stronghold of the slavers nowadays . Let ’ s hope it will be the last one . For decades our great baseball players were subjected to the dictatorial power . Their talents and physical abilities were exploited while they were living in poverty . The regime treated them like racehorses or fighting cocks . They were allowed to travel abroad only in official delegations and even so , under strict surveillance by the political police . The last straw was that they never had the opportunity to receive feedback with the latest techniques and advances in their own sport , which would have favored the approach at least in theory , to the model and advantages of the MLB . Obviously , the masters of the slave labor force were terrified facing the prospect that their slaves may learn to judge and choose for themselves . However , as it often happens , times went by and an eagle flew over the sea . So one day , forced by circumstances , the slavers were left with no choice but to partially open the gates of the barracoons . And it was enough for the slaves to start to run away in mass . Conservative estimates indicate that more than a hundred of our best players have escaped from the island with the aspiration of gaining access to the MLB . The frivolous saying is that the eagerness to flee to the United States has been signed only by the desire to win millions . Indeed , such a motivation seems to be sufficiently justified and even commendable , especially because our baseball players are people with exceptional natural gifts , but they do suffer from lack of opportunities , caught between a needy present and a future of destitution , while their families are mired in poverty . An open secret contained in statistics related to the National Institute of Sports , Physical Education , and Recreation ( INDER ) and the Cuban Baseball Federation reveals that 95 % of our players are blacks or mestizos who belong to the most disadvantaged social class . Thus , questioning their interest in earning the wages that their professional value deserves not only conveys an indolent and small-minded attitude , but also an absurdity . It is well known that this interest is not the only cause of the massive escape . It is rather a booster conditioned by the impasse in our national sport due to the chronic indolence , arrogance and ineptitude of the ruling class in regards to Cuban baseball . According to conservative data , which both the official commentators and nomenclature no longer even bother to hide , Cuba is 30 years back with respect to the technical level of the baseball played in the MLB . Slowly but surely , as the powers that be use to say , the national sport has been losing its prestige and its rich tradition due to a fatal drift that has lasted for years and is unprecedented in Cuban history . From a worldwide recognition , the powerful Cuban baseball has declined into a poorly organized and worst managed sport . The baseball fields are cattle ranches where bureaucrats and political leaders pasture . They decide everything and exercise command and control putting forward personal interests , not those of the sport . The absolute absence of democracy within a baseball team , where everything must be analyzed and discussed by all the members , has eroded the confidence of the players in their capricious leadership . It opened an unbridgeable gap between the interests of one another . Some say that somewhat
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