Industrial legend LEFT Cuba after disappointment by MITIN of repudiation

By Clemente Correa

Cuban baseball is full of extraordinary moments that have elevated it to the elite of baseball and made it special to millions of people. But in that story there are also sad and unfair passages in a superlative degree.

It is true that we cannot live all the time with the resentment of the past and that forgetting or forgiveness must be able to overcome pain and resentment. That is very good, but it should be applied especially if the person who made a mistake and caused significant harm to innocent people was able to recognize the fault and ask for forgiveness. Meanwhile, a fact as terrible as the one that you will read shortly must be brought to light to see if one day someone deigns to offer an apology even though others have been responsible for the affront within the same institution or system in general.

The story is related to one of the great pitchers that the Industriales and our National Series have had: Manuel Hurtado López.

The ruler was one of the icons of the initial stage of these contests and the star of Ramón Carneado’s blues who won four consecutive championships between 1963 and 1966. Despite that, he only tied with the Cuba team in 1970 because those who decided the who made up the national team had Manolito as a possible “deserter” or without a good revolutionary conviction.

In addition to his statistics, individual and collective titles, he masterfully combined intelligence, curve and control, becoming one of the highest level men in Cuban pitching of the sixties. And also among the most popular players in the country. It was the extreme romantic era of a National Series that those who lived them have among their most faithful memories those anthological duels between Hurtado and the oriental Manuel Alarcón.

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The Ecured site published echoed an interview in which the idol of the Havana town of Regla touches on this topic. “I had a relative who was a political prisoner named Eduardo Castillo and they spoke to me to make him change his position. By not doing so, they distrusted me. Before joining the team under 23 years of age to go to Mexico, they told me to take the opportunity to buy a basket for my unborn daughter. On one occasion when I was separated from the preselection, the ninth of the Rule (with which Hurtado played) was measured against the Cuba team, and manager Arnaldo Raxach gave me the ball ”, says the stellar pitcher. When I gave the first five zeros, the baseball commissioner, Jorge García Bango, gave the order to Raxach to remove me from the mound, apparently for fear that he would paint them white, “which would have been embarrassing for those who decided to eliminate him from the national team. national, he indicated.

In training for the Central Americans of Panama and before the last preparation match at the Latin American Stadium, the starting players were presented. The announcer Tony Veiga left the announcement of Manolito Hurtado for last and when mentioning his name the public gave a closed ovation to the pitcher, who was forced to go out three times to the field to greet the fans who were demanding their entry into the Cuba team. And so it happened. At almost 29 years old, he was chosen for the Cartagena World Cup and the Central Americans, both in 1970. There he finished 3-0 without earned runs in 25 innings. “I owe the public for having played twice with the Cuba team,” said the star of the most successful National Series team. “Without that support, it would not have happened.” In 1971, he was the leader in ERA with 0.67 in 107 2/3 innings, but did not attend the World Cup in Havana or the Pan American Games in Colombia. After his retirement in 1974, he was an Industriales coach for five years.

But the official position on Hurtado also deprived him of other internal considerations, such as receiving a telephone line without question. This was commented by its receiver for many years Lázaro Martínez, an eyewitness to the aforementioned issue. But Martinez made an even more horrible tale that will never find any defense.

Although Hurtado’s disappointment had been walking with all the discrimination suffered in his own flesh for two decades, what happened in 1980 was the last straw for his patience.

Many know that the emigration of 1980 brought deplorable reactions from the Cuban government along with many who followed suit and carried out campaigns against those who made the decision to leave the country through the port of Mariel or any other route that appeared.

As one of the most horrible pages in our history are those acts of repudiation that included strong offenses and even physical actions through the dumping of eggs and other food products. And also spitting, shoving and a little more even against that immigrant accused of being a worm and a traitor. One of the most famous phrases was “Pin pon out, down with the worm.”

Thousands and thousands of Cubans went through the coastal municipality of Artemisia, including more than twenty players. There was Barbaro Garbey as the most famous of a group whose majority had been expelled from baseball on charges of selling games.

But Hurtado did not have to do with the bets nor did he go for Mariel. What he did suffer was the rejection of a few in Regla who, according to Lázaro Martínez, was the victim of the excessive hatred of a few who possibly years before applauded him in the many times he demonstrated his greatness on the mound.

The reason for the attack on the man who still holds the record for 10 consecutive strikeouts was to hide a friend at his house. It was also members of teams from the capital, José Ballester, who when leaving from where Hurtado lived managed to escape from the inquisitive mob and fulfill his objective of leaving the country for the United States. But Manolito paid for the broken dishes.

Days later he met with the rejection of a few who reproached him for his attitude towards Ballestar and used the same method against him as those who decided to leave. In part because he had deprived them of the possibility of scoring a point and because he considered Hurtado a kind of traitor who, although he continued to live in Cuba, was capable of taking the side of those who left and did not commune with the communist system.

But the consequence of the help of the legendary pitcher was not in offenses and eggs. According to Lázaro exclusively, Hurtado was transferred as coach of the Alberto Álvarez stadium to nothing less than a prison. There he would be working for a time until someone decided to “take away the punishment.” All to protect a friend from going through something unfair and cruel wherever you look.

But the mythical number 20 of the Havana teams was not willing to swallow more bitter swish. In 1989 he managed to legally leave the country and since then he has resided in the city of Miami. Precisely days before his trip, he went to say goodbye to the person in charge of telling this painful story, who told us that Hurtado’s immigration decision was none other than all the accumulation of disappointments and especially the replica of his gesture with Ballester.

After emigrating from Cuba, very little was said about him in the press, although he was never in absolute anominate like others who left in 1980 and those who would do so after René Arocha’s desertion in 1991. Fortunately, the book “Stars of Baseball” by Leonardo Padura and Raúl Arce had been published before its final journey.

Manolito’s last public appearance came in 2013 when three games were held in Florida in honor of 50 years since the Industriales team was founded. There he threw the first ball of the last game and received the support of many players and fans on behalf of most of the people for whom he earned respect and affection as an athlete and also from a personal point of view.

Unfortunately, the incidence of a few mistaken and opportunists were able to generate damage that will pass over time and the argument that justifies it will not appear. And perhaps one day he will no longer be among us and the public apology for morally expelling from his homeland one of those heroes who allowed people to continue to love Cuban baseball will remain lost despite the elimination of professionalism in 1961.