Olympic Qualifying tournament adds "Ernesto" to Roster

HAVANA: The Olympic Baseball Qualifying tournament of 2006 finally started with a opening ceremony and ...obviously rain!  Rain delays are pretty common in the Caribbean.  Ernesto is bearing down on us but appears to be pushing away from Havana. (Happens to be the name of our driver).  So far we have played all the games.. Actually a great day of weather today.  Tomorrow will be shaky but that's why there are make up days in the schedule! There isn't a lot of concern from the locals... who have seen there fair share of hurricanes over the years.  Because Ernesto is coming over the mountains, it will slow down quite a bit according to head groundskeeper Pedro Almenares. He is 80 years old and works as hard as anyone...so I believe him!

Fortunately we had materials on  hand this week an a great crew to get all of the competition  fields in shape.  There is only one infield cover at the stadiums and it needs some help...Probably a few hundred holes. The local crew is planning to patch them.   Many repairs were made which included reconstruction of all mounds and bullpens with clay from Canada.

Also general sodding and grading improvements were completed. 

USA is 3-0 after a tough fight with Brazil yesterday...Cuba is also 3-0.  You can actually log into the www.IBAF.ch  website and check out the game info.