The Cuban National Baseball team during a pre game ceremony failed to qualify for the 2021 Tokyo Olympics (File photo from the New York Times)
Cuba’s Baseball in Disarray, Ranked 11th
That’s Amaury News and Commentary
By Amaury Pi-Gonzalez
After Cuba failed to qualify for the Olympics (first time ever that Cuba baseball will not be in baseball Olympic competition) the baseball program in that country is in disarray. The World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) is the world governing body for the sports of baseball and softball, at the amateur level, therefore covering Olympic competition.
They have 208 National Federation Members in 141 countries and territories across Asia, Africa, Americas, Europe and Oceania. Some people in Cuba consider this fall a disgrace for the morale of the country, since Cubans have been playing baseball for the longest time in this hemisphere after the US. The WBSC dropped Cuba to 11th in their rankings.
For the first time in history Cuba is not listed as one of the power-countries in baseball. Baseball has been Cuba’s national sport since the game was introduced to Cubans in 1864 when Cuban students returned home from the United States. In 1878 a baseball league was established in Cuba and it evolved into many levels and leagues.
One was the Cuban Winter League, a professional league, at that time regarded the best baseball league in the world after the US Major League Baseball, by most experts, scouts and players. Major League players in the US that went to Cuba in the winter to play, told me that was the best league after MLB and the one that paid the best.
Those players knew, because most American players back then, had to supplement their incomes in the winter, since they did not have the benefit of today with a very strong Players Union. The very popular Cuban Winter League ended when Fidel Castro took power in Cuba and abolished all professional sports, including baseball. Cuba’s economy is dominated by their communist government.
That government sponsors their baseball program with great national pride and is one of the few things that the majority of Cubans can truly celebrate in the island. The fall of Cuban baseball in the world stage is among the list of many failures for that government, with one of the poorest economies in Latin America as well as dismal record of human rights violations, year-after-year per Amnesty International, a non-profit human rights watchdog.
Today at least 25 Cuban-born players are playing in the US Major Leagues and many others around the world where baseball is played professionally. According to the WSBC recent ranking some of the countries above Cuba in baseball are: USA, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Australia, Dominican Republic, Holland, and Venezuela.
For Cuba not to dominate in baseball it would be comparable to the US not dominating in basketball, at any level. Cuba was the only country to have made it in baseball five times to the finals of the Olympic games, winning three Gold Medals and two Silver Medals.
What will happen with the Cuban baseball program is anybody’s guess. The US has maintained a blockade of the island of Cuba since 1960 when then President John F. Kennedy and the Soviet Union (who made Cuba one of its political satellite supporting the country with billions of dollars) were involved in the cold war.
Although Cuba continues to trade with countries like Canada, Brazil, Mexico, China and the Netherlands, among others, they still suffer a tremendous shortage of goods. The fact remains, that considering how much baseball represents to the island of Cuba this downgrading of Cuban baseball at the international level is a huge blow to the Cuban government who is the sole sponsor of sports.
Amaury Pi Gonzalez is the vice president of the Major League Baseball Hispanic Heritage Hall of Fame Museum and does News and Commentary at http://www.sportsradioservice.com
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