Probably one of the most common scenes on the streets of Cuban cities and open fields near towns is that of kids playing baseball. Despite its fame as the country’s national pastime, one of the scarcest items on the island has consistently been real baseballs! In fact, most kids create a ball out of paper and string, usually with a round stone for weight in the middle. As a professor who once led undergraduates in foreign study programs to Cuba, I always advised them to bring packs of balls and then walk down the street and just anonymously toss the ball into the air so it would land in the middle of a game: one could never imagine the raucous joy that a real baseball falling from the sky could elicit among Cuban kids! In this case, a passing motorist tossed my nephew and his buddies a tennis ball. Their reaction is more than apparent.
