Cuban Baseball takes silver in Olympic showdown with South Korea

The Cuban baseball team, which narrowly defeated a highly-touted US team earlier, lost another nail-biter today by a score of 3-2 in the gold-medal game against South Korea.

After eight Olympic rounds this year, the Cuban team finished 6 -2, batting a combined .312 -- tops in the games.

In an earlier interview, U.S. reliever Jeff Stevens noted: "Cuba's a very good team, and there's a little history there." Stevens was referring, of course, to Cuba's prior defeat of the US baseball team in the 2000 Olympics -- nothing else.

It's a safe bet that Fidel Castro, a former aspiring pitcher himself, was watching from his sick bed -- but no Castro quotables have surfaced on the net as of yet. Also of note:

• According to VOA news: "Only a small number of fans knew to stand up and sing along to "take Me Out to the Ball Game' during the traditional seventh inning stretch."
  
  
• Today's game is also the last Olympic baseball game for the forseeable future, since the the sport has been cut from the roster for London 2012 games.

For an enjoyable read, see the NYTimes live blog of the gold-medal game.

Sources: VOA news, NYTimes, Miami Herald, Granma International