ABSTRACT
Every morning, Manolo begins his day by dressing in slacks and guayabera, the tropical version of a dress shirt, and downs his coffee, a concoction closer to espresso than anything else, as the sounds of Havana rise to his third-story apartment. He leaves his apartment between ten and noon, descends the decaying marble staircase of his building and walks the three blocks to Parque Central where he argues baseball with other men gathered there. Manolo is a white-haired, spry, bespectacled man in his late seventies. 1 He is a proud man who supported the Revolution when it came 40 years ago and continues to be proud to be Cuban. As long as it is not raining, he meets other men, some have been friends for decades while others are younger men unknown to him, who come to the central square of Parque Central in Havana. Within direct sight of a statue honouring José Martí, the father of Cuban independence, and of the multitudes of tourists streaming in search of Cuban treasures, Manolo meets these other men to discuss the state of baseball, sport and current events. He spends the entire afternoon there if the conversation or people interest him, or as little as an hour if nothing piques his imagination. While almost any topic can be the focal point of discussion on a given day, the consensus among Manolo and his companions is that they meet to ‘argue baseball’.
