Jonder contributed a lot to the Matanzas teams.

Jonder Martínez Martínez (Mariel, June 22nd, 1978) is about to retire from active baseball after 26 years of dedication to the Havana, Artemisa, Villa Clara and Matanzas teams in our national championships, without forgetting his outstanding work with the Cuba teams he was part of during his fruitful career.

Immediately after his brilliant work in the national youth team, world champion in the competition held in Sancti Spiritus, in 1996, in which he was selected as the most outstanding pitcher, he began his struggle at the highest level of our baseball with the Havana team.

In Series 54, from 2014 to 2015, he began with the Matanzas team a closing of his sports career in which he contributed notably to the conquest of the championship of the LIX Series, 2019-2020, with Armando Ferrer as director, fourth in his history, since he had previously achieved it with Habaneros, in the First Superior League, 2002, led by Armando Johnson; Havana, in 2009, under the command of Esteban Lombillo and Villa Clara in 2013, led by Ramón Moré.

With the Crocodiles he added more than 50 hits in National Baseball Series, to become the 16th pitcher to reach that number in teams of the province.

The half hundredth triumph was achieved in the first game of the 59th championship, when he defeated Isla de la Juventud with a score of 5 runs to 1, on August 10, 2019, at the Cristóbal Labra stadium and closed the season with 8 wins and 4 losses, in addition to saving 3 games.

Since his debut with Matanzas on September 22nd, 2014 at the Capitán San Luis stadium, where he defeated Pinar del Río 8 runs by 5, Jonder adds 56 wins with 26 losses for a high average of 683, he also reached 192 hits in the Serie 60 (2020-2021). His last season was his 61st.

Between the 54th National Series and the 59th, Jonder Martínez formed, together with Yoannis Yera, the winningest pair of pitchers of that stage, since they accumulated between them, 118 victories with only 49 defeats, for an average of 706.

The list of Matanzas players who have won more than 50 games in these championships is headed by left-hander Jorge Luis Valdés with 234; he is followed by Rafael Rodríguez, 137; Yoannis Yera, 122; Jorge Antonio Martínez, 100; Carlos Mesa, 95; Lázaro Garro, 92; Anselmo Martínez, 87; and Luis Fernández, with 85.

Completing the group are Gaspar Pérez, 76; Yosvany Fonseca and Alfredito García, with 70 each; Eduardo Terry, 68; Leonardo Hernández, 59; Manuel Rojas, 51 as well as Roberto Álvarez.

With Matanzas, Jonder reached 134 games pitched, 101 of them as a starter, with three shutouts. In 649.2 episodes and 2,496 at-bats, he was hit 651 times, for which he is batted for 259, with 359 strikeouts and 190 bases on balls; he allowed 239 clean runs for a 3.30 ERA.

His brilliant service record includes the 49th zero-hit zero-run game of the National Series which took place on March 6, 2008 against Ciego de Avila at the José Ramón Cepero stadium. The game was won by Havana with a score of 7-0.

Jonder’s hundredth victory in the National Series was obtained in the 48th season, pitching with the Habana team on April 12th, 2009, also at the José Ramón Cepero stadium against the Ciego de Ávila team, with a score of 4 runs for 2, and his thousandth strikeout was given earlier, on January 11th, to Marcos Naranjo, from Granma, at the Nelson Fernández stadium, in San José de las Lajas.

This tireless pitcher also has an impressive international résumé of more than 15 years with the Cuban team, including Olympic titles and runner-up finishes in Athens 2004 and Beijing 2008, respectively; world champion in Holland 2007 and Pan American champion in Brazil, as well as second place in the First World Classic 2006.

The people of Matanzas will pay him a well-deserved farewell tribute to active baseball, mainly for his performance with the Crocodiles. Hopefully, the current territories of Mayabeque and Artemisa, which he represented when they constituted the province of Havana, will do the same, as well as Villa Clara, where he was key in the triumph of that team in 2013. He deserves it.

Written by Francisco Soriano Bermúdez