The stadium LoanDepot Park, headquarters of the Miami Marlins in Little Havana, will host the 2024 Caribbean Series, after an agreement was signed between the Major League franchise and the Caribbean Professional Baseball Confederation (CBPC).
"Today we completed all the details and signed the agreement. The Caribbean Series will return to Miami"said the Dominican Juan Francisco Puello Herrera, president of the entity that brings together the winter baseball leagues in the region, cited by ESPN Digital.
"I want to highlight the great effort put in by my team, led by Ramón Ruiz, and by the Marlins, their senior vice president of strategy and development, Mr. Adam Jones," said Puello Herrera when announcing the news.
The selection of Miami as the venue for the traditional regional tournament is not only a recognition of South Florida as a great baseball venue on the continent, but also of the Little Havana stadium, considered among the most modern and welcoming in the world.
A Caribbean Series has not been held in Miami since 1991, when the event took place in the now defunct "Bobby Maduro" stadium, in the center of the city.
Winter league teams Colombia, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Panama and the Dominican Republic will star in the event, with the notable absence of Cuba, whose last participation in the sporting event dates back to 2019.
Cuba claims its right to full membership of the CBPC, which could not be established during its return to the tournament between 2014 and 2019.
In recent days, the national commissioner of baseball in Cuba, Juan Reinaldo Pérez Pardo, stated that at the moment there has been no exchange with the CBPC so that the Cuban champion can return to the Caribbean Series, which distances the options of a possible presence of a national team from the island in Miami in 2024.
In 2020 Cuba could not travel to San Juan, Puerto Rico, host of the tournament, due to problems in processing US visas. Puello Herrera explained on that occasion that the true responsibility for the absence of the island's champion team was a cuban official whom he did not identify, who did not take the necessary steps in due time.
For its part, the Cuban Baseball Federation (FCB) accused the president of the CBCP to lie "Very far from offering any response linked to the efforts that we demand in full compliance with our rights, the Commissioner's only statement was intended to classify Cuba as totally responsible for an exclusion on which he previously presented a diametrically different criterion," said his managers before the statements of the Dominican.
However, Puello Herrera explained during the final of the Caribbean Series in 2020 that the exclusion of Cubans was not a punishment “because, even, the requirements to be full members of the confederation are going to be sent to Cuba as well. What happens is that the issue of Cuba is a political issue. Neither the commissioner is a politician nor the confederation is a politician. And since it is a political issue I have decided not to address it anymore,” he added.
In 2021, the event took place in Mazatlán, Mexico, and the Caribbean Professional Baseball Confederation decided include Colombia instead of Cuba. The island had returned to the regional tournament, as a guest, in 2014, attending consecutively until the 2019 version. The Leñadores de Las Tunas lost in the final against the representative team from Panama.
The current year's edition will take place at the stadium Quisqueya Juan Marichal of Santo Domingo, capital of the Dominican Republic, from January 28 to February 3. While The 2023 Series will be held in Venezuela, the one in 2025 will take place in Mexicali, the one in 2026 in Puerto Rico (the city to be determined) and the one in 2027 in Hermosillo, Mexico.
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