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Everybody knew the Cubans could play ball. Seemed like so many guys there, born with gloves in their hands.

There was a period, back in 1980, during the Mariel Boatlift, when the city of Miami started putting tons of Cuban refugees under the old Orange Bowl. When I say under, I mean on the ground, under the bleachers. Cots, blankets, big piles of empty wine bottles.

Over their heads, lush turf, glistening paint, a scoreboard like something they’d only seen on television, lots of places to buy food, when a game was on. But these folks couldn’t go up there, not even to look.

Eight long weeks in the heat. The government brought em stuff to eat and drink. People sneaked in some booze. Nobody was gonna grumble.

So they sat. They smoked.

One day a city guy shows up with a bat and ball, a couple of old gloves. Guys grab em and sprint out to the lawn outside the stadium. Old guys and kids and wives and girlfriends follow to sit and watch.

The guys toss their shirts. And what they know right now is that they have just a few minutes. Then the buses will arrive to take em miles from here, out to the middle of nowhere to a tent city where the controversy over whether these people are going to be allowed to stay in the United States is going to be just that much more muted. Further out of sight.

They’ll stay there, behind fences.

So they race onto the field, begin to throw it around. But this is not casual pitch and catch. We’re talking 50 yards apart, snapping off gorgeous throws, long and hard, that crack into the glove. They move like cats.

A guy picks up the bat, walks over to a bald spot. Pitcher cranks one at him, whistles it down the middle. Boom. Guy out in center sprints back… back… leaps, stretching for it. He pulls it in, spins, fires it home. And that ball is comin.

The people cheer.