United States’ Trea Turner hits a home run during the second inning of a World Baseball Classic game against Cuba, Sunday, March 19, 2023, in Miami. (AP News photo)

World Baseball Classic: Cuba’s Baseball in Shambles

That’s Amaury News and Commentary

Amaury Pi-González

After 63 years of communism the government of Cuba has done what was almost impossible to predict just a few decades ago, their baseball is in total disarray.

Baseball was one of the few things left that the Cuban people could be proud of, but a dictatorship that has kept generations brainwashed to a radical ideology that doesn’t allows freedom of any sort, including private property or freedom of the press has finally taken its toll. Team Cuba was eliminated this Sunday in Miami by the US with a final score of 14-2.

For the first time since this tournament began in 2006, the Cuban team was allowed to have Cuban-born players that play in the US major leagues, like two of the most established players Yoan Moncada and Luis Robert who play for the Chicago White Sox. They both live in the US. The rest of the players will return to Cuba, maybe some will try to defect, and we will know soon enough.

A sellout crowd at Loan Depot Stadium in Miami was animated with the passion that these two nations have shared for baseball for over a century since the 1800s. The US merchant marines taught Cubans how to play this game and Cubans then taught much of Latin America how to play. FOX Sports 1 carried the game that showed many memorable images.

There was a fan seated behind the plate with a T-shirt with a picture of Che Guevara that had a line across and it read; “No Che here”! A dichotomy, because if the game were held in Havana, Cuba, and that fan would show up with that same T-shirt, first of all, he would have not been allowed to enter the stadium and probably would have spent the night in jail and will be labeled “an enemy of the State.”

But that is the difference between Democracy and Communism. Simple as that. FS 1 also showed a large blue banner that read “Abajo la Dictadura” trans- “Down with the Dictatorship”. Also, a Cuban flag that had written across something to the effect that baseball has left Cuba.

A few weeks ago Cuba finished last in the Caribbean Baseball Series. They even lost to the very small island of Curacao. Cuba ended last among the 8 teams in the same tournament that Cuba once dominated. Curacao is a small Dutch Caribbean island north of Venezuela.

Team Cuba’s hopes were high for the World Baseball Classic, but they were not a match for the United States who dominated and scored at will. Now the US will play for their second WBC title in a row and will face whoever wins Monday between Japan and México. The championship game is this Tuesday, March 21.

The once proud baseball country of Cuba has lost its best players who keep defecting to the US and are currently playing in the major leagues. That exodus of players will continue because Cuban baseball stars (the ones with the talent) know very well they will get paid here in the US Major Leagues, while in Cuba they are owned by the Cuban government.

It is nothing new that the dream of a baseball player is to ascend to the best leagues in the world and the major leagues offer the opportunity. Cuban players are no exception. If you are a great basketball player *wherever you are born” you dream to be in the NBA or a football player, you want to play in the NFL, and so on.

Now, Team Cuba after flying from Tokyo, Japan, to Miami, FL (USA) a trip of 7,500 miles, is on their way back from Miami to Havana, Cuba, a 50-minute flight. There is little doubt that so far 2023 has been a terrible year for the once proud Cuban baseball program, which is 100X100 sponsored by the Cuban government.

Cuba’s decline: Failed to qualify for the Olympics for the first time. Finished last in the Caribbean Baseball Series and eliminated in the World Baseball Classic 2023.

Join Amaury Pi Gonzalez and Manolo Hernandez Douen for all the play by play of 71 home games on the Oakland A’s Spanish radio network on 1010 KIQI San Francisco and 990 KATD Pittsbugh and read That’s Amaury News and Commentary at http://www.sportsradioservice.com