On Thursday, September 4th, Barnstable High School Spanish students had a chance to practice their language skills and interact with a Cuban senior softball team. The team, who has come to America to play softball for the past three years, is participating in the Cape Cod Senior Softball Classic–an annual tournament with teams from all across the country.

The Cuban players, all of whom are 60 or older, spoke to BHS students currently taking Spanish in the Knight Auditorium in BHS. The players conversed in Spanish to the students in small groups as they discussed their varied cultures. The baseball players discussed topics from beloved Cuban salsa dancing to how cigars are made. “But don’t smoke!” commented one of the players.

As the students did their best to follow along with the conversations in Spanish, BHS foreign language department head Grace Lytle and a few of the Cubans who spoke English, as well as translators, helped to translate.

For many years, the Cape Cod Senior Softball League and the EMASS Senior Softball League have been playing each other competitively. Since 2009, the EMASS Senior Softball team has done an exchange with Cuba to play softball, and has extended this year’s invitation to include the Cape Cod league as well.

“It took about two-seconds to say yes,” said member of the Cape Cod Senior Softball League’s board of directors and softball player Terry Moran. “We’re trying to make this a really great experience for everyone.”

Gary Siegel, member of the EMASS board of directors and softball player, is also part of the ETA–educational travel alliance–which sponsors Cuba and makes it possible for the players to come to the Boston area to participate in the annual tournament.

Cuban softball player Jorge Rodriguez has accompanied the team all three years of their travels here. During the team’s first year in America, they weren’t familiar with the American “hard-pitch” way of throwing the ball. “It was hard for us to learn, but we learned it and now feel very comfortable with it,” said Rodriguez.

According to Rodriguez, softball’s popular in Cuba. There are many teams, and the players are out on the field every weekend all year round. “No vacations,” said Rodriguez.

Coming to America also provides most of these Cuban baseball players time to visit family in Florida as almost all the players have relatives there. They have formed friendships with the EMASS league that wouldn’t be possible if it wasn’t for softball. When speaking to Rodriguez, Siegel chimed in commenting, “We’ve been friends since 2009. He was pitching against me,” as the two had a good laugh.

Spanish student Kathryn Lawler enjoyed spending time with the Cuban team. Lawler had the opportunity to travel to Cuba this past April on a school trip, and noted that “meeting the people was definitely the best part.” According to Lawler, the Cubans felt so welcomed by the BHS students and hoped the students could come to Cuba so they could feel just as welcomed there.

To end the day, all the people in the auditorium participated in an American tradition–singing the Star Spangled Banner. Afterwards, the Cuban team sang their own National Anthem and left the students with one word of advice: “Long live the youth.”