Cuba has waited decades to test its amateur talent against their counterparts in US Major League Baseball. Now, the defending Olympic champion has its chance.
The World Baseball Classic is more than just a challenge for Cuba, it's a pivotal moment.
"Everyone's waiting to see what Cuba's going to do, to see if it really knows how to play," said pitcher Adiel Palma, the star of Cuba's win over Australia in the 2004 Olympic final in Athens.
PHOTO: AP
Palma was among 30 players leaving the communist island early on Monday for Puerto Rico, where Cuba plays its first World Baseball Classic game today against Panama.
But some wonder if all those players will return with the team, or whether a few might try to defect and land a lucrative contract in the US the way Jose Contreras, Livan Hernandez and Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez did several years ago.
Cuba is grouped with Panama, the Netherlands and Puerto Rico in the first round of the World Baseball Classic, which began last week in Japan.
Cuba has defeated Panama seven times, the Netherlands four times and Puerto Rico three times in international and regional competitions.
The difference now, however, is that Cuba will face MLB players on a world stage in games that count for the first time since 1961, when professional baseball ended on the island.
The Puerto Rican roster features MLB All-Stars such as Carlos Delgado, Carlos Beltran, Ivan Rodriguez, Bernie Williams and Javier Vazquez.
Cuban center-fielder Carlos Tabares said that didn't faze him.
"The difference is only in the numbers of the salaries," he said. "They are professionals, and we also have professionalism."
Cuban President Fidel Castro saw the team off, meeting with them for two hours on Sunday and calling the tournament the team's most difficult yet.
"We trust in your high quality, your honor, your strength," he said in comments published Monday on the front page of the Communist Party daily Granma.
Castro had a front-row seat in Havana when the Cuban national team lost a close exhibition game to the Baltimore Orioles in 1999. Cuba came back to beat the Orioles at Camden Yards later that year.
Coach Higinio Velez has said pitching will be the key for his team in this tournament. He sent young and veteran pitchers, led by Pedro Luis Lazo, for many years teammates with Contreras, who now pitches for the Chicago White Sox.
Among the 14 pitchers, five are left-handed. Another one to watch is Yadier Pedroso, just 19.
The 32-year-old Lazo was selected the best pitcher at last year's world championships in the Netherlands.
"The Lazo you'll see in the Classic will be a bit more aggressive, and also smarter," he said.
Offense is Cuba's strength, with power hitters such as 21-year-old slugging third-baseman Yulieski Gourriel, third-baseman Michel Enriquez, who hit .448 in the island's national series, and outfielder Omani Urrutia, who batted .447.
"We hope to be able to fulfill the Cuban people's expectations, as our teams have always done," Jose Ramon Fernandez, president of Cuba's Olympic Committee and a vice president in Castro's Cabinet, said on Friday.
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