Communist Cuba is a dead end for Cuban athletes, where they are deprived of not only their freedom, but of opportunities to improve and prosper. The best thing they can do for themselves and their sport is leave.
Yusimi Rodriguez Lopez writes in Diario de Cuba:
The best thing a baseball player can do to help the sport in Cuba is emigrate
In Cuba, athletes cannot prosper or progress in their athletic disciplines.
A player who wishes to bolster the results of Cuban baseball at international tournaments should emigrate. Leaving, and as young as possible, should be considered by the regime as the most patriotic thing an athlete can do for what is still Cuba’s national sport.
Cuba cannot meet its athletes’ economic aspirations, let alone their aspirations for freedom, or those or of any of its citizens, nor can it provide them with the chance to improve in their respective disciplines.
The level of baseball in Cuba has hit rock bottom. What happened at the Gran Caracas Caribbean Series 2023 is just the latest evidence of this. It was not enough to create a selective tournament to bring together the best players from the National Series.
The 1st Elite League of Cuban Baseball —beyond all the organizational problems and the disappointments of its athletes regarding schedules, accommodations and food— exhibited more quality than the national championship, but was not enough for the Agricultores squad, without backups from the Cuban team, to put on a good show.
But even if manager Carlos Martí had brought a legion of backups to the Caribbean Series, the results probably would have been similar. At the Haarlem Tournament, the same manager, champion of the National Series, led a reinforced Granma team that turned in an even more disappointing performance than that of the Agricultores in Venezuela.
Are we telling the Cuban Baseball Federation (FCB) anything they don’t know? Not at all. Those in charge of baseball in our country are fully aware that any team composed of players playing on Cuban soil has slim chances at tournament outside our borders.
Proof of this is the decision to invite, for the first time in history, players who emigrated and were hired abroad, even by Major League Baseball, to make up the national team playing in the the World Classic. And then there was the fit thrown over the U.S. government’s delay in authorizing Major League Baseball players to join the Cuban team.
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