Reserve your spot on the October 2015 Cubaball tour
By Kit Krieger
This is the last call for Cubaball XIV. The October 17-24, 2015, tour is led by Cubaball founder Kit Krieger and Peter Bjarkman, SABR’s foremost authority on Cuban baseball.
The tour will feature the following:
- 5 or 6 games of the 55th Cuban National Series with games in Havana, Pinar del Rio, Cienfuegos, Matanzas and Artemesa. We will see eight of the sixteen teams in the National Series
- Meetings with current player and league officials, including Victor Mesa, superstar of the 1980s and 1990s and former manager of the Cuban National team.
- Meeting with veteran players, including Luis Zayas, the last surviving member of the fabled Havana Sugar Kings in Cuba.
- Visit to La Tropical Stadium, the home of the Cuban Winter League from 1940-46
- Visit to the baseball monuments in Havana’s Cristobal Colon cemetery where Jose Mendez, Adolfo Luque, Mike Gonzales and other Cuban immortals were interred.
- Visit to Cruces and the grave of Martin Dihigo accompanied by Martin Jr., former player in the Cincinnati organization and teammate of Pete Rose and Tony Perez. We will visit a remarkable exhibit on Dihigo in the Cruces municipal museum.
- Visit to La Finca Vigia, Hemingway’s estate in San Francisco de Paola.
- Meeting with Sigfredo Barros, the baseball beat writer for Granma, the national newspaper of Cuba.
- Visit to a baseball academy
- Seminars on Cuban-American relations
I expect that this may be the last Cubaball tour. The normalization of Cuban-American relations and the influx of American tourists to Cuba is making travel to Cuba increasingly expensive. The unique Cuban baseball system will surely be changed due to normalization.
The tour costs $2,749 based on double occupancy. There is a $400 single supplement. The price includes transfers, hotel accommodation, most meals, admission to all scheduled itinerary events, land-travel in an air-conditioned bus, the services of bilingual tour guides and a license from the US Treasury Department.
The price does not include return airfare (we will arrange), beverages (some meals include one complementary drink), gratuities, and a $30 US Cuban airport tax paid upon departure.
The tour is limited to 25 registrants. A $500 deposit will reserve your spot. Contact Kit Krieger (ejkrieger@shaw.ca) to reserve your spot.
Originally published: August 21, 2015. Last Updated: August 21, 2015.