Higinio Vélez Carrión, National Director of Baseball (DNB), at a press conference, traced the path by which the Cuban baseball will transit in the coming months and reported the international tournaments the national team will participate in for the remainder of the year. He also claimed that players may be contracted in other foreign leagues other than Major League Baseball (MLB), as well as indicating they are working on some modifications for the upcoming National Series.
Thus, it was learned that Alfonso Urquiola, manager of last season champion Pinar del Rio, is the man who takes over the reins of the Cuba team that will face from July 23 through the 28 a US college team that will visit the country as part of the friendly match between the USA Baseball organization and the Cuban National Federation.
According to Velez the match is agreed for five games and the players who will be called to join the team basically respond to future prospects with the aim of developing figures facing the macro-cycle for the IV World Baseball Classic 2017 as well as being in line with the age of their rivals.
Therefore, those who make the final list should not exceed 25 years, although Higinio has stressed that “there will be a team to respond to competitive expectations,” a clear allusion to names that will evade that requirement. The games will take place in the stadiums “Victoria de Girón” in Matanzas and “Capitan San Luis” in Pinar del Rio, although there are still some details to work on in both facilities.
As for the concern about the absence of Cuba to the usual tournament Harlem, Netherlands, Vélez Carrión specified that “it was because Cuba was not given the usual invitation due to economic problems of the organizers of the event and we could not afford all these expenses.”
Meanwhile, he announced that in addition to contracts to Granma’s Alfredo Despaigne in the Piratas de Campeche in the Mexican League and Santi Spiritus Frederich Cepeda with the Yomiuri Giants in Japan, the organization works in other negotiations (he didn’t provide any details) as part of the agreed policy adopted for this purpose last year. These arrangements will be made through a hiring committee created by the National Federation of Baseball (FCB) to perform the procedures. In this regard he said “there will be more negotiations, as there are leagues until July (like the Japanese) have to make new additions”, however, he clarified that” the relationship with the MLB is the only one excepted, not by our negative, but because the very laws of that country denied this possibility to our players. “
At the meeting, Higinio stressed that the DNB is “studying several proposals for competitive systems for the main Cuban show, in order to fit the demanding international schedule of sport and the topic of hiring several figures on the outside. ” He also said that the Central American and Caribbean Games Veracruz will have the participation of the elite national team , so that ” is likely to affect the National Series , so we cannot give a date of it, because we have to think , weigh all edges , since then in February we have the Caribbean Series . “
Vélez , when he referred to the National Series tackled two points, the first of them to clarify that the transfer of a player from one province to another is in the hands of the territory of origin and thus ” only the province has the power to release him ” in if this doesn’t happen, the ballplayer would have to wait two years to change the team . And on the second point, he reported that they are working toward perfecting the use of video in plays of assessment and that in this sense , they are trying to coordinate with the Cuban Institute of Radio and Television ( ICRT ) conditions in which at the stadiums exist groups of experts to directly supervise such mishaps to report as quickly as possible to the groups of umpires.
Finally, he said that on May 15 at the Lazaro Pena Theater of Havana , they will hold the Awards Gala of the 53 National Series .
