World Classic 2026: Cuba, without major leagues there is no paradise
Without its best Major League players, Cuba will not be competitive in World Classics again.
I have never seen a team Cuba so overwhelmed, weak and inoperative.
There, in the largest of the Antilles, we call those teams “circus” unable to execute the ABCs of the game.
It’s sad to write it, but this version of the Team Asere got tangled with the tent and the trapezes in the game that defined the classification to the quarterfinals of the World Classic. For the first time in twenty years, they did not even make it past the first phase.
Pressure or lack of quality? Large doses of both.
Losing by one run in the sixth inning, there were two dropped fly balls (they dropped two more in the game), a wild pitch, an interference (they made two in total) and a single. Canada did not finish the match by a miracle.
They also did not know how to push the runners into scoring position, in that circumstance they went 1-for-7. The pitching wasn’t bad at all, but with those defensive thunders it was impossible for the result to be any other way. In fact, of Canada’s seven runs, four were unearned.
Cuba: Without Major League talent there is no paradise
Of the 34 players who set foot on a Major League diamond (a historical record for the country), only two were present at the Hiram Birthorn in San Juan.
No one can predict if for the 2030 edition Cuba’s best players will be able to play with Team Asere or they will simply be marginalized again.
Winds of change are blowing, but if not, MLB and the MLBPA They should take action on the matter. Sit down to negotiate with the World Baseball and Softball Confederation (WBSCfor its acronym in English) and the Cuban Federation in search of a solution.
Cuba is not just another in the baseball context. Professionalism was suspended for almost 60 years on the Island and yet it continues to be the second nation with the most players in the world. Cooperstown Hall of Fame.
He does not deserve to compete in inferior conditions on a whim.
The Classic is a tournament created for the best from each country to play. Not for a team to completely dispense with its main exponents simply for extra-sports reasons.
Can you imagine an Argentine team in a World Cup with players from Primera B Metropolitana (3rd division), with Lionel Messi, Rodrigo De Paul, Julián Álvarez, ‘Dibu’ Martínez, Lautaro Martínez and company wanting to play for the albiceleste?
Having Yordan Álvarez, Raisel Iglesias, Aroldis Chapman, Lourdes Gurriel Jr., Yandy Díaz, Jorge Soler, Andy Pagés, Adrián Morejón does not guarantee winning the Clásico. But it offers the possibility of being competitive and honoring the name of a nation with an enormous baseball tradition.
It is not good for the show that Cuba establishes itself as an average team. It is not good for the Classic fans and not fair for the Cuban players either.
