HAVANA (AP) — Conrado Marrero can still remember the crisp feeling of slipping on his Washington Senators uniform, and the surge of adrenaline he got staring down Mickey Mantle, Ted Williams and other major league batters. But the diminutive right-hander’s glory days are a world — and a revolution — away.
The Cuban pitcher who last year became the oldest living former big leaguer turned 101 on Wednesday, surrounded by family and a couple of old friends in his modest Havana apartment, the faded walls in need of paint, the spartan furniture tattered and frayed.
Marrero is hardly in better shape.
He has been confined to a wheelchair since fracturing his hip last year, is hard of hearing and can no longer see. But the man once known as “The Peasant of Laberinto,” after the central Cuban farm where he grew up, still indulges in cigars, and listens avidly to Cuban baseball on the radio.
Not bad for a man who is a year older than Boston’s iconic Fenway Park, which celebrated its centenary earlier this month.
Marrero, who was known in his major league days as Connie, speaks with pride about the five years he spent with the Senators, and he raises his voice in excitement when he recalls going against pitchers like Allie Reynolds of the Yankees or Early Wynn, who in those days played for mighty Cleveland.
Beating the Yankees, he says, was the sweetest feeling in the world.
“They were strong,” he said. “They were the best. Each batter was a struggle.”
Marrero had less good things to say about his own team, the lowly Senators, who he called “lazy” and error prone. Still, he said it was a thrill to suit up every day.
“Putting on that uniform always made me feel bigger, more powerful,” said Marrero, who in his playing days was listed as 5 feet 5 inches tall and 158 pounds. His memory often fails him, and his voice sometimes trails off in mid-thought, but Marrero grows animated when the subject turns to his sport, and he wraps his long wrinkled fingers around a baseball to demonstrate his grip.
He recalls meeting the retired Babe Ruth once in Miami, befriending Connie Mack, and sharing an elevator with Dwight Eisenhower in Washington.
As for the great hitters of his day, Marrero insists he was afraid of no one, although he admits that Williams usually got the better of him.
“One day Williams got two home runs off me, and afterward he came up to me and said ‘Sorry, it was my day today,” Marrero recalled. “I responded, ‘Ted, every day is your day.’”
Marrero doesn’t complain about money, but his circumstances are exceedingly modest compared with today’s multimillion-dollar players. The stairwell up to his second floor apartment has no lighting, and his living room is empty save for two sagging sofas and a rocking chair.
Marrero is eligible to receive a $20,000 payout granted him under a 2011 agreement between Major League Baseball and the players’ association to extend financial help to big leaguers who played between 1947 and 1979, and did not otherwise qualify for a pension. But the money has been held up for months due to the 50-year U.S. economic embargo, which makes financial transactions between the United States and Cuba extremely complicated.
Steve Rogers, a former Expos pitcher who is now an official at the Major League Baseball Players Association, told The Associated Press the payment to Marrero has been approved by the U.S. Treasury Department, which regulates trade to sanctioned countries like Cuba, but logistical problems have slowed up actually turning it over.
“They are working diligently to try to get the money to him … but it is just a question of logistics, of physically getting the money there,” he said. “We have all taken this project very personally because he is the oldest living ballplayer, and because of that he is very special. With his 101st birthday, that puts an exclamation mark on the urgency.”
Rogers said he did not have details of what was holding up the payment, but added that he was confident a solution is near. “It’s imminent,” he said.
Marrero’s grandson, Rogelio Marrero, says the problem is that direct bank transfers to Cuba are impossible, and the players’ association does not allow the money to go through an intermediary. But he, too, expresses hope the issue will be resolved soon.
Marrero, who was born in the small town of Sagua la Grande in the central Cuban province of Villa Clara, was already old when he made it to the big leagues as a 39-year-old rookie in 1950 following a standout career in Cuba. And he wasn’t your typical big leaguer either. Because of his size, he relied on control, guile and a bag full of junk pitches — curves, sliders, knuckleballs and other off-speed stuff.
He compiled a 39-40 record and a 3.67 ERA before being cut ahead of the 1955 season. Marrero was named to the 1951 All-Star team but didn’t see action. As a Senator, he played alongside Mickey Vernon and Eddie Yost, yet his teams only once finished with a winning record.
