Baseball - national heritage

Matanzas, October 20 (RHC)-- The cultural dimension of baseball: the ball game and its associated knowledge and practices, has been proclaimed as cultural heritage of the Cuban nation.

The good news was announced on October 7 at a press conference and was confirmed yesterday at the legendary Palmar de Junco stadium in the province of Matanzas, a few hours before the celebration of the National Culture Day, today.

The ceremony was attended by Jorge Luis Broche, member of the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the Party; Liván Izquierdo Alonso, first secretary of the Party in Matanzas; Osvaldo Vento Montiller, head of Inder; and Mario Sabines Lorenzo, governor of the territory.

Also present were other leaders of political and mass organizations, the Ministry of Culture and Inder, along with Cuban sports glories, active athletes, journalists, historians and other actors linked to our national sport.

The authorities present visited the Baseball Hall of Fame in Matanzas as a preamble to the act in which Sonia Virgen Pérez Mojena, president of the National Council of Cultural Heritage of the Nation, took the floor.

The directive read Resolution 18 that supports this declaration, which highlights the cultural values of the baseball phenomenon on the island, as well as the collective responsibility to preserve and enhance it.

The diploma was presented by Virgen to Vento Montiller; Juan Reinaldo Pérez Pardo, national baseball commissioner; and Roberto Pacheco, narrator and president of the sports clubs.

Vento Montiller was in charge of the central words of a ceremony long awaited by the lovers of this sport.

"It doesn't matter that it came from the United States.  Baseball took hold among us as a result of a transculturation also forged in other areas, and it belongs to us by force of the history sculpted by the several generations that followed in the footsteps of those initiators, in whose ranks stood out patriots who joined the redemptive struggles," said Vento.

"Thanks from INDER to the Ministry of Culture, to its National Heritage Council, to the Cuban Baseball Federation and the national commission for the support, without which this declaration would have been impossible.

"A hug to all those who contributed to make this dream come true, fanned from the Cuban people, and let's dedicate it to Fidel, who deeply loved baseball and validated, as an unsurpassed manager, that without the Revolution it would not have been possible to even dream of starting to develop in our homeland a great sports movement," concluded the head of INDER.

The people of Matanzas gave a heartfelt recognition to the Sanchez family, insignia of our baseball, in the persons of the beloved Wilfredo, Fernando, Arturo and Felipe.

The Failde Orchestra and singer-songwriter Raúl Torres provided the musical notes for the event. Prior to the ceremony, a new presentation of the book Cuando el beisbol se parece al cine, by Norberto Codina, was made by Dr. C. Félix Julio Alfonso López.