By Yasel Porto
Bad start this 2022 without a doubt. Upon the death of Elpidio Jiménez a few days ago it was just known that the former Cuban Major League pitcher and Cuban professional baseball pitcher Lázaro Gonzalo Naranjo Couto, died this Thursday night in the city of Miami.
For ten days “Cholly” was fighting against the virus that has done so much damage to humanity in the last two years, until finally he couldn’t take it anymore. His heart, lungs and kidneys gave no more.
At 87, he was the second-oldest player among the Cubans who have performed in the Major Leagues, after being part of the Pittsburgh Pirates in the 1956 campaign.
Naranjo was also a member of the defunct Cuban Professional League with the popular Almendares. With them he won the 1958-59 campaign and then the Caribbean Series.
He was an outstanding coach in the Cuban capital for several decades in which he earned love for his knowledge and character. So much so that even today there are many who remember with pleasure his work in various areas of Havana.
In 1995 he emigrated to Miami, United States, where he remained to this day without disassociating himself from baseball. He went almost daily to Marlins games and was seen for a long time as a coach in the academy of the also deceased Paulino Casanova.
A few weeks ago he was hospitalized for another type of condition, an opportunity I took to visit him and see him for the last time. I never suspected that it would be the last because of the good spirits he had, which can be seen in the video we took at the clinic. By the way, this week another video had come out of him in his reunion some time ago with his partner from the past Jackie Hernández, and coincidentally this morning I was writing an article about that moment.
“Cholly” was always characterized by his jovial character and he spent all his time making jokes and saying phrases that made encounters with him unforgettable.
He was part of several of the projects in which I have worked in the last five years in which he was a leading component and not only as an interviewee. He was my companion on several trips in and out of the city to visit other veterans of his day, as well as certain historic baseball sites.
With his death, Cuban baseball loses one of its most colorful, charismatic figures with a good dose of quality. With his departure, personally, a very special friend whose news of death I still cannot assimilate as such is leaving me. It was so close that for months the background of my laptop was the photo of this article.
In conversation with his cousin Ramón Couto, his body will be cremated in the coming days and his ashes will rest in a niche in a cemetery in the city of Miami in a ceremony that will be announced in due course.
Rest in peace old friend, another one I’ve lost in two years as happened before with Ismael Sené and Andrés Ayón. See you one day in another dimension to continue reliving all your stories full of so many good, interesting and fun things.
EPD forever, as you said so many times mixing the past with the modern: “until the boardwalk dries up”.
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The worst news: a great MLB friend and Cuban pitching legend died