After his big league days were over, Marrero returned to the Cuban minor leagues, ending his career with the Havana Sugar Kings in 1957. Two years later, Fidel Castro’s rebels swept into power. Unlike many former big leaguers in Cuba, Marrero chose to stay, becoming a coach and roving instructor, working to develop and coach Cuban players well into his 80s.
Marrero says he doesn’t follow the majors much anymore, although he did know that 49-year-old Jamie Moyer recently became the oldest pitcher to win a game. His grandson occasionally shares with him the exploits of A’s slugger Yoenis Cespedes, who defected from Cuba last year, joining a long list of Cuban standouts that include Kendrys Morales of the Angels and Aroldis Chapman of the Reds.
Marrero listens to nearly every broadcast of Cuba’s playoffs on the radio, and he excitedly talks up youngsters he thinks have potential. “Be careful with Sancti Spiritus,” he said, saying they have a great team.
Rogers said it was somehow appropriate that the world’s oldest ballplayer was a Cuban, given the island’s contribution to America’s national pastime.
“If ever you could pinpoint a common denominator, it’s baseball. You could take all of the other issues out there that separate Cuba and the United States, but baseball is the common denominator, and having the oldest ballplayer being a Cuban and someone living in Cuba is fitting,”
Marrero, who lost his wife about 20 years ago, has four children and many more grandchildren and great grandchildren split between Cuba and the United States. He says he’s not sure how he lived so long, but he did offer one secret.
“I never had hatred for anyone,” he says. “I treated everyone equally.”
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Associated Press writer Anne Marie Garcia contributed to this report.
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Paul Haven on Twitter: www.twitter.com/paulhaven
HAVANA (AP) — Conrado Marrero can still remember the crisp feeling of slipping on his Washington Senators uniform, and the surge of adrenaline he got staring down Mickey Mantle, Ted Williams and other major league batters. But the diminutive right-hander’s glory days are a world — and a revolution — away.
The Cuban pitcher who last year became the oldest living former big leaguer turned 101 on Wednesday, surrounded by family and a couple of old friends in his modest Havana apartment, the faded walls in need of paint, the spartan furniture tattered and frayed.
Marrero is hardly in better shape.
He has been confined to a wheelchair since fracturing his hip last year, is hard of hearing and can no longer see. But the man once known as “The Peasant of Laberinto,” after the central Cuban farm where he grew up, still indulges in cigars, and listens avidly to Cuban baseball on the radio.
Not bad for a man who is a year older than Boston’s iconic Fenway Park, which celebrated its centenary earlier this month.
Marrero, who was known in his major league days as Connie, speaks with pride about the five years he spent with the Senators, and he raises his voice in excitement when he recalls going against pitchers like Allie Reynolds of the Yankees or Early Wynn, who in those days played for mighty Cleveland.
Beating the Yankees, he says, was the sweetest feeling in the world.
“They were strong,” he said. “They were the best. Each batter was a struggle.”
Marrero had less good things to say about his own team, the lowly Senators, who he called “lazy” and error prone. Still, he said it was a thrill to suit up every day.
“Putting on that uniform always made me feel bigger, more powerful,” said Marrero, who in his playing days was listed as 5 feet 5 inches tall and 158 pounds. His memory often fails him, and his voice sometimes trails off in mid-thought, but Marrero grows animated when the subject turns to his sport, and he wraps his long wrinkled fingers around a baseball to demonstrate his grip.
He recalls meeting the retired Babe Ruth once in Miami, befriending Connie Mack, and sharing an elevator with Dwight Eisenhower in Washington.
As for the great hitters of his day, Marrero insists he was afraid of no one, although he admits that Williams usually got the better of him.
“One day Williams got two home runs off me, and afterward he came up to me and said ‘Sorry, it was my day today,” Marrero recalled. “I responded, ‘Ted, every day is your day.’”
Marrero doesn’t complain about money, but his circumstances are exceedingly modest compared with today’s multimillion-dollar players. The stairwell up to his second floor apartment has no lighting, and his living room is empty save for two sagging sofas and a rocking chair.
