2024-04-06 06:17:36
Text and Photos: Raul del Pino
If the “breakdowns” of the thermoelectric plants or the “availability” of fuel allow it, this Saturday at 6:30 in the afternoon the first voice of ¡play ball! in the 63rd National Baseball Series. But the thousands of fans who are getting ready to go to the Julio Antonio Mella park in Las Tunas must prepare to be left wanting for a show in case an “eventuality” happens and a blackout occurs at the scheduled time for the first game of the championship.
Most of the country’s provinces have suffered the biggest energy crisis since 2022 in recent weeks, evidenced by outages that last more than 10 hours each day. In the midst of this scenario, a new baseball contest will begin in Cuba, which this year has the uniqueness of having seven stadiums ready for nighttime challenges. It seems ironic, but it is not.
According to the director of the event, Carlos Martín, the starting times of the matches will be that, 6:30 in the afternoon, in those facilities that have electric lighting, which so far correspond to Havana, Matanzas, Sancti Spíritus, Ciego de Ávila, Camagüey, Santiago de Cuba and the aforementioned Las Tunas. In the rest of the provinces the clashes will begin at 2:00 pm.
Perhaps this is the most attention-grabbing novelty of those announced at the beginning of the week at the Series technical conference. Now it only remains to really see how many of those parks with lights will be played at night, in the midst of the suffocating situation that has been experienced since February.
For now, the rest of the championship will remain with the same structure of 75 team matches that the National Commission implemented since Series 60 in 2021. At the end of the qualifying phase, the 8 best will advance to the quarterfinals, maintaining the original payrolls without reinforcements.
Of course, this time the subseries will be carried out with 5 challenges in a single venue. The host team will play three games as home club and then he will play the other two with the visitor’s suit. The initiative seeks to cut travel and save fuel, the same fuel, I suppose, that is now planned to be used in the night games. Although, who knows, it’s probably not the same type, or from the same budget.
If it weren’t for the fact that the Alazanas from Granma will be visiting the Lumberjacks, the late Saturday night could be another one of darkness for all the residents of Las Tunas. However, the announced duel between the champions of the last two seasons, aims to break with the dark routines to which they have become accustomed in recent days.
The enthusiast may think that everything was planned to guarantee the “light” at the beginning of the main sociocultural spectacle that the country experiences annually. But the realist will quickly bring you down from the clouds and invite you to bet on the number of games that will ultimately see action under the stars.
Editor’s Note: A few hours after this chronicle was published, the news came to light that the National Commission decided to change the match schedules as a result of the critical energy situation in the country. All games will begin at 2:00pm until further notice.