Frederich Cepeda Cuba Quotations

We have played in World Cups, world championships and Olympics. The message is already out there. ... In Cuba, baseball is the No. 1 sport. People in Cuba had their doubts about us coming and about the results.

From the very beginning, we said that we were going to play baseball. The uncertainty as to whether Cuba was going to be part of it or not in baseball, as we say in Cuba, 'The ball is round.' We have done it now.

If we could win Monday, it would be the greatest victory in Cuban baseball history.

This is the greatest victory in the history of Cuban baseball because our opponents were major-league players.

Everybody saw Cuba as a smaller team. They saw other teams as greater. Yet here we are. Nothing is impossible. You will see in the final. We're prepared for this mentally and physically.

Cuba has shown the world that we have our heart in baseball. This classic is a historic event. We are not professionals. We don't get paid to play. But we ranked second, well deserved. I don't like losing. But I think we have shown a lot.

Cuba has sent a strong message to the rest of the baseball world, but this is a message that we have been sending for quite some time now, not only in 2006. Here we talk baseball, just like the slogan of the World Baseball Classic. And baseball is baseball, it doesn't matter the price paid to the athletes that play it.

What Cuba has shown to the world is not only that we could play up to par with other major leaguers. We are not professional, we are amateur. We don't get paid for doing this. We deserve a high place in baseball because we do this with sacrifice, with human value and courage and sportsmanship, and because we give our utmost in order to come to the field and show what good baseball is all about.

What Cuba has proved is that we can play up to other levels.

For us this was very big because everybody saw Cuba as a smaller team. They thought of the other teams, greater teams, bigger teams, powerful. They thought we could never win against Venezuela, that we did not have any possibility or any chances. And here you have it. We know how to play under pressure.

I'm not happy because I don't like to lose, but Cuba showed that they can play anybody.