Higinio Velez Team Quotations

This wasn't a gift. We won this. The Cuban team simply had to come and show the quality of Cuban baseball.

Our team doesn't give up. Our team continued to fight with courage but it was very difficult.

When I said that this was a team made of men and not names, I didn't mean that the others were not men. They're as manly as we are. We're all men and good men and hard men and manly men.

This team is the world champion and the Olympic champion. We didn't get that for free.

You have a team of men and not of names. If you don't play as a team, you have to defend the flag of your country. You have to defend your homeland, the love for your country. That is what brings together the players in a team.

That means that Cuba is a great team because if not it would have lost many times under the mercy rule. But that's only happened twice. Our second-line pitchers did not come through and we couldn't use our best pitchers today. That was the fundamental cause of our defeat.