The World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) will not recognize the national team that made up a group of Cuban baseball players from the US Major League Baseball (MLB)highlighted the president of the organization, Riccardo Fraccari, in statements collected this Friday by the official Cuban press.
The Italian made it clear that accepting that an independent team represent a country that already has a selection goes against the statutes of the confederation he presides over.
“The only entities that can form a national team, use the colors, the uniform and the flag are the full members, which are the national federations,” Fraccari said in an interview for state television, rescued by the official agency Prensa Latina.
Riccardo Fraccari: “Cuban baseball deserves to return to the top”
The refusal of the WBSC leaves, in fact, without effect the intentions of the Association of Cuban Professional Baseball Players (ACPBP), a group of athletes islanders who play in the MLBto form an alternative national team for the next World Classic in 2023.
The independent team was presented on March 15 in Miami. In their proposal, the athletes indicated that they will present an application to the MLB -creator of the World Classic– to play as a team with athletes who are not linked to the Cuban Federation.
Despite the rejection of the confederation, different coaches of teams from the National Series -the Cuban league of baseball– assured that it would be a good idea to integrate a team with players from inside and outside the Island.
Both the manager of Santiago de Cuba and that of Industriales, two of the most followed teams in the Caribbean country, agreed that it would be a good opportunity.
“Really, with the best players we have in the world, I think the unification would be perfect,” said Eriberto Rosales, the mentor of the Avispas de Santiago.
For his part, Guillermo Carmona, from Havana, assured that he would like the national team to be “the best team.”
The baseball, declared cultural heritage of Cubais not going through its best moment in decades and that crisis has been reflected in an unprecedented exodus of players.
According to the official newspaper workers, a total of 635 baseball players have left the country during the last six years (the figure includes departures with and without permission from the State).
During a visit to the island last January, Fraccari said that progress was being made on a plan so that Cuban baseball players could legally go out to play in foreign leagues.
