Castro has his `fastball' back, Chavez says

Castro has his `fastball' back, Chavez says
By Ray Sánchez
Havana Correspondent
Posted June 14 2007

Havana· Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Wednesday that his
convalescing mentor Fidel Castro soon could sport his trademark
olive-green military fatigues.

Speaking after dedicating a statue of Latin American independence hero
Francisco de Miranda on Havana's seaside Malecon, Chavez said a six-hour
meeting with Castro on Tuesday left him convinced of the Cuban
presdent's "almost complete recovery."

Castro, 80, has not appeared in public since emergency intestinal
surgery forced him to hand power to his brother Raul in July. In recent
months, however, Castro has started receiving foreign dignitaries,
including the leaders of Vietnam and Bolivia last week, and writing
frequent columns for the state-run media.

"Fidel and I were together, and it was like he was warming up his arm
before a game, warming up for six hours," Chavez said of Tuesday's
meeting at Castro's undisclosed convalescence quarters. "I can tell you
that Fidel has recovered his 90 mile-per-hour fastball."

Chavez's audience at a university in Old Havana, including acting
president Raul Castro and Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque, erupted
with applause at the latest news of Castro's health. Chavez, who has
visited Castro six times since he fell ill, said he was impressed with
the Cuban leader's "state of mind, intelligence, youthful ideas and
reflections."

His latest meeting with Castro gave the Venezuelan president "a sense of
relief and joy and optimism," Chavez said. "I think we're approaching
the hour when he will wear his [military] uniform again."

Castro and Chavez, 52, are not only close personal friends but also
share a lifelong love of baseball and the art of pitching.

Yesterday, Chavez hinted at the possibility of Castro reappearing
publicly at the dedication of a refurbished oil refinery in the coastal
city of Cienfuegos. A date for the dedication has not been set.

"Fidel has his uniform there and he looks at it out of the corner of his
eye," he said, speaking metaphorically. "But he's still warming up at 90
miles per hour. He's not ready yet to take the pitching mound."

Chavez, looking over at Raul Castro in the audience, joked: "Then you
move over to first base, or to second." Raul Castro, seated in the front
row with other Cuban officials, smiled and joined the crowd in another
round of applause.

Earlier, Chavez joined Raul Castro in setting a wreath at the base of a
statue dedicated to Miranda, a Venezuelan who fought to end Spanish
colonial dominance in the Americas in the late 1700s.

Tuesday's meeting was Fidel Castro's third with a foreign leader in the
past 10 days. On Thursday, Castro met with Bolivian President Evo
Morales in Havana. Last weekend, after meeting with Vietnam Communist
Party chief Nong Duc Manh, Castro was seen in his first television
interview since he took ill. He made no mention of an eventual return to
power.

Ray Sánchez can be reached at rlsanchez@sun-sentinel.com.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/cuba/sfl-acuba14jun14,0,1957020.story?coll=sfla-news-cuba