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The Duke of Havana : Baseball, Cuba, and the Search for the American Dream
Here in The Duke of Havana, for the first time and in astonishing detail, are the secrets behind El Duque's persecution and escape are revealed. Moving from the crumbling streets of post Cold War Havana to the polarized world of exile Miami, from the deadly Florida Straits to the hallowed grounds of Yankee Stadium, it is a story of cloak-and-dagger adventure, audacious secret plots, the pull of big money, and the historic collision of ideologies.
Reported in the United States and Cuba by two award-winning journalists who became part of the story they were covering, The Duke of Havana is a riveting saga of sports, politics, liberation, and greed. |
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"This (The Duke of Havana) is a true story, although even now it seems hard to believe." - Steve Fainaru & Ray Sanchez (October 2000)
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| Description |
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In 1998, a mysterious right-handed pitcher emerged from the ashes of the Cold War and helped lead the New York Yankees to a World Championship. His origins and even his age were uncertain. His name was Orlando El Duque Hernandez. He was a fallen hero of Fidel Castro's socialist revolution.
The chronicle of El Duque's triumph is at once a window into the slow death of Cuban socialism and one of the most remarkable sports stories of all time. Once hailed as a paragon of Castro's revolution, the finest pitcher in modern Cuban history was banned from baseball for life for allegedly plotting to defect. Instead of accepting his punishment, he fearlessly fought back, defying the Communist party authorities, vowing to pitch again, and ultimately fleeing his country in the bowels of a thirty-foot fishing boat.
Present throughout The Duke of Havana are the larger-than-life characters who converged at this bizarre intersection of baseball and politics: El Duque himself, Fidel Castro, the Miami sports agent Joe Cubas, the late John Cardinal O'Connor along with scouts, smugglers, and the Cuban ballplayers who gave up their lives as tools of socialism to test the free market and chase their major-league dreams.
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| Editorial Reviews |
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"Drama, romance, intrigue: all of that and more took the mound when Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez came to pitch for the Yankees in 1998. The authors, who write for the Boston Globe and New York Newsday, respectively, have fashioned a complicated and deeply political tale, untangling how El Duque made the enormous leap from Cuba, where he was banned for life from professional baseball, to the Yankees and the World Series." - Booklist
"Even readers with little interest in baseball will find this book intriguing." - Library Journal
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| Recent Reader Comments |
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"This is a great book for anyone that loves baseball or Cuban political and cultural topics." - Dane
"The Duke of Havana spins an intriguing tale of corruption, love of baseball, drama on the high seas, betrayal, love of country, and all sorts of other neat stuff." - Jay
"Read this book and you will get a history of Cuban Baseball, a touching story about the familial bond between brothers, a stirring tale of one man fighting against government oppression, a gripping read of back door intrigue worthy of Ian Fleming, and an uplifting story about one man overcoming the odds to pitch in the World Series for the New York Yankees." - Sean
"Many of the stories are heart-wrenching, as families are divided and dreams are put on hold. Most interesting, though, are those players who remain loyal to Castro and the oppressive Cuban system." - Hank
"This book is a suspenseful, gripping narrative which delves into the political intrigue surrounding El Duque's life in Cuba and escape from the island. It is enough to make a die-hard Red Sox fan appreciate El Duque and his fellow defectors." - Thomas
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Baseball Book Shelf: The Duke of Havana
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Baseball Almanac's opinion? Five stars. If you have ever wondered about baseball in Cuba, the politics behind the signing of non-American players, or El Duque himself then The Duke of Havana is a perfect choice.
Did you know that a songwriter named Los Van Van wrote a dance track called Nothing's Wrong with El Duque? The chorus went as follows:
Look, Negro you're a ghost
'Cause you're burned up
You got torched, burned up!
All Havana says so
The talk is everywhere
Without thinking I approached her
Come here, touch me and see
I've got a lot of fight yet in me
Nothing's wrong with El Negro
Orlando Hernandez finished his career in Cuba with one-hundred twenty-nine wins, forty-seven losses, a 3.05 earned run average, one-hundred eighty-seven games started, seventy-five complete games, nine saves, 1,514.1 innings pitched, one-thousand three-hundred thirty-nine hits allowed, five-hundred thirteen earned runs allowed, four-hundred fifty-five walks, and one-thousand two-hundred eleven strikeouts.
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