No One Will Dim the Greatness of Lázaro Junco

Text originally published in 2015 when several Major League players visited Victoria de Girón, but the National Commission did not invite the Limonar home run hitter onto the field. The people themselves took charge of rectifying the injustice by demanding his presence alongside the other legends who were at the stadium that day. Today Radio 26 republishes this text on the occasion of the physical departure of this great figure of sports in Matanzas.

Lázaro Junco wanted to go unnoticed, but his people did not allow his greatness to be diminished, despite the National Commission’s oversight in not inviting him to the sports clinics that the Major Leagues would hold during their visit to Cuba.

The stands of Victoria de Girón, witnesses so many times to his colossal home runs, cheered his name, and Junco took his place alongside the greats present there.

A man toughened by the many blows life has given him, as the poet said, should not complain about one more blow. That is what we would think if it were about the beatings that existence itself has dealt him at every step, but against the ingratitude of mortals, no mind finds peace, nor spirit submits, as Lázaro Junco, the greatest slugger of the Matanzas baseball teams, retired before his time, must surely know. Despite tearing the ball apart and leading the home run hitters on countless occasions, he rarely made it onto the big team of our baseball.

However, Junco is one of those beings of few words who learned to master his feelings, or at least that’s how it seemed, until once in an interview before the cameras he could no longer contain them and burst into tears like a child, or like a man carrying deep pain inside.

Since that day, Cubans appreciated him much more for his courage and honesty: he never lashed out at anyone, nor at a controversial umpire decision, and much less at the misguided and unjust decision to remove him from the fields when he could still contribute to the sport.

Since then, his life has been spent sharing his passion for baseball with the little ones, because as a good man, he understood that wickedness and unfair decisions could not tarnish his love for the ball.

There is a saying that good things happen to good people, but sometimes wickedness is cruel. And that happened last Thursday at the Victoria de Girón grounds, upon the arrival of a representation of the Major Leagues visiting Cuba these days to hold clinics for young Cuban ballplayers.

This time the protagonist of the new blow against the Limonar slugger was the National Baseball Commission itself, and one asks: if they knew that one of the training clinics would take place in Matanzas, why overlook a great of Cuban baseball like Lázaro Junco?

Junco was the first to reach 400 home runs in our national series, yet there he was, in the stands, wanting to go unnoticed as he had so many times; no one knows ostracism like him.

But when the presentations of the attendees began and they mentioned the names of several sports legends from Industriales, the stands erupted: «What are they doing on the Matanzas stadium field with Junco sitting in the stands?» And a name echoed in the Victoria: ¡Junco! ¡Junco! ¡Junco!…

Faced with such a blunder, the organizers of the baseball gathering had no choice but to rectify their mistake and call the Limonar slugger, the humble home run hitter of Cuban baseball.

This time, injustice was undone before it could grow and create another clot of distress in the ballplayer’s soul. It was the fans, the people of Matanzas who had so often seen him standing at home plate like a knight of medieval lineage, who rectified such an oversight.

In the end, neither the omission nor the subsequent justifications could prevail. Lázaro Junco descended onto the field as the greats do, lifted by the righteous applause of his people.

Photo: Taken from the Internet