Yeah, Right, Whatever

While Cuba played the Netherlands in the World Baseball Classic, a spectator in the stands raised a sign saying: "Down with Fidel," sparking an international incident that escalated Friday with the velocity of a major league fastball.

The image of the man holding the sign behind home plate was beamed live Thursday night to millions of TV viewers _ including those in Cuba. The top Cuban official at the game at Hiram Bithorn Stadium in San Juan rushed to confront the man.

Puerto Rican police quickly intervened and took the Cuban official _ Angel Iglesias, vice president of Cuba's National Institute of Sports _ to a nearby police station where they lectured him about free speech.

"We explained to him that here the constitutional right to free expression exists and that it is not a crime," police Col. Adalberto Mercado was quoted as saying in El Nuevo Dia, a San Juan daily.

The brouhaha gathered steam Friday when Cuba's Communist Party newspaper, Granma, called the sign-waving "a cowardly incident." Cuba's Revolutionary Sports Movement exhorted Cubans to demonstrate in Havana late Friday, saying U.S. and Puerto Rican authorities were involved in "the cynical counterrevolutionary provocations."

That actually surprises me. I would have thought that they would have flat out lied and said that the sick individual was taken into custody for his own good and is receiving treatment for his mental disorder. Isn't that what they say when someone disagrees with El Papa?

I loved that Iglesias confronted the guy. I bet he actually thought the guy would be arrested. Probably came as quite a surprise that it's perfectly legal to tell Fidel where to go in most other countries.

Too bad. So sad. Any chance we'll have an defectors this time around?