Written in SPORTS the
Havana Cuba.- The baseball team Cuba cited seven Major League Baseball (MLB) players of United States for the first time to face the World Baseball Classic which will begin in March of this year. The players were included by the authorities of the Cuban Baseball Federation in the pre-list of 50 players who will be taken into account until the final list is made.
The chosen ones of the league where the best baseball in the world takes place are Andy Ibanez (Detroit Tigers); Yoan Manuel Moncada y Luis Robert Moirán (Chicago White Sox); Yoan Lopezz (New York Mets); Lazaro Armenteros and Luis Miguel Romero (Oakland Athletics) y Rolando Bolanos (Kansas City Royals), these names join a long list of players who participate in baseball on the island as well as from other places such as Dominican Republic and Mexico.
Juan Reynaldo Perez, President of the Cuban Baseball Federation stressed that it is a team that can stand out as a whole more than in individual aspects. “It is not a team of stars,” he said, quoted by the AP agency, which also reported that there were several players who rejected the call. Cuba is located in the Group A beside Chinese Taipei, the Netherlands, Italy and Panama and will play this first phase in taiwan from March 8 to 12.
Cuba had had problems counting on its players who are active in the MLB due to the blockade that the United States maintains against the island and that also extends to baseball. Last year, the island’s sports authorities accused that their players were not being allowed to quote and it was in December when it was announced that the US government had already given permission for them to join.
When will the 2023 World Baseball Classic be played?
In it World Baseball Classic 20 teams divided into four groups will participate. The host cities in the first phase will be Taichung, Taiwan; Tokyo, Japan and Phoenix and Miami in the United States. The full tournament will take place from March 9 to 21, 2023. In this edition, a new competition format is launched, in which the quarterfinal matches will be played in a single match due to the increase in participants.
Source: Tribune, AP
