In parks and cafes, homes and stadium stands, Cubans talk baseball. Thomas F. Carter contends that when they are analyzing and debating plays, games, teams, and athletes, Cubans are exchanging ideas not just about baseball but also about Cuba and cubanidad, or what it means to be Cuban. The Quality of Home Runs is Carter's lively ethnographic exploration of the interconnections between baseball and Cuban identity. Suggesting that baseball is in many ways an apt metaphor for cubanidad, Carter points out aspects of the sport that resonate with Cuban social and political life: the perpetual tension between risk and security, the interplay between individual style and collective regulation, and the risky journeys undertaken with the intention, but not the guarantee, of returning home.

As an avid baseball fan, Carter draws on his experiences listening to and participating in discussions of baseball in Cuba (particularly in Havana) and among Cubans living abroad to describe how baseball provides the ground for negotiations of national, masculine, and class identities wherever Cubans gather. He considers the elaborate spectacle of Cuban baseball as well as the relationship between the socialist state and the enormously popular sport. Carter provides a detailed history of baseball in Cuba, analyzing players, policies, rivalries, and fans, and he describes how the sport has forged connections (or reinforced divisions) between Cuba and other nations. Drawing on insights from cultural studies, political theory, and anthropology, he maintains that sport and other forms of play should be taken seriously as crucibles of social and cultural experience.

Uses the sport of baseball to look at what it means to be Cuban and at how Cuba deals with the outside world

About the Author

Thomas F. Carter, an anthropologist, is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Brighton, Chelsea School.

Reviews
"The Quality of Home Runs offers engaging and provocative perspectives on socialism, nationalism, masculinity, and the embodiment and poetics of sport in Cuba, all seen from the vantage point of the stadium stands and the streets of Havana. Thomas F. Carter's emphasis on themes such as spectacle, social drama, struggle, and discipline of both players and fans, on and off the field, builds a persuasive analysis of changing notions of what it means to be Cuban."-Thomas M. Wilson, Binghamton University



Book Information
ISBN 9780822342762
Author Thomas F. Carter
Format Paperback
Page Count 256
Imprint Duke University Press
Publisher Duke University Press
Weight(grams) 399g