Customer Reviews

The Duke of Havana: Baseball, Cuba, and the Search for the American Dream

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Even casual baseball fans know the story of Orlando "El Duque" Hernández's escape from Cuba and his eventual rise to success with the world champion New York Yankees. In their excellent book, Fainaru and Sánchez focus on El Duque's amazing story, but they also shed light on the back-door deals and behind-the-scenes espionage necessary to bring such defections about. They provide the reader with enough historical and political background to understand the economic pressures confronting Cuban baseball players, many of whom could be earning millions of dollars in the United States. 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. El Duque's story, however, stands above all others. His journey from abject poverty to the World Series within a span of only ten months wouldn't play in Hollywood, but it does in the Bronx.

Loved this book and couldn't put it down! Steve Fainaru and Ray Sanchez take you inside Castro's Cuba and clearly document the dilemmas faced by its' athletes. 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. Thank you Steve Fainaru. You 'da man!

Fidel Castro controls everything in Cuba. He governs not only the political aspects of the country, but also dictates every detail of life for the people under his leadership. Steve Fainaru and Ray Sanchez describe Castro's influence on baseball in their book, The Duke of Havana: Cuba, Baseball and the Search for the American Dream. Baseball serves as the ultimate venue for Castro to execute his power over Cuba because the sport incorporates the politics, economics, religion and entertainment for the country. For the participating professional athletes, baseball is not only a game, but also a way of life for them and their families. The sport separates the athletes from the rest of society by paying them higher salaries and providing them with nicer homes along with other advantages.

Fainaru uses the story of El Duque's defection to evoke sympathy for Cuban baseball players willing to take any risks to live out their dreams in the American Major League Baseball. However, the special treatment given to the athletes in the Bahamas further illustrates how sport sets its competitors away from the rest of society. Allowing the Cuban baseball players to leave while the other passengers remain in the Bahamian detention center emphasizes an overlooked injustice that exists in countries with professional athletic teams.

The Duke of Havana: Cuba, Baseball and the Search for the American Dream leads readers to believe baseball operates as the great equalizer. It plays upon the image of a poor, black Cuban rising above all odds to come to the United States and win the World Series. The underlying themes in the book, however, are far more thought provoking. The separation between professional athletes and the rest of society speaks volumes about the values of the different countries. In this area, the United States and Cuba are far more alike than either country would like to admit. Many hurdles subside along the road to becoming a professional athlete and individuals who achieve this goal should be rewarded even though the exponential rate at which players receive validation for their hard work undermines the contributions of others. Unfortunately, nothing will change until people open their eyes to inequality they perpetuate with their own pocketbooks.

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.

Well researched and well written. I highly recommend it.

You cant put it down until you finish.
This is a fascinating book, that you read almost as a good crime novel.
The story of Orlando Hernandez is extraordinary to everybody, but very typical for the common Cuban living in the island. Talented professionals who live in very modest and minimalist conditions, while in another country they could make much more money than that.
The authors are sharp with the interviews, they got exactly what they needed to spice up the book. And find the exact analogy to make any ordinary passage a notorious one.
5 stars all the way!!

As one would expect of a book written by newspaper journalists, this books holds the readers attention from cover to cover. Although this is the well-known, true story of Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez, Cuban exile turned world champion New York Yankee, the reader is led to believe each page will have some new detail that they have never heard before. Through their extended research and one hundred plus interviews, Fainaru and Sanchez seem to have done their homework thoroughly because these new details are ever present. There are even points in which the reader wonders if the authors actually lived the life of the Cuban baseball player, instead of just researching it in October of 1996 when the ordeal was nearly over. Fainaru enhances this story using the experiences of other ball players and agents that were involved in similar defections. Also, Fainaru adds the strange facts about the relations between the U.S. and Cuba that make the story more interesting. Overall it was one of the more interesting and entertaining non-fiction books I have read, though I will admit that having knowledge and interest in baseball helped.

