By Full Swing
There are not many stories within Cuban baseball capable of surpassing in tragedy and grief that related to the protagonist of this writing, a person who went from one extreme to another in his life and of whom today there is practically no news of his real life. whereabouts.
No one doubts that former second Oscar Macías became one of the most fearsome hitters in Cuban baseball for more than a decade, in which he earned a place in the national team through offense, even as a starter despite coinciding with several highly regarded figures. outstanding in their position as Antonio Pacheco, Juan Padilla and Yobal Dueñas.
The one born in Güira de Melena in 1969 was consolidating first in his teams in the National (Havana) and Selectiva (Agropecuarios and Havana) until in 1998 the technicians ran out of arguments to exclude him from the Cuba team. There he was, although without pain or glory, as manager Alfonso Urquiola used Pacheco as a middleman and Orestes Kindelán as designated in the World Cup in Italy and the Central Americans in Maracaibo.
The 1999 Intercontinental Cup would be his first opportunity as a regular, and thanks to his good performance that he would later maintain in the next National Series and national preselection, he saw the doors open to have a secure place in the lineup within the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. His hitting was at the level of the best including the game for gold where one of the three hits of the squad led by Servio Borges against the North American Ben Sheets, came precisely from the wood of the tough slugger from Melene.
The “bull” remained in Cuba until 2002 when suddenly and without logical explanations he lost prominence within the national team, encouraged especially by the return of Miguel Valdés as head coach. While he served as one of the main responsible for the Cuban squad, players like Macías, Javier Méndez, Oscar Machado or Gabriel Pierre received all kinds of justifications for being excluded. In the case of the Vaqueros waiter, it was handled that technically he had difficulties in defense and that he always opted for the integrality of Pacheco, Padilla or Yobal although his performance in the season and preparation were below.
34 years old Oscar Macias decided to leave Cuba when he was sanctioned and thus found himself marginalized in the national team that would participate in the Pan American Games in Santo Domingo 2003. Upon arriving unharmed after leaving the island by boat, the stocky player expressed his real intention to reach the Major League. United States leagues, something that even in a more favorable time for the hiring of Cubans like the current one would also be a chimera with everything and the offensive level shown by the Sydney Olympic runner-up.
At the time of his departure, he had left excellent offensive records that included 286 home runs, almost 2,000 hits (1960), more than a thousand RBIs (1080) and an average of 310.
The decision should have been made much earlier and perhaps his dream could have come true, although not as second baseman. Even in 1999, several of his teammates from the Habana team left by sea, but neither that nor the fact that he had traveled to the United States on the Cuba-Orioles top in Baltimore made him decide to emigrate.
But that’s life, and sometimes it is not even about being more or less intelligent, no matter how much it is blamed on Macías that he was never a person who thought well about his decisions.
His adaptation to American society never came and after the frustration of not winning a contract even in the minor leagues, a series of personal problems arose that later brought legal consequences.
According to sources close to the former player, including former teammates, Macías had to serve a prison sentence after beating his wife. His explosive character was combined with the consumption of narcotics, bringing him a very unpleasant outcome.
Upon his release from prison, the life of someone who was one day in the Cuban baseball elite never returned to even acceptable levels. He could not find a job that would allow him to set the course, which is never easy for an ex-convict, especially when it comes to a person without a close family, full of defects, who masters very few trades and does not speak the language of the country where he resides.
With the combination of all these elements and the departure from the few friends who were willing to help despite their problems and complexes, Macías began to walk a path that very few believed when they found out about their reality.
For approximately five years the only news that has been had of the stellar Cuban ex-batter is that he has been seen wandering the streets of Miami in the purest style of a homeless (beggar). Until recently, he even fought in a barbershop where he went once a month as clean and decent as possible, and later resume his unfortunate daily life asking those who saw him around for charity.
Not even figures close to Macías such as José Ibar, Pedro Luis Rodríguez, Neylán Molina or Juan Carlos Millán have recent details about him, either where to find him or how he is physically.
What all those who have seen him at some point in the last five years agree on is that physically and mentally “the bull” is not even a reflection of what he was at a certain time, when all rivals respected him for what dangerous that it was sportingly, and also, personally.
This is an example of not knowing how to adapt to an environment that has nothing to do with Cuba, where other codes and rules operate in which the result will depend largely on the way in which each one develops and where the relationship with drugs It’s practically never going to bring a happy ending, whether you’re famous or not.
Full swing makes a call to those who have recent information about Macías, more than for the fact of locating him and knowing in what real conditions he is, to try to help him among those who are interested in getting out of the very complex social slump in which this great of the Cuban baseball.