Sports and Fights

I know I haven´t even mentioned it yet, but baseball is fricken huge in Cuba. You all probably know that already. It´s like a religion. But I haven´t said anything about it because there hasn´t been any games until Sunday, which was the first game of the inter-Cuba playoffs. I went, it was super-fun. First of all, tickets are only 1 peso, about 5 cents. And every ticket is for whereever you want to sit, there aren´t more expensive seats or anything. There are nicer seats, but to get those you just have to come early. Some people get to the stadium about 5 hours earlier! But seating is still regulated, because they don´t let you sit in any of the outfield seats until the infield seats are filled. It´s kind of weird, but we are in a socialist country. So when they open these seats, there is a mad dash to get the ¨best¨seats, the ones where you might catch a homerun ball. People are literally sprinting around the stadium. Of course, the game starts about an hour or two late, but it´s worth the wait. I don´t really watch much baseball in the US, but I think comparatively, these guys were really good and the game was really exciting. The game was Havana versus Santiago, the two best teams. Havana started off really strong, but then the pitcher lost his touch, was quickly taken out, and then Santiago got 4 homeruns in one inning. Havana never really regained their cool, and they lost the game 6-3. It was kind of weird because they seemed so seasoned and talented, and then they let a couple of runs shake them up. But my favorite part of all this was that every now and then, a couple fans would get into a heated argument/fight. When this happened, they would stand up to enhance their argument, then the people around them would stand up, and pretty soon the whole section of the stands would be on their feet, trying to see what was happening. It was like meerkats.

The other sporting event I attended this past week was a soccer game between the law school and the history department (my department). The University of Havana has teams and they play other schools occasionally, but it´s not as extensive a system as big universities in the US. But occasionally, they´ll have inter-department games in a couple different sports, like this week. ´The system is a little like intramural games, but with a bit more talent and seriousness. It was a decent game, but the crowd was crazy as usual. No one really cared about the outcome, I think they just like yelling and being belligerent. As a result there was two fights in about 15 minutes! In the first, my friend Feliz had literally just arrived, but immediately began screaming insults about the law school team. I don´t even know how it happened, but all of a sudden Felix grabbed a shoe and started trying to hit this law student in the stands. It was broken up immediately, but they still kept trying to go after each other. Very exciting. Then the game actually ended in a HUGE brawl on the field. I didn´t see how it started, but I´m guessing it was because this guy Armando was being a jackass. He plays for the law school, and he has a habit of telling everyone what to do. So this kid started pummeling him. And pretty soon, more people started fighting, I don´t know why. It was crazy. So this lasted for maybe 10 minutes and obviously, there was no more game, even though the score was 1 to 1.