Cuba's All-Stars

The umpires pause after the third inning, and a master of ceremonies appears at home plate to introduce the 1978 national team and, one by one, the local Communist Party officials. Then play resumes. This Tuesday night game is significant not only because of the presence of Linares and Lazo but because the baseball season, begun amid fan disgust and hints of corruption, has once again excited the country with its verve, heroics, and red-hot rivalry.

Pinar del Rio wins the game 4 to 1, and by the time fans throughout the nation sip their Wednesday morning coffee, word has spread of Linares's return and the unstoppable Pinar del Rio nine.

PLAY BALL WHERE TO ROOT IN THE CARIBBEAN AND MEXICO

By Milton Jamail

White the United States and Cuba are still negotiating an exchange of exhibition games with the Baltimore Orioles, travelers already have opportunities to see Cuban baseball. Between mid-October and the end of April, visitors can attend games at Havana's Estadio Latinoamericano, the home field for the two capital-based teams. Games are prayed five days a week in Havana but less often in the fourteen other cities where teams are located. Check the government newspaper Granma for schedules. Tickets for tourists are $3. Cuba's national team, featuring the best prayers from the winter season, participates in the Pan American Games, which this year will be herd in Winnipeg, Canada, from July 24 through August 2. The competition will include teams from other Latin American countries and the United States.

In the late nineteenth century, Cubans introduced baseball to the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Venezuela, and professional leagues have existed in all those nations for more than fifty years. The region's best baseball is prayed during the winter months because the top native prayers, such as Juan Gonzalez from Puerto Rico, the 1998 American League's Most Valuable Prayer, and Sammy Sosa from the Dominican Republic, the 1998 National League's Most Valuable Prayer, both pray in the U.S. major leagues during the spring and summer months.

Winter league professional baseball is played from mid-October to the end of January in the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Venezuela. The champions of these four leagues meet in early February each year for the Caribbean Seres. The teams include the best young prayers from each nation, supplemented by a few U.S. players. Occasionally players such as Juan Gonzalez or his Texas Ranger teammate Ivan Rodriguez return home to play, although U.S. organizations would like their stars to take the winter off. The quality of pray is very good, and the crowds are enthusiastic.

There are teams in such cities as Santo Domingo and La Romana in the Dominican Republic, Mazatlan, Mexico; San Juan, Puerto Rico; and Caracas and Puerto La Cruz in Venezuela. Tickets are generally inexpensive and readily available. Government tourist offices in these countries can usually supply competition schedules. Coverage of winter league baseball--including league standings, statistical leaders, and features on players--can be found in two publications available in the United States, USA Today Baseball Weekly and the biweekly Baseball America.