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The Ordoņez Brigade

G-Fafif Dec 17 2014 08:24 AM

US and Cuba reportedly talking about normalizing relations. Maybe we find a shortstop that way.

G-Fafif Dec 17 2014 08:25 AM Re: The Ordoņez Brigade

BTW, I it took me 10 minutes between learning that news and applying it to baseball. Where the hell are my priorities?

Benjamin Grimm Dec 17 2014 08:26 AM Re: The Ordoņez Brigade

My first thought was travel. I'd love to be able to go to Cuba.

John Cougar Lunchbucket Dec 17 2014 08:28 AM Re: The Ordoņez Brigade

[youtube:1ly4xc1c]ZAoJoPgVG6M[/youtube:1ly4xc1c]

MFS62 Dec 17 2014 08:29 AM Re: The Ordoņez Brigade

Ben, My pal, the Canadian Blue Jays fan, vacations in Cuba every few years and loves it. But I don't believe the good intentions for a moment. I think its a Commie plot for them to get Jorge Toca back. Later

Mets – Willets Point Dec 17 2014 08:37 AM Re: The Ordoņez Brigade

Considering the history of political repression, the police state, & torture, why would Cuba want to normalize relations with the US?

Ceetar Dec 17 2014 08:41 AM Re: The Ordoņez Brigade

G-Fafif wrote: BTW, I it took me 10 minutes between learning that news and applying it to baseball. Where the hell are my priorities? Yeah, if they normalize relations, how does that affect the Cuban players? It'll probably change the way they can enter the league. But it'll also allow for better scouting of them I'd think. In the meantime, could get some cool exhibitions against Cuban teams though.

G-Fafif Dec 17 2014 08:44 AM Re: The Ordoņez Brigade

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: [youtube]ZAoJoPgVG6M[/youtube] Holy Luis Lopez, that's Gold Glove stuff!

John Cougar Lunchbucket Dec 17 2014 08:50 AM Re: The Ordoņez Brigade

Amazin'ly, it's not the only song inspired by Ordonez, as folksinger Kate Jacobs has one here: [url]http://www.katejacobsmusic.com/www.katejacobsmusic.com/home_game.html

G-Fafif Dec 17 2014 08:56 AM Re: The Ordoņez Brigade

Amazin'ly, it's not the only song inspired by Ordonez, as folksinger Kate Jacobs has one here: [url]http://www.katejacobsmusic.com/www.katejacobsmusic.com/home_game.html This one I know from, and it really is rather ballad like, which is why the title of the Isotopes' number threw me. Rey-Rey: so nice, they sing about him twice.

d'Kong76 Dec 17 2014 09:00 AM Re: The Ordoņez Brigade

I wonder what ol' Rey is up to... he really did fall off the map. Mets – Willets Point wrote: Considering the history of political repression, the police state, & torture, why would Cuba want to normalize relations with the US? *chortle* *chortle*

Mets Guy in Michigan Dec 17 2014 09:00 AM Re: The Ordoņez Brigade

Mets – Willets Point wrote: Considering the history of political repression, the police state, & torture, why would Cuba want to normalize relations with the US? I think a couple weeks in Cuba, away from what the government lets tourists see, would redefine what you think is real oppression, a real police state and real torture. I also think you'd see why Cubans are willing to leave their families and everything they have to risk their lives in barely seaworthy boats for the opportunity to wash up on our shores. There's a reason we have an immigration issue and not an emigration issue.

Edgy MD Dec 17 2014 09:11 AM Re: The Ordoņez Brigade

Cuba may certainly be torturing and repressing at a higher rate, but it doesn't make what the US does at the southeastern end of the island any less real.

batmagadanleadoff Dec 17 2014 09:23 AM Re: The Ordoņez Brigade

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: [youtube]ZAoJoPgVG6M[/youtube] The only reason they named a song after Rey is because they're too young to have seen Rey play.

d'Kong76 Dec 17 2014 09:38 AM Re: The Ordoņez Brigade

And I can't find no one to relate Because I'm still batting .188 Oh man I just ain't no good at the plate

batmagadanleadoff Dec 17 2014 09:42 AM Re: The Ordoņez Brigade

d'Kong76 wrote: And I can't find no one to relate Because I'm still batting .188 Oh man I just ain't no good at the plate I shoulda listened all the way through. The Ballad of Rey Ordonez -- The Isotopes I left my kids behind And I left my wife alone Hopped a cyclone fence into Buffalo And I don't wanna talk about it Now I'm making highlights Like nobody's ever seen But if the team ain't winning they take it out on me And I don't wanna talk about it 'Cause I'm the Cuban Missile baby But I just can't get no respect Because I can't find a way to connect They walk the pitcher when I'm on deck And I'm the Cuban Missile child And I can't find no one to relate Because I'm still batting .188 Oh man I just ain't no good at the plate Now my career is tanking And my contract is up for sale But I can't go back home or they'll put me in jail And I don't wanna talk about it I'm hated in New York now And Tampa didn't work out No love in old Chicago No luck in San Diego More bad news in Seattle And Havana is so far away now

Centerfield Dec 17 2014 10:06 AM Re: The Ordoņez Brigade

G-Fafif wrote: BTW, I it took me 10 minutes between learning that news and applying it to baseball. Where the hell are my priorities? For real. Cigars first. Baseball second. Duh.

