December Fourth: Beyond the Whistle.

Referees have been silent witnesses of the most glorious and challenging moments in Cuban sports history. They have seen triumphs that have inflamed the country and suffered in silence the most bitter defeats.

Beyond a simple celebration, the festivity that takes place every December 4th in the largest of the Antilles and that ponders the work of a fundamental figure, often invisible, but essential for the legitimacy of sports competitions, contributes to highlight the fairness and transparency that shines in every fight where his presence becomes as necessary as opportune.

The Cuban Referee’s Day, formally established in 2001 in response to the previous proposal of the National Plenary of the Judges and Referees Commission, represents a well-deserved tribute to those who bring sports competitions to a successful conclusion, as catalysts of the strongest precision, wisdom, temperance and work ethic.

The choice of the day, not at all fortuitous because of its historical connotation, recalls the events witnessed on the same date but in 1955 at the Great Stadium of the Cerro (today Latin American) when in the heat of Batista’s dictatorial oppression, Roberto Amado Maestri Menéndez, a renowned baseball umpire, led a glorious act of courage and solidarity that ennobled the revolutionary sport.

In defense of a group of young insurgents from the Federación Estudiantil Universitaria who had invaded the baseball field of the stadium to protest against the atrocities committed by the regime, that brave man stood up to the police onslaught and showed the stubborn social commitment and spirit of justice that always characterized him in life.

This is what he had shown a few years earlier at the Delta Park stadium in Mexico City, where he did not hesitate to expel from the game between the Red Devils and Veracruz the Aztec businessman and executive Jorge Pasquel Casanueva, who dared to reprimand him for the exclusion of catcher-manager Mickey Owen, after the latter had made an insulting complaint about a decision made at home plate.

And just like Maestri himself, umpires have been silent witnesses of the most glorious and challenging moments in Cuban sports history. They have seen triumphs that have inflamed the country and suffered in silence the most bitter defeats, always maintaining impartiality as a flag and respect for the rules as an inalienable principle.

Their role, therefore, transcends the simple application of rules and turns them into key pieces in the construction of a national sports identity immersed in a process of constant improvement and that, beyond the whistle, continues to be enlivened by a solid and perennial tradition of professionalism, responsibility and rigor.

Written by Yadiel Barbón Salgado.