By Yasel Porto
After all the fuss caused on Social Media by the events that unfolded after the matchup between Yaguajay and Camagüey inside the Little League National Championship, the Cuban Baseball National Commission decided to shed light on the events and why they failed in favor of the latter.
Swing Completo had published information showing how the province affected by the decision denounced irregularities, along with criticism for the behavior of some Camagüey people. We now offer the other side of the story, in this case the explanation by the competition’s governing body.
As a guest in the TV show Bola Viva, the national methodologist of the 12U category, Luis Hernández, confirmed and explained about the disqualification of the Sancti Spíritus team for having broken the rules of the tournament.
The official explained that one of the members of Sancti Spíritus had used a player that had been in the provincial tournament of Villa Clara with the team of Remedios during this very season.
“The evidence is there, he did play the games for that municipality and even got to second place. We have the evidence sent to us by that province. The athlete was there until February and now he is registered in Yaguajay in March. That is not allowed by our rules,” Hernández said.
He even stated that there was communication with the Latin American management on the topic. “Mr. Carlos Pan told us it was obvious a player could not play for two different teams. That’s why all the victories of Yaguajay were stripped.”
This forced Camagüey to play Ciego de Ávila, which had been eliminated by Yaguajay, the next week.
During his talk there were no details about the troublesome situation that unfolded during and after the games, or anything regarding Luis Ulacia.
Truth to tell, several of the videos that came out drew a lot of criticism, both for the bad climate and for the fact that some people were not in full use of their faculties, for not using a stronger word. This is even more serious because there were children present during that unfortunate episode.
A detail that actually catches our eye is that the winner of the national championship will go to Punta Cana in July to fight for a spot in the Little League World Series, to be held in August in Williamsport, US.
What brings doubt here is that Cuba decided not to participate in two international competitions, one of them the 18U World Championship, to be held in Sarasota, Florida. The cause they used was to avoid risks of COVID19 contagion when the team gets together to train for the event.
In the end, the Little League national champions will also gather for preparation to then travel abroad, and if they succeed, they will have to gather again to prepare for yet another trip overseas.
The risk is even higher, given the fact that these are children, much younger than those players who shall participate in the 18U tournament, which, by the way, should take place later. So, theoretically, there are chances for the pandemic situation to be less serious then.
Hernández said that the goal is to get to the last round within the international competition, whose participant is yet to be defined in the national tournament.
