If baseball did not exist, Cubans would invent it. We live its emotions intensely and we suffer it just as much. It is deeply rooted in our nationality and in the culture of a country that loves it.
The year 2022 premiered a national strategy to revitalize baseball’s competitive nobility and gave way to a 2023 that promises to bring tension back to the field from the first inning. The twelve months ahead pack an extensive international tour that presents, although it might sound pretentious, as the opportunity of the year of baseball.
Juan Reynaldo Pérez Pardo, president of the Cuban Baseball Federation (FCB in Spanish), described 2022 as complex and very difficult in which, however, important steps were taken. “It was very different from the last two, in which the international and national calendars were depressed by COVID-19. We played the 60th National Series in a bubble, with 75% of fans in the stadiums, which were only filled up from the playoffs onwards.”
The FCB President also reiterated the weakest points identified during the implementation of the strategy. “These are at the base due to the lack of material and the insufficient preparation and training of the technical force which in turn prevents from meeting the demand. However, we have carried out upgrading and staffing actions based on the evaluation of the strategy”.
Even though it is far from the desired levels, “there is a marked interest in baseball in the territories,” he said. The stadiums have been decorated and the living conditions of the athletes have been improved, which are essential steps to scale things up. Aspects such as the lodging, food, transportation require constant attention since the baseball players play all year long for the people. Both the players and the fans deserve the respect to have a stadium where they can feel at home and fans need a place for family entertainment. “We must turn stadiums into a real home that offers multiple choices as part of a party that is passion.”
Pérez Pardo said that the main responsibility lies with the FCB, which has to know how to integrate all those efforts proposed in the country’s strategy, which involves 21 organizations, in favor of a sporting spectacle par excellence. Asked about the material resources, he replied that “the provinces have undertaken purchases of implements, based on the availability of local industry and the productions of MSMSEs.”
The ball is the most in-demand resource. “It is a priority for the FCB, and therefore we are looking for ways to acquire all the balls needed for the national tournaments and training sessions. The FCB, by restructuring its budget and allocating it where it is most needed, acquired the supplies for the School of Sports Initiation (EIDE in Spanish), and for the U-12, U-15, U-18 and U-23 categories, that is, glove kits, bats, uniforms, due to the shortage of raw material in the national industry. We also invested in technology: batting cages, clocks, radars and laptops, among other items.” Cuba already has two modern gymnasiums in the provinces of the last two national champions, Granma and Matanzas. In the latter, the lighting system for the Victoria de Girón stadium was acquired. “With the optimal use of financing, we also cover Cuba’s presence in the entire 2022 international calendar.”
-Is that why you say it was a good year?
-We are full of dissatisfactions, but achieving those goals was very positive, as were the results, especially in the lower categories. We include in the achievements, because we are a single Federation, the successes of baseball 5, and those of male and female softball.
-Has the elite league been really elite?
-It is an event that started this year and it has a lot of room for improvement. But I think it did fulfill one of its main goals: to raise the level of baseball playing. There are some indicators in this league that are at the same level of those of established regional tournaments. Shorter games, less walks and more strikeouts, less indiscipline in the field, and tactically there is more dynamism. Those were our main achievements.
-And where did the league fail to do so?
-It still has to gain traction among the fans in the territories. This is an event demanded by the population but it is, at the same a challenge, because the teams are not made up of provinces, like in the National Series and therefore, fans do not identify in the same way with them. We are working very hard, even doing scientific work, on the identity and visuals of the teams so that people can make them their own.
“Regarding its structure, the press made an interesting proposal to give more benefits to the leader of the regular season in the postseason, something like seeding them, and the winner among the other three classified teams challenge them for the crown. There is a study conducted by the Communication Department of INDER, to find out how the Elite League has reached the protagonists and fans and what they would change. If the population wants changes, there will be changes, because this is a collective construction of a cultural process and for that we must be, as Army General Raul Castro Ruz says, “with our ears glued to the ground.”
THE NOVELTIES OF 2023 AND THE WORLD CLASSIC
“It will be a year as complex, if not more so, than 2022. Both the international and national calendars are full of events, some of which will take place simultaneously. For example, the 62nd National Series (SN) will be played parallel to the U-23, or Development League or Interacademy, as it is also called, under the principle of preparing by competing. It will give the possibility, at certain moments, for players to move up or down. Anyone playing in the bottom can move up to the top; we still need to evaluate how we manage the players moving down if they are over 23 years old. It is something that is still under study but it will allow us to play the whole year, starting in March with the 62nd SN until the end of the year with the Second Elite League”.
-After the U.S. Government’s license for Cuban players playing in the MLB in that country could choose to join the team for the World Classic, what are the prospects?
-The same we have said from the first moment: to have a competitive team, with those players, with those hired by the FCB, both in Japan and in other leagues, for example in Mexico, plus those who play in the Elite League. We had to wait for a permit to participate; we are the only country whose participation depends on a decision from the U.S. Government, and now we also have the other one, the one that has just been given now by that same administration, to have players in the team that were born and trained in Cuba.
“As I was saying, we recognize these gestures as positive steps, but it was the only fair solution. It is still arbitrary and discriminatory to require these authorizations for a country like ours, which not only founded these competitions, but also earned its inclusion by qualifying like the rest of the other 19 teams. The same goes for the baseball players, who have requested, just like our people, to wear the colors of their flag.
“We recently acknowledged and appreciated the work of the MLB and the World Baseball and Softball Confederation in their role as organizers of the Classic.
-Composing the team will be now a headache.
-But it will be nice to have that headache. They will come out stronger from the preparation process, which includes training bases in Havana and Mexico or the Dominican Republic, then we will have matches with the Chunichi Dragons, Yomiuri Giants and Softbank teams in Japan, and we will arrive in the first days of March to Taipei, ready for the debut on the 8th.
“A 35-name roster is due on the 6th and the final roster is due on February 17. There is still work to be done, but I can say that Cuba is preparing for its best version in such a lofty commitment.”
Year 2022
GOLD
World Baseball 5
Central American and the Caribbean softball (F)
Central American and Caribbean Softball Championship (M)
SILVER
Pan American Baseball 9-10
Little League World Qualifier
U-15 World Baseball Championship
U-23 Pan American Baseball Championship
BRONZE
U-15 Pan American Baseball Championship
Pan American Softball Championship (m)
Pan American Softball (f)
2023 EVENTS
Caribbean Series (February)
World Classic (March)
ALBA Games (April)
Central American and Caribbean Games (June)
Pan American Games (November)
Champions League (date to be defined)
Rotterdam Tournament (date to be defined)
Caribbean Cup (December)
Baseball World Cup (F)
Softball World Cup (F)
Under-12 World Cup
Little League World Cup
Youth Baseball 5 World Cup
Translated by ESTI