Gainesville. 2014. University Press of Florida. 1st American Edition. Very Good in Wrappers. 9780813049687. 288 pages. paperback. keywords: Baseball Cuba. DESCRIPTION - In an artful pastiche of observation, personal narrative, interviews, and investigative reporting, S.L. Price, a senior writer for Sports Illustrated, describes sports and athletes in today's Cuba. On his journeys to the island, Price finds a country that celebrates sports like no other and a regime that uses games as both symbol and weapon in its dying revolution. He finds Olympic and world champion boxers, track stars, volleyball and baseball players, but he also finds that with Castro's revolution staggering beneath the weight of a great depression, Cuba's famed sports system is imploding. Athletes are defecting by plane and raft. Superstars bike to games and legends like boxer Teofilo Stevenson are forced to lost themselves in a bottle of rum. Beyond an examination of sports in the hothouse of revolution, Pitching Around Fidel presents a vibrant and realistic portrait of Cuba today, complete with sex-happy tourists, blackouts, Fidel's famous former lover, and a black-power fugitive wanted in the U.S. for murder and hijacking. At once a biting travelogue and a meditation on sports in both America and Cuba, Pitching Around Fidel is a valuable document about a time and place that is close to fading away. 'Fascinating.'--Chicago Tribune. 'Unprecedented. Astonishing.'--Miami Herald. 'A rarity: a balanced, compassionate, intimate journal of Cuba's slow, agonizing decay.'--Sports Illustrated. 'Price describes a lovely, proud, impoverished people caught in [a] repressive system that destroys thousands as it celebrates a handful.'--Kirkus 'Takes the wider view, poking its nose into the politics and culture of Cuba every few pages. Price has an easy, lyrical style that elevates his work beyond the usual sports fare.'--Business Week. 'Fascinating, sometimes hilarious, often heart-wrenching.'--Philadelphia Inquirer. 'Easily the most engaging book on Cuban sports--if not Cuba--published in many years.'--Baseball America. 'Offers a rare and provocative tour of the world's most remarkable sports culture. It's an unforgettable story of supremely gifted athletes, the utter madness of politics, and the scent of big money across the sea.'--Carl Hiaasen. 'Price is one of the finest writers on sports anywhere.'--USA Today. inventory #40848