Controversial punishment unleashes another scandal in Cuban baseball | Cuba News 360

Photo: Roy Leyra | CN360

Text: Cuba News 360 Newsroom

The Cuban baseball authorities seem every day determined to outdo themselves in terms of surreal decisions, which only add to their detractors and do not have the support of athletes or the press, not to mention the fans.

Recently transcended that the National Baseball Commission (CNB) sanctioned the players Alexis Varona Núñez, from Sancti Spíritus, and Andrés Hernández Díaz, from Industriales, with five games without playing for having given statements and support to the Por La Goma page on Facebook, whose content is focused on following the Cuban ball.

According to the official note of the organization, “such decisions are the result of the process followed by our disciplinary commission after learning that both athletes violated the provisions regarding relations with media not recognized by the event authorities.”

The CNB argued that both athletes violated “against the provisions of the Disciplinary Regulations for the Competitive Baseball System, the code of ethics and the regulations debated and approved by the members of all the teams registered in the current season.”

Of course, the reactions were immediate after learning of the punishment and it was the publication itself for which the players were sanctioned that was the first to speak out.

“I have many feelings now to express, but the first of all is SHAME for such an ABSURD measure and LACK OF EVERYTHING, who or those who promoted it cannot imagine the damage they do to baseball, because on this page the ONLY thing that is done from the first day it is to support baseball”, wrote Juank Por La Goma, the administrator of the page.

“Every day you yourselves destroy the empathy of those who want to support and do, because it is easier behind a bureau, to impose, and threaten than to arrive and build, it is easier to create terror in a team of young people than to arrive and support them and give them encouragement even when they are injured and have personal problems,” he added.

Another who harshly attacked the measure was the journalist Yasel Porto, once the protagonist of Tele Rebelde programs such as Beisbol de Siempre and Bola Viva, and who currently resides in Miami after losing his job on Cuban television.

“What can we be surprised about when there are so many examples of things done poorly and meaninglessly?” Porto questioned. “This sanction against Andrés Hernández and Alexis Varona not only goes against the freedom of each one with the argument of an extremist regulation, but also threatens Cuban baseball,” he said.

The former commentator of the radio station COCO argued that “the problem is not any “alternative media” or anyone who from Facebook groups criticizes what was done wrong, and wrongly done not because I say so but because not only the majority thinks so, but also the own athletes whom they treat at their convenience and who are forgotten in many cases when they are already retired”.

But among so many reactions rejecting the CNB’s decision, one of the ones that drew the most attention was that of journalist Boris Luis Cabrera, who is in charge of running the day-to-day running of the National Series in the state-run Cubadebate.

Cabrera wrote on his personal Facebook profile that “there is not much to talk about because I have always been against that section of the regulation. I will never agree, as 99% of the lovers of this sport that I know do not, when the statements of these athletes (in whatever medium) have nothing to do with internalities of their teams, violate ethical principles, nor are they full of bad intentions.

The also columnist for Tribuna de La Habana pointed out that “we cannot live with our backs to the new times or new technologies. I believe that the athlete is the only one in charge of choosing the medium where he wants to make statements related to his sports career, dreams, or experiences lived within the diamonds, as happens anywhere in the world”.

Along this same line, almost all opinions have moved regarding this new and controversial issue, which has found unity in rejection, for a change. Until now, except for the CNB and the state media that reproduced the note, no one has publicly dared to defend the decision, which sets another precedent to continue with arbitrary measures of this type.

In the last series, the CNB already sanctioned Holguín baseball player Edilse Silva with two games, at that time defending Santiago de Cuba, for publicly criticize the poor feeding conditions when the team was in the playoff phase. And along the same lines it happened to Holguin pitcher Rubén Rodríguez Fonseca for spread images of his team in a dugout, waiting for more than six hours to play in Ciego de Ávila.

Beyond the indignation and embarrassment of others that it has provoked in the vast majority, the measure is irrefutable proof of the paths that Cuban baseball is traveling hand in hand with its current national leadership. The National Series has become not only a championship lacking in quality due to -among other reasons- the high number of players who leave the country, but it has also become obsolete in relation to the current times in the rest of the world’s leagues. . One more mirror…