Kids and baseball. They’re two things that generally transcend language.
So when Clayton Kershaw found himself standing on the mound at Havana’s famed Estadio Latinoamerica on Wednesday, his lack of Spanish did little to hinder his ability to communicate with the nearly 200 grade-school players who showed up for a midday baseball clinic.
Kershaw spent two hours under a punishing sun playing catch, tinkering with windups and generally encouraging kids who couldn’t understand a word he said, but understood the messages clearly just the same.
The clinic was part of Major League Baseball’s three-day goodwill trip, the first step toward what both MLB and the Cubans are hoping will be improved relations between the federations running the sport in the U.