I didn't make it to the two biggest sporting spectacles of the year—the Winter Olympics and the FIFA World Cup. But I just may have been to the craziest. I even brought my nine-year-old.

During the first two days of my family's annual pilgrimage to Varadero, Cuba, not long after suppertime, the staff at the Brisas Del Caribe Hotel would mentally check out from their daily tasks and gravitate to the newly minted big-screen TV in the lobby.

When we inquired about the ritual, we were told they were watching the Cuban equivalent of the World Series, which pitted the Villa Clara Naranjas, the home team of many of the hotel workers, against the hated Havana Industriales, the Cuban league equivalent to the New York Yankees.

Any time the Naranjas (literally "The Orangemen") got so much as a squib single down the third baseline or made a routine put-out, the assembled staff would cheer, blurt out something in rapid-fire Spanish and do a quick 60 seconds of work while the next batter was introduced.

Not surprisingly, the tables and floors in front of the big-screen were so clean, you could see your reflection in them.

Bartenders would sneak away from their posts during a Villa Clara rally only to sprint back when a customer sat down on one of the bar stools. They would serve them a frosty cold Cristal draft or a Cuba Libre, and then run back to the action as if beating out a throw to first.

Only the very brave dared to cheer for the Industriales and they did so quietly. It was so intoxicating to watch the staff live and die with every pitch, many of the guests became instant fans of the Naranjas. We moaned with every hit by the Industriales and did a little jig when the Naranjas turned a double play. (How do you say "bandwagon" in Spanish?)

So when the series was tied after Game 6, I knew I had to be there for the final game. I had never been to Game 7 of any kind, let alone a country's national sport. I thought it would be sort of like seeing the Winnipeg Jets versus the Montreal Canadiens in the Stanley Cup final (which I'm hoping to see in a couple of years too—if Gary Bettman would just wise up).

Plus, my parents took me to a Cuban ballgame when I was 15 and I'll never forget being invited down to field level for an autographed baseball when the game was done.

On a Mission to See the Game

My wife, Megan, thought I was nuts, but approved after a long sigh, abiding by our parental agreement to show our kids there's more to the beach paradises we visit than all-inclusive resorts.

My son, Alex, who plays mosquito baseball in Winnipeg, was pumped before I even finished asking him if he wanted to go. Mia, 12, opted to stay beachside.

I called up a local friend I knew to help seal the deal. Not that Frank, who makes part of his living driving tourists around the island, is a typical local. Born on the island, he also has a U.S. passport, having grown up in Philadelphia, New York, Miami and Los Angeles.

In fact, he was managing a group of Cuban musicians at Brandon, Manitoba's Jazz Festival in late March, just a week before we arrived for our vacation. My parents met him on one of their many trips to Varadero and, by coincidence, when we needed a cab to drive to the city of Matanzas last year, Frank picked us up.

"I have this crazy idea to go to Game 7 tonight," I told him the morning of the deciding game.

"That is crazy," Frank replied. "It's sold out."

Disheartened at first, I quickly remembered that Frank was the most connected person I knew in the country. Surely, he could hurdle this little technicality.

He told me tickets sold for two Cuban pesos—the local currency, not the CUC tourist pesos tied to the U.S. dollar—equivalent to a couple of pennies. But, if I flashed a few of the hefty CUCs, he was pretty sure Alex and I could get in.

"So, we'd be going on a hunch?" I asked.

"Yeah, but a pretty good one," he replied.

"OK, when can you pick us up?"

With just an hour to prepare, I only told a handful of my fellow fans about our plan. Without exception, they told us it was going to be "loco."

Road Trip

Frank pulled up just after lunch in his four-seat 1991 Peugeot, and away we went. As insurance, we also picked up his mechanic, Ariel, just in case something happened during the five-hour-plus round trip to Santa Clara, where the Naranjas played.

"I have enough tools in the back to take this car apart," Frank said as we hit the open road. "Ariel works on this car all the time."

I gathered that was supposed to make me feel better. One thing Ariel wouldn't have to repair was the seatbelts. There weren't any.

"Cars from before 2000 don't need them," Frank said, as the speedometer hit 130 klicks.

Much of the traffic outside of Varadero consisted of horse-drawn carriages, cyclists and the odd goat. Frank made a point of pointing out some of the sights along the way. But he never lost focus on the task at hand.

"This is the game. The first six games have all been real close. Baseball is the national sport, the national passion," Frank said.

