The The administration of the state-run National Baseball Stadium in Nicaragua withdrew this Wednesday the name of former major leaguer Dennis Martínez to the most important sports scene in the country, without the reasons being known at the moment, according to EFE.
The modern stadium woke up without the name with which it was baptized on its inauguration day, in October 2017, in honor of the best baseball player born in Nicaragua, where this sport is the most popular.
The name of Dennis Martínez, the first Latino to throw a perfect game in Major League Baseball (MLB) in the USA, was also removed from the building’s social networksthat now It is only called “National Baseball Stadium”.
Until now, Neither the stadium administration, whose disclosure office rejected a call from EFE, nor Martínez, who lives in the United States, have spoken about.
In 2018, the former record holder for Latin American pitcher with the most victories in the MLB disassociated himself from the stadium.among accusations that the building had allegedly been used by the Government as an operations center for armed attacks against anti-government protesters that left at least 355 dead, according to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), of which the Executive recognizes 200.
Since 2020, the Sandinistas have promoted the removal of the name of Martínez from the National Stadium, which they consider a “seller of the country”, because it does not support Ortega’s decisions and criticizes his style of government.
At the time of its inauguration, the “Dennis Martínez”, built under the parameters and supervision of the MLB at a cost of 36 million dollars and with capacity for 15,000 spectators, was considered by the Pan American Baseball Confederation (Copabe) as ” the best in Latin America”.
It was the jewel in the crown of the XI Central American Games in Managua in 2017, and was inaugurated by President Ortega and Dennis Martínez himself.
The historic 57-year-old baseball player is one of the most admired athletes in Nicaragua due to his successes in the MLB, such as being the first Latin American baseball player to throw a perfect game, and holding the record for the “Latin” with the most victories in the best league in the world, with 245 until 2018.
