Fri, July 06, 2012
HAVANA, July 5 (Xinhua) -- A U.S. college baseball team arrived Thursday in Havana to start that same night here a series of five games with the team Cuba, resuming the "friendly" series suspended unilaterally by the USA Baseball 16 years ago.
The games will be held until July 9 at the iconic Latin American Stadium in Havana, the same place where the Cuba and U.S baseball federations signed a "Letter of Intent" last March to restart these games.
The document was signed by President of Cuban federation Higinio Velez, and Mike Gaski, his U.S counterpart.
The memorandum agrees the annual friendly series to five games, adding that the island's team will visit the United States in the summer of 2013.
According to the Cuban official daily Granma, the U.S. cast is distinguished by its versatility "as evidenced by the cases of Michael Conforto (utility), Johnny Field (utility), Marco Gonzalez (infielder and pitcher), Jordan Hankins (receiver and player table) and Carlos Rodon (pitcher and first baseman)".
The baseball matches between the two neighboring nations began in the 80's of 20th century, but they were discontinued in 1996 when the USA Baseball changed its administration and unilaterally decided to remove the bilateral series of its annual competitive calendar.
On the Cuban side, Victor Mesa will be the manager of the baseball team to face the U.S. squad.
This would be Mesa's biggest challenge of his career as a coach, which includes having led successfully the Villa Clara and Matanzas teams in the Cuban championships.
He has also commanded other teams at the Mexican professional leagues.
Mesa is also in charge of leading the Cuban team to the 26th baseball week to be held in Haarlem, Netherlands, from July 13 to 22.
Cuba sends 36 players for the meetings but enter just 24 for each match.
Cuba and the United States severed diplomatic ties in 1961 over ideological differences, but maintain limited exchanges in the fields of sports, culture and academics.
