The Kid Stays Out of the Picture

FIDEL CASTRO’S first love may have been baseball, but on at least one occasion he agreed to play a game of three-on-three basketball instead. His teammates on that fateful day in 1975 were two fatigue-clad Cuban soldiers. His opponents: an unlikely trio of Hollywood directors on a clandestine trip that had taken them from Southern California to Havana by way of Mexico City. The Harlem Globetrotters these cultural ambassadors were not, but it wouldn’t have mattered anyhow since Fidel was determined to win, one way or another. No-call fouls, no-foul calls, double dribbles — nothing was off-limits for El Comandante. “This is my country,” Castro told his opponents with a grin, “I can do whatever I want here.” Francis Ford Coppola, Terrence Malick, and Paul W. Williams didn’t stand a chance.