Marrero is eligible to receive a $20,000 payout granted him under a 2011 agreement between Major League Baseball and the players’ association to extend financial help to big leaguers who played between 1947 and 1979, and did not otherwise qualify for a pension. But the money has been held up for months due to the 50-year U.S. economic embargo, which makes financial transactions between the United States and Cuba extremely complicated.
Steve Rogers, a former Expos pitcher who is now an official at the Major League Baseball Players Association, told The Associated Press the payment to Marrero has been approved by the U.S. Treasury Department, which regulates trade to sanctioned countries like Cuba, but logistical problems have slowed up actually turning it over.
“They are working diligently to try to get the money to him … but it is just a question of logistics, of physically getting the money there,” he said. “We have all taken this project very personally because he is the oldest living ballplayer, and because of that he is very special. With his 101st birthday, that puts an exclamation mark on the urgency.”
Rogers said he did not have details of what was holding up the payment, but added that he was confident a solution is near. “It’s imminent,” he said.
Marrero’s grandson, Rogelio Marrero, says the problem is that direct bank transfers to Cuba are impossible, and the players’ association does not allow the money to go through an intermediary. But he, too, expresses hope the issue will be resolved soon.
Marrero, who was born in the small town of Sagua la Grande in the central Cuban province of Villa Clara, was already old when he made it to the big leagues as a 39-year-old rookie in 1950 following a standout career in Cuba. And he wasn’t your typical big leaguer either. Because of his size, he relied on control, guile and a bag full of junk pitches — curves, sliders, knuckleballs and other off-speed stuff.
He compiled a 39-40 record and a 3.67 ERA before being cut ahead of the 1955 season. Marrero was named to the 1951 All-Star team but didn’t see action. As a Senator, he played alongside Mickey Vernon and Eddie Yost, yet his teams only once finished with a winning record.
After his big league days were over, Marrero returned to the Cuban minor leagues, ending his career with the Havana Sugar Kings in 1957. Two years later, Fidel Castro’s rebels swept into power. Unlike many former big leaguers in Cuba, Marrero chose to stay, becoming a coach and roving instructor, working to develop and coach Cuban players well into his 80s.
Marrero says he doesn’t follow the majors much anymore, although he did know that 49-year-old Jamie Moyer recently became the oldest pitcher to win a game. His grandson occasionally shares with him the exploits of A’s slugger Yoenis Cespedes, who defected from Cuba last year, joining a long list of Cuban standouts that include Kendrys Morales of the Angels and Aroldis Chapman of the Reds.
Marrero listens to nearly every broadcast of Cuba’s playoffs on the radio, and he excitedly talks up youngsters he thinks have potential. “Be careful with Sancti Spiritus,” he said, saying they have a great team.
Rogers said it was somehow appropriate that the world’s oldest ballplayer was a Cuban, given the island’s contribution to America’s national pastime.
“If ever you could pinpoint a common denominator, it’s baseball. You could take all of the other issues out there that separate Cuba and the United States, but baseball is the common denominator, and having the oldest ballplayer being a Cuban and someone living in Cuba is fitting,”
Marrero, who lost his wife about 20 years ago, has four children and many more grandchildren and great grandchildren split between Cuba and the United States. He says he’s not sure how he lived so long, but he did offer one secret.
“I never had hatred for anyone,” he says. “I treated everyone equally.”
___
Associated Press writer Anne Marie Garcia contributed to this report.
___
Paul Haven on Twitter: www.twitter.com/paulhaven
HAVANA (AP) — Two of Washington’s top irritants, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Fidel Castro, discussed world events for two hours, and the Iranian leader on Thursday described the retired Cuban revolutionary as healthy and engaged, and declared their two countries to be allies “fighting on the same front.”
“It made me enormously happy to see the comandante healthy and fit,” Ahmadinejad said through a translator at an impromptu airport appearance alongside Fidel’s brother, Cuban President Raul Castro, before flying off to Ecuador for the final stop in his four-nation Latin America visit.
Raul said his 85-year-old brother and Ahmadinejad met for two hours Wednesday, “a demonstration that his brain is working very well.” Fidel Castro stepped down in 2006 due to an illness that nearly killed him, but continues to write essays on world events.
