Editor's Note: Randy Wayne White is the author of the Doc Ford novels including Night Moves, Chasing Midnight, and Deep Shadow. He is most recently the author of Cuba Straits. Below, Randy discusses his longstanding relationship with Cuba and his love of America's favorite past time, both of which set the stage of his latest novel.

I do not pretend to be an expert on Cuba, but I have a patchwork knowledge -- the equivalent of personal snapshots assembled from many trips over a period of thirty-eight years. My Spanish on a good day is poor, my understanding of lingual nuances is nonexistent. My admiration for Cubans and Cuban Americans, however, is limitless. I am devoted to my Cuban friends, and sensitive to their circumstances, which is why we never mention, let alone discuss, politics, the embargo, or Fidel and Raúl Castro. They are as patriotic and loyal to their country as I am to mine. It has never been an issue on an island where there are better things to talk about, such as baseball, fishing, literature, and the ingredients of a good mojito. All references to politics in my book reflect the opinions of two fictional characters who are always at opposition: Marion D. Ford and Sighurdhr Tomlinson. Blame them or blame me. My friends were not consulted, and they played no role whatsoever in writing this book.

The reader doesn't need to know this to enjoy Cuba Straits, I hope, but I want these facts and a few others out there.

My first visit to Cuba was in 1977, when, after a stop in Havana, I flew to the Isle of Pines, where I was lucky enough (sort of) to visit the prison where the Castros were imprisoned from 1953 to ’55. Letters written from that prison, as you will discover, are key to the plotline of this book. I then enjoyed scuba diving reefs and wrecks that, at the time, were unexplored. The only disappointment on that trip, as I recollect, was using Soviet tanks and regulators that were prone to malfunction at inopportune times -- at a hundred-plus feet on one occasion, although I’m guessing. We hadn't been issued depth gauges, let alone pressure gauges, so I’m still not sure where or why I ran out of air.

Nineteen eighty was a formative year for me, and thousands of Cuban refugees. For complicated reasons, Fidel Castro told his people that if the "blood of the Revolution" wasn't in their hearts, all they had to do was sign a paper and they were free to leave the island. When word reached the U.S., hundreds of private vessels mustered in Key West for the 112 miles trip to Mariel Harbor. I was aboard one of them. I spent more than a week in Mariel, and returned on a 55-foot grouper boat overloaded with 147 people, who, when we raised Boca Chica, took up this chant: Libertad ... Libertad (Liberty ... Liberty).

Witness such purpose and bravery, your life changes.

As a columnist for Outside magazine, I returned to the island many times afterward. Nineteen ninety-one was the beginning of what Cubans called the Special Time. The Soviet Union’s collapse, and the U.S. embargo multiplied the island’s already considerable economic woes, and I remember renting a car at José Martí International, then being told, "We don’t provide fuel," after I’d run out of gas within a few hundred yards of the airport. Even now, car traffic outside Havana is sparse, but, in those years, roads were deserted but for a half a million Chinese bicycles the government had purchased to solve the island’s transportation problems. On that trip, I first saw children playing baseball with bats they’d carved by hand, and balls made of asphalt and wrapped with twine.

The pure joy with which they played -- wow.

The memory stuck with me. In high school, I was a mediocre catcher (as my venerated coach, Bill Freese, will confirm), but I loved the game. My pal Gene Lamont (American League Manager of the Year, White Sox; now a Detroit icon) managed Kansas City’s single A team at the time, and Geno came through in a big way. On my next visit, I brought along a hundred balls, my catcher’s gear, and bags of bats and gloves, mostly major league quality. I returned to Florida with an empty backpack and bigger plans for the future. Enter William Francis Lee III -- the "Spaceman" of Red Sox and Expos fame. I met Bill in 1989 when I was a bull pen catcher for a team in the short-lived Senior Professional League. I remember him walking onto the field in Winter Haven, spikes over his shoulder, wearing a Chairman Mao T-shirt, and me thinking, Who is this left-wing loony ? but saying, at some later date, "You’d fit right in playing ball in Cuba."

"Just got back" was his reply.

Bill is a genuinely brilliant man, and as generous as he is eclectic. Thanks to his contacts in Cuba, and those of Louie Tiant, we began taking our own team to the island along with busloads of baseball gear to give away to kids. We even made a documentary, "The Gift of the Game," that premiered at Fenway Park, and was issued by WGBH, Boston. It is a sweet, honest film that I recommend. Bill and Jon Warden (pitched for Detroit) are hilarious; Cuba’s children, unforgettable.

Baseball, as you might guess, plays a role in this novel. My love of Cuba and Cubans, same thing.