Baseball Tournament of Champion Clubs. Matanzas among the starters.

The resumption of the tournaments for champion baseball clubs last January, after 16 years, was welcomed by players, coaches and fans from all provinces.

The purpose of these competitions is to increase the quality of the sport at the grassroots level and to stimulate a group of players, many times eliminated from the rosters for the National Series, to compete in defense of their municipality against their peers from the rest of the country.

From 1992 to 2008, uninterruptedly, these games had a wide popular acceptance in the fields of the localities where the participating teams were located.

The current tournament differs from the first 17 in the system of games, now by direct elimination in sub-series of three games, seven innings to win two, in all phases, on Saturdays and Sundays, while the previous ones were won on many occasions by those who reached four wins in seven games.

This coming weekend the semifinal stage will be discussed by the eastern zone Trinidad, holder of Sancti Spiritus and Campechuela, from Granma and by the west Union de Reyes, provincial leader of Matanzas will receive in its 16th of April stadium, Mantua, from Pinar del Rio. The winners will play for the national title seven days later.

The first champion in these competitions was the municipality of Pinar del Río, in 1992, which also won in 1993 and 1994 (the only one with three in a row) and repeated in 2005, for a total of four titles.

The most outstanding in that stage was Guantánamo, with five first places; Granma obtained three and Las Tunas, two. Holguin, Matanzas and Ciego de Avila, with one victory per capita, completed the leaders.

In the case of Matanzas, the best performances corresponded to the team from the capital city, which won second place in 1995 and 1996 and a national championship in 1997.

On all three occasions they were coached by Armando Ferrer Ruz.This team of the municipality of Matanzas lost in the discussion of the gold medals in 1995, against the strong team of Guantánamo in seven hard-fought matches and the following year against the team of the municipality of Calixto García, champion of the province of Holguín, also with a balance of three successes and four failures.

In 1997, things turned out differently and they won seven games against the Guantánamo city representatives: the first three at the Victoria de Girón stadium in Matanzas and the last four at the Van Troi stadium in the city of Guaso.

The confrontation had the first surprise when, out of the three games played at the Yumurino park, the locals could only win one and lost two.

The situation for Ferrer’s disciples became more complicated when they lost the first game of the four scheduled for the Van Troi as visitors two days later, because it made the balance very difficult, since the Guantanameros would be crowned with only one success of the three remaining games, which obliged the Matanzas to not lose.

The Matanzas reaction was not long in coming. Triumphs in the fifth and sixth games, the latter with a seven-hit shutout by right-hander Joel Monzón, tied the game at three wins for each team.

In the seventh and decisive game, the Yumurinos players went all out in search of the victory, which came by way of the KO.

Although all of them shined in the field, the most outstanding players were David García, who hit two home runs and drove in five runs; designated player Manuel Mena, who also hit it out of the park, without forgetting the timely batting of Duany Roque and Evelio Hernández, Jr.

It is worth remembering the dedication and courage of right-handed pitcher Joel Monzón, who less than 24 hours after pitching a great game, came back to ask for the ball when the Guaso team was threatening in the first innings and worked six immaculate innings as a reliever to get the victory.

The members of that champion team from Matanzas were Duany Roque, Michel Abreu, Abner Arias, Ernesto Wong, Ariel Tápanes, Juan Medina, Samuel Malagòn, Félix Isasi, son, Oscar Galán, Nguyen Boulet, Evelio Hernández, son, as well as Manuel Mena, Joel Monzón, Norberto Sánchez, Roberto Ruiz, Roberto Hernández, Carlos Kindelán and Conrado Silva.

The management team was headed by Armando Ferrer, as manager, seconded by assistants Manolito Rodríguez and Gerardo Rionda. The trainers were Mario Domecq and «Cunini» Isasi, as well as the physiotherapist Tomás Valor.

After these three performances of the team from the municipality of Matanzas in the Champion Club Tournaments, the most outstanding were the teams from Jovellanos, twice in the round of 16, and Limonar, once.

Now, in the resumption of these competitions, Unión de Reyes has already secured one of the first four positions of the competition. positions of the competition and that this weekend can improve to write a new page in the history of baseball in Matanzas.

Written by Francisco Soriano.