One of his main themes has been warning that a conflict pitting the U.S. and Israel against Iran could lead the world toward nuclear Armageddon. Iranian officials last year said they welcomed Castro’s support, but did not share his apocalyptic concerns, arguing the West would not dare attack.
Raul Castro and the Iranian president also held a late-night meeting Wednesday, discussing bilateral relations and world events.
“We have common positions on many things,” Ahmadinejad said. “We have been, are and will be together one with the other.”
Ahmadinejad took no questions about tensions between his country and Washington over Iran’s nuclear program, and did not comment on the assassination Wednesday of a nuclear scientist working at Iran’s main uranium enrichment facility.
Iran’s government blamed the killing on Israel, the U.S. and Britain. The U.S. denied involvement.
Ahmadinejad began his Latin America trip shortly after Washington imposed tougher sanctions on Tehran over the nuclear program. He spent less than 24 hours in Cuba, following visits to Venezuela and Nicaragua.
In Ecuador, Ahmadinejad got a bear hug from President Rafael Correa, who last received the Iranian president during his 2007 inauguration and visited Tehran the following year. The two dined at the presidential palace and waved to hundreds of Ecuadorean from its balcony, where a big Iranian flag flew.
The Iranian president thanked Correa for his solidarity and said that “the era of imperialism and global arrogance are exhausted.”
The president of Quito’s chamber of commerce, Blasco Penaherrera, criticized the visit, calling the foreign policy of Ecuador’s leftist president irresponsible.
“It’s going to make it much more difficult to make progress with our principal market, the United States,” he said.
Iran opened an embassy in Ecuador in 2008. Trade between the two nations has been meager.
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Associated Press writer Gonzalo Solano in Quito, Ecuador, contributed to this report.
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Follow Paul Haven at www.twitter.com/paulhaven
HAVANA (AP) — State media on Wednesday accused the social networking site Twitter of helping spread a rumor that former Cuban leader Fidel Castro had died, and criticized anti-Castro expatriates it dubbed “necrophiliac counterrevolutionaries” for jumping on the story.
An article on the state-run Cubadebate Web site accused Twitter of allowing an account holder with the sign-on “Naroh” to start the rumor on Monday from an Italian server, possibly after it was taken over by a “robot.” It says the account was then quickly deactivated.
It said Twitter then helped spread the disinformation by allowing the hash tag “fidelcastro” to become a trending topic. It briefly became the fourth most popular in the world as it drew many more people to the subject.
The site also accused Twitter of censoring subjects in the past that were in favor of the Cuban government.
A Twitter spokesperson, Jodi Olson, said the company had no comment on the specifics of Cuba’s complaint, but added “as you know, we don’t mediate content.” Rumors that a celebrity or other public figure is dead are common on social media sites and can spread quickly because of their nature.
“Naroh,” whose account was in active use on Wednesday, was one of more than 50 Twitter users to retweet a message that was a joke in fact casting doubt on the rumors of Castro’s death. He and others were posting other, mostly sarcastic, messages about the rumor at the same time.
The account’s owner lists his name as “Naroh – David Fdez,” and his biography identifies him as a 20-year-old living “between Asturias and Madrid” in Spain.
Reached via Twitter on Wednesday, the owner of the account reacted with shock and amusement. “Obviously I didn’t start anything,” he tweeted back to an AP reporter. Asked which of his tweets may have gotten Havana’s attention, he said he had no idea, that his posts were jokes and that the topic was already trending when he got involved.
He then tweeted to his followers, in Spanish: “Cuba is blaming me for killing Fidel Castro on Twitter. Can I now consider myself a Twit-star?”
Cubadebate also blamed anti-Castro expatriates anxious to see Castro’s demise for gleefully furthering the rumor, saying “necrophiliac counterrevolutionaries, aided by some media, immediately started to party.”
Castro, 85, turned power over to his brother Raul in 2006 during an illness that nearly killed him. He is officially retired, though he occasionally publishes opinion columns.
In recent months, Castro has alluded to the limits of age, but has also taken pride in his longevity. Cuba boasts that along with besting the actuarial tables, the former Cuban leader has survived hundreds of assassination attempts at the hands of his enemies in the United States.
