Given the record of desertions from a Cuban baseball team, Havana says it knows who is the “culprit”: Donald Trump

Never before has a Cuban baseball team suffered seven defections in an international tournament.

This figure was recorded during the round of 16 of the Under-23 World Championship which took place in Ciudad Obregón, in the Mexican state of Sonora.

The contest, sponsored by the World Baseball and Softball Confederation (WBSC), entered the so-called Super Round with the top six ranked, among which Cuba was able to enter despite losses which, if they continue to progress, could endanger the permanence of the Caribbean team in the contest.

From this Wednesday, Mexico, Colombia, Cuba, Panama, Venezuela and Taiwan will play the Super Round in the city of Hermosillo, nearly 1,900 kilometers from the Mexican capital. The first two teams of this new phase will compete for the title in a final match on Saturday.

The highest number of retirements for a Cuban team in this sport was quantified in 1996, also in Mexico, with five players.

The route to the border with the United States is usual for Cuban athletes once they have moved away from their official delegations on Mexican soil.

So far this year, ten top Cuban baseball players have left the team overseas. Last May, three players, pitchers Lázaro Blanco and Andy Rodríguez, and infielder César Prieto, stayed in Miami during the Pre-Olympic Tournament of the Americas in Florida.

During this tournament, Cuba, three-time Olympic baseball champion, was eliminated and became the big absentee from the Tokyo 2020 tournament won by Japan.

The latest escape in Ciudad Obregón was confirmed on Tuesday morning, when left-handed pitcher Yeinel Zayas failed to show up to catch the bus in front of the hotel that houses the Caribbean team and that would take them to the stadium where the tournament is taking place. competition. .

Likewise, ahead of Zayas, pitchers Luis Dennys Morales, Uber Mejías and Danel Fernández, receiver Loidel Rodríguez, outfielder Reinaldo Lazaga and infielder Diasmany Palacios had also escaped.

The team saw their squad suddenly reduced to 17 players, with just one defending player, two receivers in a high injury risk position, and seven pitchers, to face five games before getting to the discussion of medals.

Team manager Eriel Sánchez has tried to play down the situation he is going through, although he has admitted being forced to change plans and demand maximum effort from the players.

“We have to sacrifice every athlete to achieve the result,” he said, referring to his pitcher’s effort. southpaw Naykel Cruz, whom he kept on the mound for six innings with more than the stipulated 100 throws. “I will apologize”

After losing to defending champion Mexico on Friday, Cuba was able to string together four wins against Taiwan, Germany, the Czech Republic and the Dominican Republic.

The head of the Cuban delegation, Luis Daniel del Risco, said that “despite the fact that many people want to end our baseball, we are not going to let this happen”, in clear reference to the desertions.

Cuban authorities attribute the leaks to former President Donald Trump’s decision to deactivate a deal Cubans struck with Major League Baseball at the end of Barack Obama’s term.

The deal allowed the island’s baseball players to participate in the U.S. major league competitive system without having to desert.

Trump saw the Cuban Baseball Federation as not really a non-governmental organization, but an extension of the Cuban government.