Fidel Castro did not enjoy the World Baseball Classic

Posted By Joshua Keating Tuesday, March 24, 2009 - 1:45 PM Share

We know that Fidel Castro really loves baseball. We also know that he really hates losing. But even so, he seems to have taken Cuba's elimination by Japan from the World Baseball Classic pretty hard. First there was this self-flagellating column from last Friday, praising the "technical and scientific" advancement of Asian baseball and berating his own team's coaches:

I should point out that the team leadership in San Diego was abysmal. The old criteria of well-trodden paths prevailed against a capable adversary who is constantly innovating.

We must learn the relevant lessons.

In a weird psuedo-Maoist moment, Cuba's players were instructed to study the column and "systematically evaluate" Castro's writing upon their return to Havana.

Then in a column yesterday (written before Japan's eventual win) he declared that the results proved that the contest had been "organized by those who run the exploitation of sports in the United States" because Cuba had been placed in the same division as eventual finalists South Korea and Japan. (He actually kind of has a point about that.)

If anyone should be humiliated by how the WBC turned out, it's those overpaid capitalist stooges the Dominicans, not Cuba. As he did after the Olympics, Castro seems strangely focused on the negative but I guess that's just blogger Fidel doing his thing.

Speaking of blogger Fidel, this piece about Rahm Emanuel from February is kind of how I would imagine Gabriel Garcia Marquez would write after a 36-hour Robitussin binge.

JUAN BARRETO/AFP/Getty Images

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