Cubadebate noted that a false story about Castro’s demise was spread on the Internet and elsewhere back in August. On that occasion, there was even a computer virus embedded in a spam email titled “Fidel is Dead,” which featured a doctored, grainy photograph of the former Cuban leader that appeared to show him lying in a coffin.
As usual, the Cuban government has declined to make any official comment about Castro’s health. But the former leader hasn’t been silent. On Dec. 31, he sent a get-well letter to a Cuban baseball star that was read over state television.
Cubadebate on Wednesday reiterated a refrain it used the last time the Castro rumors began, saying that the latest hubbub was spread by “people inventing things in the virtual world that even the CIA could not accomplish in real life.”
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Associated Press reporter Jonathan M. Katz in New York contributed to this report
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Follow Paul Haven at www.twitter.com/paulhaven/
HAVANA (AP) — The Roman Catholic Church in Cuba has announced the dates and a partial itinerary for Pope Benedict XVI’s much-anticipated visit to the island, the first by a pontiff since John Paul II’s groundbreaking 1998 tour.
The church said in a statement Sunday that the pontiff will be in Cuba from March 26 to 28, following a visit to Mexico.
The itinerary outlined by the church is far less ambitious than that undertaken by John Paul 14 years ago. The 84-year-old pontiff will only be on the island for about 48 hours and appears to have no plans to visit important regional cities such as Santa Clara and Camaguey, both of which received John Paul.
Benedict will touch down on the afternoon of Mar. 26 in the western city of Santiago, Cuba’s second largest, where he will be received personally by President Raul Castro. He’ll then be driven through town in the glassed-in popemobile.
Benedict will make a private trip the following day to the sanctuary of Cuba’s patron saint, the Virgin of Caridad del Cobre, then fly to Havana. In the capital, the pope will meet Havana Cardinal Jaime Ortega and other church leaders.
That afternoon, he will have a private meeting with Castro. There is no mention of Benedict also meeting Fidel Castro, who is retired but often weighs in on world events through opinion pieces published in Cuban state-run media.
On Mar. 28, Benedict will perform Mass at the sprawling Revolution Plaza, where hundreds of thousands turned out to see John Paul II. The pope will depart following the Mass and a trip through the capital in the popemobile.
Benedict has been noticeably frailer and weaker in recent months, according to religious leaders and others who have seen him, which could partly explain the trip’s limited scope.
The visit coincides with the 400th anniversary of the appearance of the Virgin of Caridad del Cobre. But the timing also appears to reward the larger role the church has assumed in Cuba in recent years. Ortega personally negotiated the release of political prisoners in 2010 and 2011, and church magazines have become a forum for articles offering advice to Cuban leaders on a process of free-market reforms by Raul Castro.
The Cuban leader even cited Benedict’s visit in announcing in December that Cuba would free 2,900 inmates as a humanitarian gesture, including a small number jailed for political crimes.
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Paul Haven can be reached at www.twitter.com/paulhaven/
HAVANA (AP) — The Roman Catholic Church in Cuba has announced the dates and a partial itinerary for Pope Benedict XVI’s much-anticipated visit to the island.
The church said in a statement Sunday that the pontiff will be in Cuba from March 26 to 28, following a visit to Mexico.
Benedict will touch down in the western city of Santiago de Cuba, where he will be received personally by President Raul Castro.
He will make a private trip the following day to the sanctuary of Cuba’s patron saint, the Virgin of Caridad del Cobre. He will fly later to the capital Havana where he is due to perform Mass at the sprawling Revolution Plaza on Mar. 28 before departing early that afternoon.
Cuban former pitcher Conrado Marrero, who once played with the Washington Senators, shows a photography of him on an old newspaper as he speaks during an interview in Havana, Cuba, Wednesday, April 25, 2012. Marrero, who last year became the oldest living former big leaguer, turned 101 on Wednesday. (AP Photo/Franklin Reyes)(Credit: AP) 
Cuba's President Raul Castro, left, and Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad gesture before Ahmadinejad's departure at the Jose Marti international airport in Havana, Cuba, Thursday Jan. 12, 2012. Ahmadinejad is visiting Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba and Ecuador as part of his Latin American tour. (AP Photo/Javier Galeano)(Credit: AP) 