WHY CUBA’S KIDS ARE KICKING THEIR BATS TO THE CURB
Soccer gaining ground in baseball-mad country, as Agence France-Presse reports.
First it stormed living rooms via television, then it took the streets, where joyous shouts of “Gooooaaal” have gradually replaced the bellowed “Strike!”.
In the battle for the hearts and minds of Cuban kids, soccer is threatening to topple baseball as the island’s most popular sport.
“Soccer here was on the floor and now it’s heading to the top as the national sport,” said a resigned Humberto Nicolas Reyes, who has coached young baseball hopefuls for 40 years.
Reyes is proud of his association with Major League Baseball stars like Yonder Alonso and Alex Sanchez, players he coached as young boys.
But crouching down to show a kid how to gather a ball in his glove during a recent practice, he admitted: “Almost everyone has gone over to football.”
Strikingly, observers say the trend is gathering pace even as baseball is set to return to the Olympics in Tokyo 2020 following a 12-year absence.
Cuba, which has used its success in athletics, boxing, and baseball almost as an arm of diplomacy since Fidel Castro’s 1959 communist revolution, can point to three Olympic titles and 25 world championships in baseball.
But on the streets, soccer is the new champ.
“Today the kids and young people are more inclined to take up football than to take up baseball,” Cuba’s national soccer team coach Raul Mederos told AFP as he watched players training at Estadio Pedro Marrero in Havana.
Once a rarity, it’s now common for people to get up in the early hours to watch a European game, or to see kids playing street soccer wearing shirts bearing the names of superstars like Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo.
“We play everywhere we can,” said sports student Alejandro Izquierdo, 19, as youths played an evening practice game under a glowing neon mural of Che Guevara.
Izquierdo said he dreams of Cuba qualifying for the World Cup finals, something it has managed only once, in France in 1938.
TV’s influence
TV has played a major role in Cuba’s new-found fervor for soccer.
“There are eight baseball games being played at 2 o’clock in the afternoon and they don’t air any of those games. Instead we’ll see Barcelona’s match on the TV,” said Eduardo Medina, a 65-year-old fan.
“What does that tell you? That football is slowly squeezthe ing it out,” said Medina, watching from the stands at Estadio Latinamericano — the cathedral of Cuban baseball — where La Habana was taking on Las Tunas from the east of the island.
Cuban TV first broadcast recorded World Cup matches from the 1982 finals in Spain, progressing to live matches from the 1994 edition in the USA.
It now broadcasts matches from Europe’s big divisions, as well as the Champions League.
In contrast, baseball struggling for coverage.
State television only began airing MLB games from North America in 2013 — and then only those that did not include Cuban players. They were still considered “deserters” until recently, though there are tentative signs that is official tone is changing.
Last year, for the first time, Cuban TV showed recorded World Series games which featured Cuban players. However, this year the fans were left wanting again when the sport’s showpiece wasn’t broadcast.
“These things have been lacerating baseball fans in Cuba,” lamented Pablo Diaz, a 32-year-old fan.
The quality of Cuban baseball has suffered and the national team hasn’t won a meaningful event since the 2006 Intercontinental Cup.
At grassroots level, costs can quickly add up. A baseball glove costs the same as a soccer ball, around $30 — roughly equivalent to a month’s salary — and a team needs nine gloves, in addition to bats and balls.
Soccer is, therefore, cheap by comparison.
But Cuba’s baseball authorities are not taking soccer’s challenge lying down. Eyes firmly set on qualifying for Tokyo 2020, they have revamped the country’s domestic championship to make it more competitive and have begun remodeling its main stadiums.
Learning to co-exist
According to official figures, soccer clubs have a membership of 25,000, while 46,000 are registered with baseball clubs.
“Baseball is the national sport and no one is going to change that,” said soccer coach Mederos. But he stressed “we have to learn how to co-exist with baseball” as is the case in neighboring countries Venezuela and Panama.
Hit by defections and a lack of international competition, the Cuban national soccer team has been on the wane since 2004, when it drew home and away with Costa Rica, one of the Caribbean region’s best teams.
But as it prepares to participate in the US Gold Cup in 2019, there are signs that attitudes are changing among Cuba’s sports administrators.
The National Institute of Sport, Physical Education, and Recreation (INDER) is gradually opening the door to athletes who emigrated and remain active, and no longer uses words like “traitor” or “deserter” when referring to exiled players.
For the first time, INDER has given approval for Mederos to include foreign-based players in the national team. Other sports are looking on with interest.
It’s a move that could eventually pave the way for some of the island’s other sporting exiles to return.
Coach Mederos believes it’s a move in the right direction. “We’re taking positive steps,” he said.
Soccer here was on the floor and now it’s heading to the top as the national sport.” Humberto Nicolas Reyes, a Cuban baseball coach