MIAMI, United States.- The Havana regime has not liked the idea of several Cuban Major League Baseball players, who want to form their own team to participate in the next World Baseball Classic, and have criticized the initiative from the island, according to a note from the agency AP published on ESPN.
According to the report, the president of the Cuban Baseball Federation, Juan Reinaldo Pérez, called a press conference on Tuesday and accused the group of trying to usurp Cuba’s representation in that international event.
According to Reinaldo Pérez, the initiative of the exiled Cuban baseball players “does not hide its markedly political and discriminatory purposes, alien to the precepts that govern the international sports movement,” and “openly declares its intention to usurp the role assigned to the FCB in terms of conform and endorse the participation of teams from our country in international events”.
The response from Havana takes place after the Association of Cuban Professional Baseball Players (ACPBP) announced last March its intention to form a team with Cuban professional baseball players who are not called by the Cuban Baseball Federation (FCB) due to political problems to compete in the Clásico, scheduled for 2023.
This is the first time that regime officials speak openly about the initiative. Previously, on March 15, the Cuban Sports University had referred to the issue as “a farce against revolutionary baseball.”
In a Facebook post, the entity said: “It turns out that a group of émigré baseball players intends to attend the World Baseball Classic, forming a team of émigré players, representing the lone star flag. We have seen how sport has become politicized and we would not be surprised if such barbarity is wanted to be taken into account”.
The ACPBP involves the retired and four-time World Series winner Orlando ‘El Duque’ Hernández, and has the support of several active players, including Aroldis Chapman of the New York Yankees and Yuli Gurriel of the Astros. from Houston, who was denied entry into the country by the Havana government to visit his family.
Other players that appear in the Association are Aledmys Díaz and Yordan Álvarez, also of the Houston Astros.
In order to participate in the Classic, Major League Baseball told the AP that the ACPBP would have to obtain approval from the World Baseball Softball Confederation to participate, the FCB being a member of that group.
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