OFFICIAL RELEASE
In the last few hours, painful news has become known regarding the objectives of the Association of Cuban Professional Baseball Players. We hereby reproduce de statement by the ACPBP:
In a nutshell, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred misled us when he promised to hold exhibition games of our independent team against the US, DR and PR teams at the Miami Marlins’ ballpark the weekend before the start of the WBC in March 2023.
Two weeks ago, we were given a preview of a possible momentous announcement to be made during the All-Star Game, although we were asked to keep quiet in the meantime, when in fact, Manfred and MLB were negotiating with the Cuban Baseball Federation (FCB, for its Spanish acronyms), as confirmed on Cuban TV by its president, Juan Reinaldo Pérez.
We are not going to remain silent any longer and we want to denounce Manfred’s complicity with an entity that is not independent at all, and that is simply a sports tentacle of the Cuban dictatorship.
We alert Cuban-American Senators and Congressmen about the possibility that a new pact between MLB and the FCB is being cooked up, while the conditions under which the previous agreement was overturned have not really changed.
We call upon the specialized press and all our loyal followers to echo our complaint… that is exactly the opposite of what MLB wanted when they asked us to keep silent and we even witnessed Manfred’s annoyance for the articles that were published about our Association in The Athletic and The New York Times.
Our goal remains the same: to represent Cubans in the World Baseball Classic, exhibition games and other important tournaments such as the Caribbean Series, with the best available players, organized independently from the FCB.
Miami, July 20, 2022
