In Defense of Cuban Baseball Hall of Fame in Matanzas.

However, there are those who aspire to move the institution to other premises. They ignore the arguments offered by people who dedicated part of their lives to historical research that prove that yes, the challenge held in that little piece of Yumurina land on December 27th, 1874, was the first of official character in our country.
It took a lot of work to create it and there are still those who do not fully recognize it, despite the results of years of research by renowned personalities, including journalist Francisco Soriano and historian José M. Cuétara Vila, and the endorsement of more than a hundred years of publications describing the facts.
The Cuban Baseball Hall of Fame, located in areas of the historic Palmar de Junco stadium, a National Monument, still has opponents.
It was created in 2015 and officially inaugurated on February 4th, 2016. It treasures photos, objects and documents that endorse the long history of the national sport in the territory. It contains a replica of the field engraved on the floor, which recalls the names of the players of the Havana Baseball Club and Matanzas Baseball Club teams, who participated in what is recognized as the first official game of this sport in Cuba, held in 1874.
Its Hall of the Immortals remembers inseparable names of the history of Cuban baseball such as Martín Dihigo, José de la Caridad Méndez and Orestes «Minnie» Miñoso. In its facilities are collected, in addition to those from Matanzas, the names of figures from other provinces who made themselves felt in baseball on the island.
There are already 156 included, 83 of them approved and 73 exalted and, of course, their number will grow year after year.
However, there are those who aspire to move the institution to other premises. They ignore the arguments offered for many years by people who dedicated part of their lives to historical research that prove that yes, the challenge carried out in that little piece of Yumurina land on December 27th, 1874, was the first of official character in our country.
The historical research carried out by Alfredo Lauro Santana Alonso and Reynaldo A. González Villalonga and published in the book Orígenes del béisbol cubano. El Palmar de Junco, corroborate that the «Officiality of that game was given, because it fulfilled the basic and indispensable requirements to be considered as such, that is, to have two teams from different territories (not playing against each other, as it was the custom), to be properly uniformed, the measurements of the field and between the bases, as indicated by the rules of the time, to have an umpire, an official scorer, to have been reviewed in the press with its corresponding box score, which had never happened before, but also in two newspapers of the time of undoubted prestige and which transcended beyond localism, such as the Aurora de Yumurí and El Artista…. »
With the same spirit with which some of those who played that day on the grounds of Palmar de Junco later joined the struggles for independence, many Matanceros continue to work and demonstrate the justifiability of the presence in the Yumurí city of the Cuban Baseball Hall of Fame.
Others, even if they are not researchers, could also do their part by encouraging visits, sports clubs and activities at the facility, which according to some frustrated visitors is not always open to the public and is not always given the use it deserves.
This would offer even more visibility, credibility and prestige to the Fair and would collaborate in the effort to keep it in our province, which deserves it.
Written by Sergio López.