The games took us from Alabama to Texas. It was the first time I was truly exposed to the rest of America. Up to that point, I lived mainly in an immigrant environment, surrounded by the smells of Cuban food and listening to the beat of Cuban music. Clearly, I was dealing with kids in school who were not Cuban—even though I was apparently fighting them most of the time! Some of my non-Cuban classmates did live in the same neighborhood, but I wasn’t being invited over to Johnny’s house for meatloaf and mashed potatoes. So the baseball tour exposed me to a larger view of America. When I look back, I’m struck that it was 1967 and there I was in Birmingham, Alabama, playing baseball in close proximity to Dr. King’s march for justice and equality.
We stayed at the homes of our host teams. As a result, I learned that Americans had eggs and ham or bacon and muffins for breakfast. This was a real culture shock. In my family, breakfast consisted of just coffee with milk and Cuban toast—that’s it. What I was eating for breakfast in those homes in Alabama was what we would be lucky to have for dinner at my house. I remember laughing with my parents afterward, saying, “I love these Americans, they sure know how to eat breakfast.” Little did I know that I was putting them in an awkward spot. “Well son, we’d love to feed you that way too, but we just can’t afford it.” To this day, breakfast continues to be my favorite meal. It still consists of café con leche and Cuban toast, but it also includes eggs and ham, the best of both worlds.
Traveling with my team did a lot to expand my horizons, not just when it came to food. After playing and winning in Birmingham, we went to Kingsville, Texas, for the finals. Kingsville had a large Mexican American population that welcomed us with open arms. Because we spoke Spanish and had a strong sense of pride in our shared cultural heritage, they absolutely fell in love with us and we with them: we became “their” team. They would show up at our games, and invite us for barbecues after the game. For us, it was like, “Hey, they are just like us!”
These are the kinds of experiences that helped shape who I am today. I learned that too often people will hold opinions of others on the basis of something they have heard or read. They allow themselves to become critical of others because they sound or look different. We are all products of our own experiences in life. Regrettably, those experiences generally do not include personal exposure to other people and cultures. Traveling to Alabama and Texas did that for me, making me a better person. It also led to my future involvement in the fight for civil rights, the rights of farmworkers, and the plight of all immigrants.
By the time we reached the finals in Kingsville, our games were being broadcast in Miami in Spanish, and the local Spanish newspaper even sent a reporter to cover the finals. The games had become so popular with the local community that some estimated attendance at 10,000. Included among those attending were professional baseball scouts. We ended up undefeated, and in the process became world champions. Incidentally, in the final series game, with our team trailing 1 to 0, I hit a game-winning two-run homer.
Back home in Little Havana, our team became the rallying cry for a community desperate for some good news. On our return from Texas, thousands at Miami International Airport welcomed us. We left the airport in used Cadillac convertibles (the father of one the players ran a used car lot), and were given a ticker tape parade through Little Havana. We rode up and down Southwest Eighth Street and Flagler Street several times. During the weeks that followed, we were honored by almost every Cuban exile organization of its day, were given a key to the City of Miami, and appeared on local English language television stations. It was the Cuban community’s proudest moment during the early exile years.
This was 1967. Most of us had only been here five, six, seven years. Many in the community were still washing dishes, still struggling. There was no good news from Cuba, no prospect for a quick return, until suddenly this group of kids out of nowhere became world champions. I continued to play baseball in high school, both for the school team and for summer and evening leagues. I dreamed of playing baseball professionally; to become the Cuban Mickey Mantle. But this was very difficult for Cuban kids in my era. We had two obstacles. One was economic. Most of us had to start working at an early age in order to help our parents. The other obstacle that set back many young people during those years was drugs. It was one or the other. As I grew older and still played ball, you could begin to see a difference with the next wave of young Cuban Americans. Although younger, this group was close enough in age that we were in the same field together. Many of them went on to play college and professional baseball. Why? One reason was time. I would go to a park and see them practicing with their fathers. We were not so lucky. Our fathers were working two or three jobs and we were working too. If your father can spare the afternoon and go out with you to a park, you can continue to develop your skills. None of us had that opportunity. It was: I have to go to school and then I’m going to work. Either I dedicate myself to school and make sure that I have the grades to get into college, or I take a chance and hope to pitch in the Major Leagues someday. I chose college and law school.
We did, of course, have time for fun. My dad was very social; he loved to have people over at our house all the time. There was always some sort of gathering, a party, a barbecue on weekends. In those days, as a host, you simply couldn’t afford to supply steaks or hamburgers for everyone. Instead, guests would show up with their meal in a package and place it on the grill.
We also spent a lot of time on the beach. The beach is free. That’s one of the true benefits of living in a place like Miami: nature is free. All you had to do is pack yourself a ham sandwich, a Cawy (Cuban soda) and make a whole day out of it. Parks were important too. Because of baseball, I spent all my spare time in parks: all day Saturday, Sunday, and after school when I was finished my homework. Of course, my grandfather would drive me to and from the park. Parks were my second home, and kept me out of trouble. Had that outlet not been available, who knows? When you’re a kid and you’re idle, you’re influenced by your peers, and many of mine ended up taking the wrong road. My best friend in elementary school, who also happened to live across the street from me, would go on to become one of the most infamous drug dealers in America. Still, growing up in my type of environment, you have to learn to live and protect yourself on the streets.
MONEY WAS A RECURRING issue for my family. While growing up, we were forced to move several times, all within Little Havana. I remember the dinnertime conversation: “They’ve just raised our rent twenty-five dollars a month, so we have to find another place.” Imagine that: a twenty-five-dollar increase and we had to pack up. It was more than they could afford. With a very limited income, any increase was hard. Fortunately, our landlords were decent people; they understood my parents’ plight and tried to work with them as much as possible. They were not trying to take advantage of my parents, but increases are inevitable: taxes go up; the cost of living goes up. This is why, a year after I graduated from law school, I bought my parents their first house. I surprised my mother on her birthday with a warranty deed to the new house. Thirty years later, she still lives in the same house. She has never had to move again.
Although we were poor, poverty was not a status that dominated my formative years. In fact, I never really understood the fact that I was poor. We had a very happy home life. We were proud of what little we had and took great care to protect it. We blamed no one for our circumstance and believed that being poor was not a lifelong condition, but one of life’s challenges that we or anyone in America could overcome. I never heard my parents complain.
Through all this, my parents always emphasized education. My dad especially would drive this point home to me when I worked with him at the auto parts warehouse. We would fill orders for auto parts retailers, who were buying alternators and carburetors—nearly any car part you can imagine—and pack those parts in boxes, many of which were extremely heavy. This did not present a challenge for me. I was young, playing sports and in good physical