-ball slang. Most of their expressions are direct translations of our own vocabulary of the diamond; some of them are of local concoction. Those familiar with Spanish can find constant amusement in Havana’s sporting pages. “Fans” quite unfamiliar with the tongue would experience no great difficulty in catching the drift of the Cuban reporter, though it would be Greek to a Spaniard speaking no baseball, as a brief example will demonstrate:
EL HABANA DEJO EN BLANCO