1 Jan, 2021

Ernesto de la Torriente, La Bola Rápida

Starkly white against the royal Cuban sky, the ball arced high and fell back to terra firma well beyond the freshly painted outfield fence. It’s batting practice at Campos Peloteros, home of the Havana Leones and the charismatic slugger and Cuban native Manuel Herrera is creating a personal missile crisis of sorts. After the final moonshot he steps out of the cage and releases a hearty “Booyah!”

Beside me his teammate and fellow native Luis Vargas echoes with his own exuberant “Booyah!” then doubles in laughter. Turning to him I quizzically ask, “Booyah? What’s that all about?”

“Booyah” as it turned out was Herrara’s nickname. When Herrara was signed in 2014 to the Charleston A-League club, the Columbia Helos, he met country mate Vargas and they instantly bonded. They discovered shared a passion for the catchy phrases they’d heard from the ESPN Sportscenter broadcasts that trickled in across the waters from Florida, especially those of Stuart Scott. Scott’s catchphrases and style and provided a shared idiom for the young and talkative pair.

When they returned to Havana in 2020 as teammates on the Havana Leones club they picked up the banter again. Herrera starting yelling “Booyah!” after hitting dingers. On the bench the loquacious pair started tagging teammates with tags inspired by the great sportscaster of their youth.

Closer Miguel Mercado, another son of Cuba got tagged first. Noted for his calm demeanor on the mound and 100+ mph fastball which puts opposing batters effectively to sleep, he was given “Pillow talk”. A twist on Scott’s famous “As cool as the other side of the pillow”.

The silky smooth and effective ace hurler Herb Martin became “Buttah” alluding to the phrase “Just call him butter ’cause he’s on a roll”. This became a term of some distraction when they discovered an herb butter dip at a the local Whole Foods Market (the first in Cuba) and brought it to a practice. The laughter, chuckles and tomfoolery coming from the dugout found its way on the field to Martin’s battery mate. Catcher Yosuke Imai took umbrage too the “monkey business” in the dugout and got quite heated.

Imai is an old school kind of guy. His respect for the game reflects his Japanese roots. He took his frustrations out in the batting cage challenging Herrera to a hitting contest. The former “Terror of Toyoma” put on a prodigious showing of his skills hitting on ball so hard it he actually tore the hide off it. The sight of this lightened the mood and gave everyone a good chuckle which was rightfully capped when Vargas channeled his inner Stu Scott proclaiming, “He must be the bus driver cuz he was takin’ him to school!” Imai henceforth became “Bus Driver”.

Herrera told me that after his first season, Scott’s death hit him hard. Herrera was a rookie in a place where he couldn’t speak the language, the food and customs were different, his whole world was inverted. Scott’s passing saddened him and added to his sense of isolation, he became depressed. He found inspiration in Stu’s words that have carried him to this day; “So live, live, fight like hell.” Booyah.