Remember when Cuba was synonymous with 'sugar'?

By Silvio Canto, Jr.

Before the so called "revolution", Havana had a baseball team called "The Sugar Kings". They were a big part of Cuban baseball history:

"No ordinary minor league team, the Sugar Kings were the Cincinnati Reds' International League Class AAA affiliate based in Havana for six and a half seasons in prerevolutionary Cuba. Though the team's existence was brief, the Sugar Kings drew a strong following in Cuba and became a springboard for Latin American players." (NYTimes)

The Kings were eventually moved to Jersey City in 1961 when the professional league was canceled.

Apparently, the Sugar Kings were not the only thing that left Cuba. It appears that sugar production has left the island too.

My good friend Carlos Eire reminds us today that sugar production is way down in Cuba, one more tragic consequence of "Fidelismo" in the island:

"An island nation that once supplied the world with sugar can no longer produce enough for its own people. Before Fidel Castro came along, Cuba was producing an average of 5.63 million metric tons of sugar per year. Now, it can barely reach 1.5. The Castro regime blames everyone and everything but itself for creating this ongoing disaster, but the truth is that all the blame can be placed squarely on the so-called Revolution.""

Yes, Cuba is the everlasting disaster. Even sugar cane has ceased to grow in the island known for its baseball "sugar kings"!

We should add that "prostitution" and "hotels for foreigners" are going strong. Airplanes full of Europeans land in Cuba every week. They are taken to the "resorts" and the "revolution" provides them with a young Cuban woman for their pleasures.

It breaks my heart. The Castro family are now "pimps" too!

Before the so called revolution, Cuba had a vibrant economy, no one left in a raft, the sugar cane fields were private and very productive, and we had a baseball team called "the sugar kings".

I guess that they would be called the "sugar have nots" today!

Very sad.

Of course, the saddest thing is to watch this parade of fools from Hollywood who go down to Cuba and pay their respects to the two brothers running the island.