The new head of baseball in Cuba would welcome a reactivation of the agreement with the major leagues of the United States and an orderly flow of star players both to avoid dangerous illegal exoduses and desertions.
“The best baseball in the world is played in the United States, in the MLB (the major leagues),” the new president of the Cuban Baseball Federation, Juan Reynaldo Pérez, told The Associated Press.
“A lot of players want to play there. Even Cuba agrees that there is an organized flow of mutual agreement of players who are here so they can play in MLB and others who are there can play in Cuba,” Pérez added.
The 49-year-old leader succeeds Higinio Vélez, who died of complications from COVID-19 in May 2021. Vélez led the Cuban team that won Olympic gold at the Athens Games in 2004.
The Caribbean nation is a baseball powerhouse and throughout its history has produced important figures, but in recent years the departure of figures such as José Abreu, Aroldis Chapman and Yuli Gurriel – some leaving games in progress or traveling through human traffickers – undermined the business.
Players are often tempted by millionaire contracts in the professional circuits. When they desert, in full competition, by regulation they cannot resume the practice of the sport on the island.
In addition, the economic crisis, exacerbated by US sanctions against the island, has affected the budget for infrastructure – maintenance of stadiums, lights, clocks and other tools – and logistics.
Under the Vélez administration and thanks to a historic rapprochement between Havana and Washington from 2014, an agreement was negotiated between the major leagues and the Cuban federation, but the arrival of Republican Donald Trump as president and a policy of radical tightening of sanctions against the island invalidated the pact. Current US President Joe Biden has not changed the measures.
Such a deal would “avoid a lot of trouble” because breaking the pact “has caused Cuban fighters who want to play in MLB to do so illegally,” Pérez said. “The athlete, not (only) Cuban, but from all over the world wants to try in his best league and everyone must be placed at the level that corresponds to him,” he added.
Although at the beginning of the triumph of the Cuban revolution, athletes and sports authorities abandoned paid professional activity and for decades their exercise was stigmatized, since the last decade an opening has begun – not only in baseball – which allowed top athletes to play abroad without having to leave the island.
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Eight players from the Caribbean nation currently play in Japan, the second-best league in the world. The Cubans are guaranteed by the authorities and receive payment of 80% of their contract.
Pérez said that in the coming weeks, they may send a letter of intent “regarding the federation’s willingness to resume said agreements and communication and relations with MLB.”
A day earlier, Perez had rejected the legitimacy of an association of Cuban professional baseball players created in the United States by prominent émigrés like four-time World Series winner Orlando “El Duque” Hernández.
Meanwhile, Perez said he hopes his administration will promote baseball – which is also under pressure from the growing popularity of football – through a national strategy that includes everything from improving stadium conditions to recruiting new players. ‘children.
“The main pillars are there to strengthen the base. We know we have many limitations, Cuba is not a first world country,” Pérez said.
Two ideas he is working on in particular are to bring international events that give visibility to the talent of the island and the creation of academies by businessmen from other countries or other leagues interested in investing. in this sport on the island. Pérez preferred not to give details because they are in negotiation.
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Andrea Rodríguez is on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ARodriguezAP