Mets – Willets Point Dec 17 2014 10:46 AM Re: The Ordoņez Brigade

I miss the Rey Ordonez Deathwatch web page.

Frayed Knot Dec 17 2014 10:50 AM Re: The Ordoņez Brigade

So does this thaw mean that Castro finally admits his culpability in the JFK assassination?

Centerfield Dec 17 2014 10:51 AM Re: The Ordoņez Brigade

Mets – Willets Point wrote: I miss the Rey Ordonez Deathwatch web page. Can you imagine how simple the Great Rey Debates would have been if WAR was around then?

d'Kong76 Dec 17 2014 10:53 AM Re: The Ordoņez Brigade

Don't start, CF

themetfairy Dec 17 2014 11:03 AM Re: The Ordoņez Brigade

Benjamin Grimm wrote: My first thought was travel. I'd love to be able to go to Cuba. Me too.

Mets – Willets Point Dec 17 2014 08:16 PM Re: The Ordoņez Brigade

Expansion team in Havana. Road trips for Mets games.

Frayed Knot Dec 17 2014 08:24 PM Re: The Ordoņez Brigade

Cab it to the game in a 1950s era Chevy

Ashie62 Dec 17 2014 09:32 PM Re: The Ordoņez Brigade

Best Cuban athlete? Boxer Teofilo Stevenson.

G-Fafif Dec 18 2014 09:46 AM Re: The Ordoņez Brigade

George Vecsey, visitor to Cuba in 1991, on the news from 2014. When I was in Cuba in 1991, aging baseball fans asked about the old Cleveland Indians and Chicago White Sox. How was Bob Feller? How was Al Lopez? They were polishing ancient memories the way they maintained vintage 1950’s cars. They loved the game itself, debated the strategy of their national teams, held on to the history of the old banished professional clubs like Almendares of Havana. This was their national sport, brought there in the 1860’s by Cubans named Guillo who had worked in Mobile, Ala., and nourished by Esteban Bellan who played for Fordham University and the old professional Troy Haymakers. Later, Americans came for the Spanish-American War and played baseball in their leisure time. Baseball is now part of the patrimony. In the inescapable age of the Web and videos, information crackling over the narrow sea between Florida and Cuba, fans know that Yasiel Puig and Aroldis Chapman have made it big in the major leagues. Is there more where they came from? This is the first question people ask of a sports columnist who went to Cuba for the 1991 Pan-American Games and has kept up on it ever since. Perhaps the national baseball treasures would be the most desired product in Cuba (although, as Rachel Maddow pointed out, Cuban-trained ballet dancers are in demand all over the U.S.) The level of potential major-league talent may be very thin. Plus, it’s really not important. What matters is that Cubans have been starved by the block-headed policies of Fidel and the follies of American leaders. Now President Obama is bringing rationality to half a century of mutual apartheid. Cubans have been living in many forms of poverty. I got the feel in 1991, including a trip to the Bay of Pigs. *- I discovered I could buy items like shampoo – shampoo! – in a dollar store to which I had access because of my journalist credential for the Pan-American Games. *- A well-placed Cuban, volunteering as a journalistic resource, admitted to not minding a hot shower in a hotel. *- Our interpreter, who spoke perfect English, had to wait for two straggling buses to get home after a 12-hour day. We had to persuade her to take a cab we provided. My talented new friends were strangers in their own land. Never underestimate the anger in the aging Cuban-Americans, now surfacing. But life goes on. Surely, there are more players like Minnie Miņoso and Tony Pérez in Cuba. But more important, there are people who need nourishment and work and hope. And shampoo. And visas to travel across the narrow sea -- not in a flimsy boat like Orlando Hernandez, El Duque, but in something safe. Baseball is the least of it.

Mets – Willets Point Dec 18 2014 10:47 AM Re: The Ordoņez Brigade

fans know that Yasiel Puig and Aroldis Chapman have made it big in the major leagues. Is there more where they came from? If there are, we may witness a Bay of Puigs Invasion.