To illustrate his point, Frank told us there were 50,000 fans in the stands for the most recent game in Havana, held on a Monday in the middle of the day.

"Who went to work?" he asked, rhetorically.

Cuba's Love of Baseball

Baseball is to Cuba what hockey is to Canada. For every pick-up or road hockey game in the Great White North, there is a sandlot baseball game taking place on the Caribbean island. You can't go through a town without seeing scores of boys, young and old, playingor practising. And they're all very good.

The national obsession with the game was ignited in the late 1800s by returning Cubans who studied in the U.S., and U.S. sailors in Cuban ports.

Castro may have carved out his place in history as the architect of the revolution, but before he wielded a weapon, he was a young fireball-throwing pitcher. There are even rumours that El Jefe caught the eyes of a few pro scouts in his day.

In downtown Havana's Central Park, there's also a place called the Hot Corner, where dozens of people, almost exclusively older men, do little else but talk baseball all day.

We arrived in Santa Clara to find police officers on virtually every corner directing traffic—a mix of 1950s American cars and 1980s Russian clunkers, plus the odd scooter.

We didn't need directions; we just walked towards the noise, quietly hoping Frank could work a little magic for us.

Getting Into the Game

He walked purposefully to the front gate and spoke to a ticket taker. He returned and asked for 5 CUC, turned around and passed it to his new friend in the familiar handshake technique that each of them had done a million times.

We had our tickets, each costing as much as a can of pop in Canada.

On television, Estadio Augusto Csar Sandino's rich green turf and orange scoreboard gives the impression of a modern, if simple, ballpark. In person, it's wrecking-ball bait (at least it would be in virtually any North American city).

To find the washroom, Frank pointed to the stairs and told us to "follow our noses." There were no fancy concession areas in the stadium, but if you wanted a cold beer or a chicken sandwich, there was no shortage of street vendors just outside the gates.

The game was scheduled to start at 8 p.m. and we thought that, by arriving at 5, we'd have plenty of time. But as we walked through the gates, the noise inside was deafening. Green-clad soldiers stamped our tickets and Frank led us to the best seats we could find.

Did we get the start time wrong? Had we missed part of the game? Did we arrive in the bottom of the ninth?

We walked down the ramp to find 10,000 fans going absolutely crazy, pounding on drums, honking horns, blowing trumpets and whistles, stomping their feet and singing, chanting and dancing. I turned quickly to the field, expecting to see the bases loaded and a full count on the batter. Instead, I saw the Naranjas leisurely going through their warm-up.

They took batting practice, shagged a few fly balls, did the odd wind sprint and signed some autographs.

None of the stadium's 18,000 seats seemed to be assigned, and it was probably just as well. Most of the "seats" were missing one basic ingredient—the part you sit on.

When they were originally installed in late '60s, each one had five wooden slats across it. Today, the lucky ones have two.

Everyone was standing, anyway.

Game On!

An hour later, the Industriales took the field and went through the same routine (only with fewer autographs). All the while, the decibel level got higher and higher as the place quickly filled to capacity.

Even when Alex and I yelled in each other's ears, we were barely audible. And hearing Frank and Ariel two rows back? Forget about it. As far as I could tell, we were the only gringos in the place, and we watched the entire game without understanding a word.

Luckily, we spoke baseball.

When the first Naranjas batter hit a triple in the bottom half of the inning, the ear-piercing celebration that ensued made the pre-game festivities seem like a trip to the library.

The entire estadio almost blasted off when the next batter brought him in with a single. The crazy thing about it all was how the crowd didn't quiet down between batters or innings. They just kept blowing, banging and whistling.

The game was a dramatic affair, with several heart-stopping lead changes, but in the end, the Industriales prevailed 7-5 in a 10-inning game that took six hours.

Alex hadn't stayed up this late since he was a cranky newborn. Not quite devastated by the loss—we'd been superfans for just over 72 hours, after all—and pumped from the once-in-a-lifetime experience, we hopped back in Frank's car, arriving back at the hotel at 4:30 a.m.

We woke up Megan and Mia to show them our photos and videos and to quell any nightmares about fiery deaths on Cuba's highways. The next morning, sporting our Villa Clara hats and T-shirts, we were eagerly sought out by hotel employees who wanted to hear our tale.

They were just as bleary-eyed as we were (although a lot more heartbroken) after staying up late to watch the game and then catching an early-morning bus to work.

Next year, Alex and I vowed, we'll commission a van so we can share this experience with our hotel friends. Without their advice, my son and I would never have enjoyed the craziest day of our lives together.