Ray Sanchez and Steve Fainaru give a good presentation of the occurrences surrounding the defection of Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez from Cuba in their book The Duke of Havana: baseball, Cuba, and the Search for the American Dream. They explain his reasoning for defecting and denounce stories that arose out of the sudden defection in the late 1990's.
Delving deeper past the main story, the authors present the Cuban Athletic Ministry and its product athletes in hopes of better explaining the seeming mass defection of many members of the Cuban National team throughout the mid and late nineties. By using interviews with defectors, the U.S. sports agents helping them, and baseball and government officials on both sides of the Florida Straits, the stories are presented with validity in a somewhat fair way politically and socially.
The book can be read as a good story of a man's determination to fulfill his childhood dreams and oppression or as an example of the political and social aspects of the circumstances. It ties these facets of the account to the basic central story without being exceedingly academic in the presentation.

The Duke of Havana is an enjoyable reading piece, written by two newspapermen, which shows the combination of baseball with Cuban history/ politics through the telling of the story of Orlando `El Duque' Hernandez and his journey from ideal Cuban sportsman to starting pitcher for the New York Yankees. Through baseball the history of Cuba is told from the period just before Fidel Castro came into power in the 1950s, his change of the baseball game in Cuba into one that exemplified the glory of the state, to its current troubles (Special Period of Time in Peace) since the Soviet Union's collapse that can be mirrored in baseball by Cuba's current hemorrhaging of Cuban baseball players defecting to the United States.
Overall the authors use baseball to show the state of the average Cuban in Cuba today and how it got to be this way through world events spanning back to the 1950s. It also demonstrates Castro's amazing political prowess through his ability for political weathering in where he has been able to adapt to the times to keep his hold on Cuba. It also, to some extent, tells the story of the anti-Castro forces against him on the other side of the Florida Straits.
While the story is written well and it is easy to follow the events/ history presented, a rudimentary knowledge of baseball history and rules as well as some knowledge of Cuban history is needed to fully understand this book. Some of the immigration rules/ situations are also not entirely explained but with some basic assumptions what is going on can usually be determined. The book was primarily researched through first hand interviews and this lends a very intimate feel for the material presented.

This is a great book for anyone that loves baseball or cuban political and cultural topics. It was a great first hand depiction of what was happening in cuba before and after the great number of baseball defections in the early nineties. By examining the occurance of world class baseball outside of the framework of commercialism, capitalism and general exploitation, it provided a candid, emotional and alternative look at the sport of baseball iteself. I loved this book.

In "The Duke of Havana," Farinu and Sanchez give the public a well-researched investigation into U.S. - Cuba relations through the prism of baseball and one right-handed pitcher's journey from Havana to the New York Yankees.

Tracking Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez' career in Cuba as a famous star, his banishment from baseball by the Communist bureaucracy, and his subsequent escape to the luxuries of the U.S., major-league baseball, and World Series, "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.

The book is A-plus in its subject matter, and C-minus in its presentation.

The authors know their subject well, as newspaper and magazine reporters attached to the Latin American bureaus of their organizations. They both built personal relationships with the subject of their book, and they know the issues intimately. They describe the Cuban baseball culture, Hernandez' escape to the U.S., the politics of both Communist Cuba and U.S. Professional Sports, Fidel Castro, and the expatriate Cuban population in Miami with confidence and detail.

All of these subjects are compelling.

However, "The Duke of Havana" is choppy and disorganized. It reads like a series of human-interest Sunday supplements piled on top of one another. It pulls punches, failing to effectively criticize Castro, Major-League Baseball, and the Miami Cuban expatriates. The book feels like it's missing crucial personal information about the Hernandez brothers, as if the authors self-censored the book to preserve their friendship with the ballplayers -- but by remaining impersonal, the authors rob their book of its human element.

I blame the publisher for the book's shortcomings. Did anyone edit this? Knowing modern-day publishing house practice, I doubt it. Too bad. With a good editor, "The Duke of Havana" could have been one of the best sports books ever.