FASTER WOULD BE BETTER:

Sox standout Lowell: Castro killed my kin (Jeff Horrigan, 8/02/06, Boston Herald)

“My dad had to pack up his suitcase at 10 years old with his three brothers, who had nothing. And my mother was 11 years old and my grandfather, who’d been a dentist for 15 or 20 years, had to go back to school to be (politically) re-educated,” Lowell said.

“My cousins were political prisoners. My father-in-law was a political prisoner for 15 years because, at 19, they asked him if he agreed with communism and he said, ‘No,’ so they sentenced him to death. That’s not the way to live. I know it’s terrible to say, but I think of all of that and I hope he (Castro) passes away.

“I don’t care if he dies,” Lowell said. “There are so many people who have died because of him and there’s been so much wrongdoing and so many human rights violations that I hope he does die. That sounds bad, but it’s the truth.”

Lowell’s parents managed to leave Cuba and settled in Puerto Rico, where he was born in 1974. Even so, Cuba’s plight has always been a part of his life. “It’s a shame, but that country has been taken hostage for 40 years. It’s time for it to have a chance at being democratic,” Lowell said.

Lowell’s elation mirrored that of many Cuban-Americans upon hearing about Castro’s condition.