BBC Four: Did you find your opinion of Castro changed as you learnt more about his love of baseball?
Manuel Martín Cuenca: Definitely not. I don't know if he loves baseball. I don't know to what degree he is sincere or just a political manipulator of the sport. It didn't soften my heart to see Castro with a bat and a ball. Personally, I don't like Fidel. I like the revolution. Fidel has appropriated himself of the revolution, of the illusion, of the dream. All the good things that the revolution has, he wants to take them down with him to his tomb, as if he was a pharaoh.
BBC Four: Did you have any trouble tracking down the old Cuban players that you interviewed?
MMC: None. We had an intense collaboration in Cuba with the Institute of Sports and the Institute of Cinema. They facilitated a lot of contacts. The old baseball players were a personal lesson in humility and experience. They received us in their houses, with a coffee and a bit of rum. They were part of Cuba's history, they made it with their hands and they felt proud of it. They are magnificent. I don't have any other words that define them better.
BBC Four: We see empty stadiums at one point in the film. Do you think baseball will continue to be popular in Cuba?
MMC: Of course it will. Cuba is baseball. It was baseball before the revolution, it was baseball after the revolution and it will continue to be so for many years. Besides, in Cuba people love baseball in a very healthy way - and I believe that was given to them by the revolution. It doesn't have the economic pervasion that we have reached in the west. Here everything is an economic instrument and therefore political as well. In Cuba the political aspect is more obvious and therefore less profound. There, they are like children playing, they are more innocent. And they don't have to assist to the shame of having a sportsman charging $10 million.
BBC Four: Are you surprised that many of the Cubans players aren't tempted by the millions of dollars offered by American teams?
MMC: No I'm not. Not everyone is exclusively moved by money and in Cuba even less. Cuban sportsmen have houses that are given to them by the state, they have a pretty decent salary, medicine, education for their children. They are famous there, they have the glory and many of them are sincere revolutionaries who believe in their system. No one forces them to stay. Of course there are many who want to leave the country and I respect them for it. I'm sure that the great majority that leave don't do it only because of money, but because they want to prove themselves in the best league in the world or because they do not agree with the political regime of their country.
The American journalists that go to Cuba always summarise everything in terms of money, and how much sportsmen earn. What is always forgotten is that the revolution, the dream of the revolution, that of changing the world to make it more fair and just, has had a great impact in Cuba's consciousness. Maybe the dream failed, but the dream existed.
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