So I was looking through some old Cuban MLB players, and looked into this guy, Sandy Consuegra.
Talking about his grandfather and father
“That mocha remained buried in that wood column until the day my grandfather died and I remember hearing that story many times. Eventually the one farm became seven and until 1960 the Consuegra clan’s baseball team played their baseball every time they could.”
Like aww how sweet…wait SEVEN farms? The original family farm required all the children to work it, so geez wonder who worked all of those farms for them to stay profitable? But hey, maybe they are just run by uncles and whatnot.
Nothing super notable politically, until towards the end you get this bomb
After that season, Consuegra retired. As of 1954, he had owned five homes in Cuba and planned to purchase more, living off the income from them.48 He eventually built 11 houses and bought one small farm (60 acres) in his family’s hometown of Matanzas.49 Between 1958 and 1960, Consuegra also managed the local stadium there. “This was a source of great pride,” said his son Roger, “as that is the place where not only he played with Deportivo but also the first ball game in Cuba was played (Palmar de Junco). It still stands, has been refurbished and named part of the National Heritage.”50
When Fidel Castro seized power in 1959 and set about redistributing the nation’s wealth, Consuegra lost his real estate holdings. “All that was wiped out within the first eight months,” said Roger. “I was the first one to leave Cuba, then my sister and eventually mom and dad. We all arrived in Miami and have lived and died here. I remember when he came over, they allowed him to keep two dimes in his pocket, which he used to call me to pick him up at the airport. I’d be remiss if I did not mention another Cuban ballplayer, Roberto Estalella, who opened his home to us until my father found a job.”
Mother fucker just flat out became a huge parasite. The pre-defection players get talked about like this shit is good, like the MLB was giving an opportunity and not just poaching talent and lifting certain people up to the intense exploiter class of Cuba.
I remember being super grossed out in one of the featurettes for MLB The Show 2024 when the otherwise delightful Bob Kendrick talked about a legendary player and quoted another (iirc Buck O’Neil) saying of 1920s Havana “That was in the days when Havana was Havana” all wistfully.
Like ahhh yes those great days when the city existed to serve gangsters and American businessmen and was a den of pimping, drugs, legalized gambling, and embezzlement. It sucks seeing someone otherwise so in tune with African- American struggles, just glorify the mass exploitation of Cuba, in particular Afro-Cubans, because the occasional Afro-Cuban was allowed into the glitz and glamor. No interrogation whatsoever.
Reminds me of that Gould quote
I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.