Daring in baseball: Tripping over the same structure again

Honestly, I had abandoned the idea of judging how the National Baseball Championship should be, until I fortuitously heard the current National Commissioner and former great pitcher from Jatibonico, Yovani Aragon, communicate that the next national series would have the same structure as the current and previous ones, uncommendable in their development, exhausting for the athletes and costly.

If sometimes it has been repeated that this season has been the most successful for the influx of spectators, one should not forget that two of the eight teams qualified are Industriales and Pinar del Rio, which attract sympathy, especially the first, across the nation, from Mantua to Baracoa, passing through Jatibonico, where many at the stadium named after Genaro Melero –still alive at that time– were hopeful of a victory of Industriales over Villa Clara (which today’s town of Sancti Spiritus belonged to, after being removed from Camagüey), but asthma played a dirty trick on dominant Lazaro Valle.

And about four years ago, during an argument at Alex’s barber shop, in Zone 7 of Alamar, one of the clients suggested a single and original tournament, much less costly, and at the end, in a couple of years, at most, it would be attractive and palliate the continued absences and lack of baseballs, leg guards, etc, as a result of the difficult economic development and the aggressive imperialist attitude, with the open aim to suffocate us in all spheres of life.

Likewise, we should put aside all those mannerisms and mental flatulences on derbies, classics, and that non-original idea of the “wild cards”, and that final merit falls on those who play well the baseball stages proposed.

THE PROPOSAL

A national championship split into two stages: a regional one –which reduces the costs– and a selective one, which increases the quality.

In the regional stage, there would be 16 teams: six from the West, and five from each of the remaining regions, where they would play among them, aimed at having a champion and a selection.

The challenge would be to find a schedule for the zone where six teams would get involved, geared at matching the number of games and the similar date of the general termination.

The champion is also reinforced within the zone and should choose at least the first two players of the total number agreed to choose.

The six teams will play in the second stage that should run in the months of our autumn and winter, and will contribute the champion due to be reinforced for the Caribbean Series. .

It’s foreseen that the long, exhausting and costly trips will be avoided in the first stage. The champions, of course, will take the names of the winners in the different regions, and the selections could be Eastern, Central and Western.

Regarding the uniforms, the champion, of course, wears its own, but the selections can wear a uniform with the name of the selection, and another with the name of the team they belonged to in the first stage, so variety and team of origin are established.

“The form of games, number and clashes, etc, are decided previous study, because, he remarked, the western region has one more team, and except if it is champion, a team from the Isle of Youth should never travel to Santiago de Cuba, for example”.

We should not fall in paternalism if a zone is weaker than another or, for example, place Sancti Spiritus in the West, because the local authorities of each province are responsible for developing baseball from the grassroots, taking care of the baseball fields and preparing the whole logistics for that purpose, mainly to fete the visitor. What will be missing? Daring!

Translated by Jorge Mesa Benjamin / Cubasi Translation Staff