Cuban League

Cuban League, the earliest baseball league founded in Latin America (see also Sidebar: Latin Americans in Major League Baseball).

Baseball was introduced to Cuba in 1864 when students returned home from the United States with a bat and ball. A baseball league was established there in 1878, and it gradually evolved into the Cuban winter league that played until Fidel Castro took power in 1959 and abolished all professional sports. Only amateur baseball has been played in Cuba since 1961. More than the national sport, baseball has become part of the Cuban national identity. Cuban fans are very knowledgeable and appreciate long home runs as well as outstanding pitching duels.

The Cuban League’s regular season is called the Serie Nacional (National Series) and consists of a 90-game schedule played between November and May. The 16-team circuit includes clubs in all provincial capitals and 2 teams in Havana. The Serie Nacional is composed of four divisions. In Group A the teams are the Industriales (Havana), the Metropolitanos (Havana), Pinar del Río, and Isla de la Juventud; in Group B are Havana Province, Villa Clara, Camagüey, and Guantánamo; in Group C are Granma, Holguín, Las Tunas, and Ciego de Ávila; and in Group D are Santiago de Cuba, Sancti Spíritus, Cienfuegos, and Matanzas.

At the end of the season, the top players are chosen to Equipo Cuba (Cuban National Team), which represents the country in international competitions such as the Pan American Games, the Intercontinental Cup, and the Olympics. Cuba won the first two gold medals awarded in baseball at the Olympics, first in Barcelona (1992) and then in Atlanta (1996) before losing to the United States in the championship game in Sydney (2000).

Before the ban on professional baseball on the island, many Cubans participated in U.S. major leagues, although the colour bar (which banned black players from playing in the major leagues) meant that one of Cuba’s best players, Martín Dihigo, played only in the Negro leagues, in addition to being a star at home. Nevertheless, light-skinned Cubans such as Adolfo Luque gained fame playing in the majors, and, after the colour bar was ended in 1947, players such as Minnie Miñoso, Luis Tiant, Jr., and Tony Pérez all had outstanding careers in the United States. Salaries for Cuban players are very low—less than $50 per month—with players selected to Equipo Cuba receiving an additional bonus of approximately $2,000 per year. Between 1991 and 2001, approximately 50 Cuban players defected to play in the United States, including respected pitchers Orlando (“El Duque”) Hernandez and his half brother Livan Hernandez .

In March 1999 the American League Baltimore Orioles played against a Cuban team in Havana. It was the first time a U.S. professional team had been to Cuba since March 1959, when the Los Angeles Dodgers played the Cincinnati Reds in two exhibition games.