An unidentified official from Major League Baseball (MLB) informed the Mexican media Puro Beisbol that Miami, as happened in 2023, will host a semifinal and the final of the VI World Classic of this discipline, which will take place in 2026.
According to this information, in addition to Miami, which will host the final knockout phase, the other cities in which matches will be held will be Tokyo, in Japan; San Juan, in Puerto Rico, and Houston, in the United States.
Without a doubt, this is bad news for the baseball officials of the Cuban regime, who in 2023 already filed complaints against the city of Miami as the venue for this World Cup event.
There are currently 16 teams qualified for the 2026 tournament, including the Antillean team, which last year finished in fourth place in the V Classic after losing to the North American team in the Florida city.
“Next year (2025) the classification will be played to define the other four teams. This competition will be in Tucson, Arizona,” said the aforementioned MLB official who offered the information under anonymity.
The countries that will seek these last four tickets are Chinese Taipei, Nicaragua, Brazil, Argentina, Spain, France, Pakistan, Germany, New Zealand, South Africa and Colombia.
At the V Clásico in 2023, many of the Cubans who attended the semifinal match in Miami demonstrated against ruler Miguel Díaz-Canel or carried signs and clothing with critical messages against the communist regime.
The match, which Cuba lost, was marked by protests against the Havana regime carried out by Cubans in the stands, as well as by three exiles who took to the field separately to demand “freedom” for political prisoners and the Cuban people. .
Every time one of these Cubans took to the baseball field, the excited public began to shout slogans such as “Homeland and Life”, “Freedom” and “Down with the dictatorship”.
In addition, thousands of people came to LoanDepot Park with t-shirts and posters that alluded to the lack of freedoms on the island and the more than 1,000 political prisoners held in Cuban prisons.
In this regard, Juan Reinaldo Pérez Pardo, president of the National Baseball Commission (CNB) and the Cuban federation of this sport (FCB), noted last year that it was “difficult” to include a Cuban baseball team in an event that It was based in Miami.
2024-04-25 08:54:54
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