MADRID, Spain.- Although the Pedro Marrero Stadium, located on Avenida 41 in the Playa municipality, in Havana, is currently used for soccer matches and is the headquarters of the CF Ciudad de La Habana club, in its beginnings it was the headquarters of various sporting events, including the Cuban Baseball League.
It was ordered to be built by the brewing magnate Julio Blanco Herrera and it was inaugurated on October 10, 1930 with the name of Gran Estadio Cervecería Tropical, because it was located next to the gardens of La Tropical Brewery, which included the brewery and a factory ice, also owned by Blanco Herrera.
In 1930 it was the first amateur tournament in the stadium, which hosted the qualifiers for the second Central American Sports Games, based in Havana.
On December 21, 1937, it hosted the first night game in the Cuban Professional League of Baseball, with a meeting between Almendares and Marianao.
That same year, the Gran Cervecería Tropical Stadium, with a capacity for 28,000 people, hosted the legendary 1937 Bacardí Cup, a college football championship.
On July 26, 1939, the Cuban Baseball Hall of Fame was established there.
After the triumph of the Revolution, La Tropical Brewery and the stadium were nationalized; and the latter was renamed Pedro Marrero, to remember a young man who died during the assault on the Moncada Barracks.
In the 64 years of Castroism, very few renovations have been done to the stadium, which continues to have a manual screen, and not an electric one, to change the scoreboard in sporting events. The grandstand area for special guests continues without a roof.
Fans frequently criticize the poor condition of the facility, which also floods on rainy days.
Among the most significant events that have taken place in the last decade at Pedro Marrero is the visit of the New York Cosmos team in 2015. In the friendly match, the Cubans lost with a score of 1-4.
The event transcended not only because it was the first time in decades that an American professional soccer club visited the Island; but also because the New York Cosmos had in its lineup the Spanish Raúl González Blanco, known as El Ángel del Madrid.
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