truebluefan

"Beisbol," a traveling baseball exhibit paying tribute to Latin American baseball that first debuted at the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., opens Saturday at the Reds Hall of Fame and Museum with a reception for former Reds great Leo Cardenas, the Cuban-born shortstop who lives in Madisonville.

There isn't a more fitting Red to focus on than Cardenas, who is full of stories about his homeland - including one that ends with him being struck by a revolutionary's bullet while playing a game.

Nowadays, Guantanamo Bay on Cuba's far southeastern tip is known for its naval base and site of a detainee camp of alleged terrorists. But when Cardenas was a boy, he knew it as the place he went to play baseball on Sundays for five pesos a game.

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