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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