Pinar del Río pitcher Erlys Casanova decided to break his ties with the Cuban baseballmotivated by sanction that was imposed upon him when he traveled without authorization outside the country to fulfill a contract managed on his own account.
The ordeal of the son of the legendary Luis Giraldo Casanova began last July, after moving to Italy to join Serie A in that country.
Specialized journalist Ernesto Amaya Esquivel states on his Facebook profile that for this reason the pitcher received a punishment from the provincial commission of Pinar del Ríoconsisting of a three-month separation from baseball.
However, the national sports commission decided to increase the term of the sanction to one year, which left the player without the ability to join the team for the current baseball campaign, about to enter its decisive phase.
As it turned out, Erlys decided to appeal to the president of Inder, and despite popular pressure and the opinion of specialists for the measure to be reconsidered, nothing changed.
This situation triggered the step taken by the pitcher, a mainstay for the Vegueros and a member of several national teams in recent years.
During his foray into 19 seasons, Erlys left a service record that shows a balance of 103 games won and 91 lost, along with an earned run average of 3.29.
In the official statistics It appears that he pitched 5,017 innings, his opponents hit him for an average of .262, he recorded 1,031 strikeouts and walked 616.
What happened represents a hard blow for baseball in the province and the country, in the midst of a panorama increasingly marked by the departure of talented players in different categories, and the determination of others not to participate in the main tournaments due to lack of attention and poor motivations, including economic ones.
The circumstances have had an impact on the quality of the National Series (SNB), as well as on Cuba’s results in the main international tournaments, which it dominated at will before falling into a deep and already prolonged crisis.
