Thanks to Tito Rondon, who has provided an explanation for an obscure remark (found in the Diario de la Marina article excerpted in this post) concerning the Filipino pitcher Claudio Manela: “Todavía no sabe el verdadero significado del 8 y del 36” (“He still doesn’t know the true meaning of the ‘8’ and the ‘36’”).
ABOUT 8 AND 36 (MANELA)
No doubt you have played charades, complete with three fingers up meaning “three words” or “syllables.” A Cuban version of the game (I have learned) used hints based on numbers; each number meant something. For instance, “one” was a “horse.” The Cubans also had a public lottery game called “bolita” (numbers racket in the U.S.). And so, dreams became associated with numbers. If you dreamed of a cat, for instance, you had to bet combinations that had a four in it (I think bolita had three or four numbers, it was run daily). Everybody played it, so if you arrived in Cuba and stayed a few months, in time you learned the significance of the numbers. Manela did not stay long enough to learn that 8 is “muerto” (dead man) or that 36 is “cachimba” (pipe used to smoke).
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