Baseball in Cuba

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The Cuban national baseball system does not consist of a single league, but is a superstructure of various leagues and series under the umbrella of the Cuban Baseball Federation . The federation organizes the national championships and the selection for the Cuban national baseball team . The players are amateurs and play in the provinces in which they live. All Cuban provinces are represented by at least one team.

Organization of Cuban baseball

Nacional de Béisbol series

→ Main article series Nacional de Béisbol

The national championship series , Serie Nacional de Béisbol , usually runs from November to April and includes 90 games per team in the regular season. This is followed by three play-off rounds, through which the champions are chosen at the end. The series has been played every winter since 1961/62. There are 16 teams, each organized in a western league and an eastern league. The four best teams in each league take part in the play-offs. The master is then crowned in May or June.

Super Series

The Super Series is usually played from May to June and consists of 28 matches. Below is a play-off of the two best teams. The teams are formed from the best players from the Nacional series . The national team is then recruited from the players in the Super Series. There are five teams in total:

  • Occidentales (Western Provinces)
  • Havana
  • Centrales (Central Provinces)
  • Orientales (Eastern Provinces)
  • Santiago de Cuba

History of Cuban Baseball

Before the Cuban Revolution, various professional, semi-professional , corporate and amateur baseball leagues thrived in Cuba, including the Liga Cubana de Béisbol professional league and the Cuban offshoot of the Minor Leagues Havana Sugar Kings .

After the revolution, baseball continued to be the Cuban national sport. In February 1961, the new government formed the National Institute for Sport, Physical Education and Recreation (INDER) and in March after the end of the League Cubana season of 1960/61, the dissolution of the professional league and the establishment of an amateur championship was ordered.

The first championship series in 1961/62 consisted of four teams: Occidentales (the western), Orientales (the eastern), Habana (Havana) and Azucareros (sugar workers). In the following season the number of teams increased to six and in 1967 to twelve. The expansion of baseball to the provinces was accompanied by the construction of new stadiums in the provincial capitals and brought world-class baseball there. The two new capital city teams Industriales and Metropolitanos were comparable to the two teams of the professional league Almendares , who like today Industriales in blue and Habana , who like Metropolitanos in red. However, after Industriales won the championship four times in a row from 1963 to 1966, it became known as the best baseball team in Cuba. The Metropolitanos, however, could not resume the old rivalry in terms of performance and are a second-class team for young players and veterans above their performance peak.

Some people were important for the transition to post-revolutionary baseball in Cuba: Gilberto Torres looked after the first national team and passed on his great knowledge of the game to the new generation of amateur players. Natilla Jiménez headed various provincial teams and was the pitching coach of the national team. Also Juan Vistuer , Asdrúbal Baró and Pedro Chavez were prominent transnational coach and manager. Conrado Marrero , former pitcher for the Washington Senators , stayed in Cuba and was pitching coach for various teams.

The Cuban system is designed both to promote national talent and to entertain the population. Children who promise appropriate athletic abilities are sent to the appropriate special sports schools, comparable to the children's and youth sports schools in the GDR, in order to enable extended, promising training. However, these players are exceptional talents.

Although all players are all amateurs by status, elite players receive financial support and special attention. However, it is a problem for many top players that they can hardly compete with the top players in the world. One of the few ways to compete against the best professional players in the world is through the World Baseball Classic , first held in March 2006.

In 2015, for the first time since 1960, when the Elefantes de Cienfuegos won , with the Vegueros de Pinar del Río , a Cuban team won the Series del Caribe again .

Emigrants

Some baseball players (sometimes referred to as deserters ) who fled Cuba played for the major leagues in the United States and Canada. Immediately after the Cuban Revolution in 1959, numerous previous professional players emigrated, but their number decreased significantly in the following years. However, since 1991 a number of prominent Cuban baseball players have emigrated, including the following:

literature

  • Roberto González Echevarría: The Pride of Havana: A History of Cuban Baseball . Oxford University Press, 1999, ISBN 0-19-514605-0 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Andreas Knobloch: Havana's dream of being thrown into freedom , Die Presse of February 21, 2015