Recapping tomorrow.

Matanzas Division Champions for the first time in 20 years
Player of the Game : Yasiel Santoya became one of the heros in the seventh game when he doubled home two runs to give Matanzas their first division title in the last 20 years.
Matanzas welcomes their division title. From left to right the game winner Jorge A. Martinez, delirious fans who came on after the 27th out of the 7th game of the division championship, the right handed closer Joel Suarez.

Matanzas won the historic and decisive seventh game, put aside all odds and sent into the ditch the Spiritus Roosters 4-3 with its 4-3 edge in the division series.
From left to right Matanzas manager Victor Mesa is paraded on the shoulders in celebration. To the right the Spiritus Ismel Jimenez, loser of the clash with a valid effort in defeat.

Spiritus' Ismel Jimenez had an awesome season and equally awesome series winning 2 of the series three games for Spiritus and losing a heartbreaking, complete game effort by 1 run in game 7, 4-3.

Victory number 19 for the Gallos right-hander made him only the third hurler in league history to reach that many in a single season (post-season wins included).

The Gallos’ hopes came down to yet another sterling effort from Jímenez who allowed the Crocodiles only 13 hits and 2 earned runs during 16 total innings in his previous Game 1 and Game 4 starts.

Granma and Alfredo Despaigne just forced a game 7 although Despaigne was held hitless in five tries.

LTU 2 CAV 10

SSP 3 MTZ 4

GRA 5 VCL 1

<

Tonight

@ SANDINO 8:30 pm

GRA 0 @ VCL 0

<
Industriales won their series 4 games to 1
Mantanzas won their series 4 games to 3
Granma & Villa Clara go to a game 7
Las Tunas can win their series tonight

CORRECTION

That was not a division title for Matanzas. That was a quarter final series victory but none the less the first for Matanzas in 20 years.

Matanzas will face the Industriales for the Occidental division title. The Industriales are perennial participants in these playoffs and are a strong and powerful as they've always been. Matanzas will have a tough road to climb during this series.

The Oriental division title is still unsettled. One of the participants will be settled this evening, possibly both. Granma and Villa Clara will play a deciding game seven tonight. The winner of that game will play Las Tunas if they should win this evening. Ciego de Avila could force a game seven. The winner of these two matches will play for the division title.

Granma takes the juice to the oranges and is first team to qualify in the East End

by Ray Otero

May 5, 2012

Player of the game : Lefty Leandro Martinez pitched the game of his career 8 innings, 2 runs in Game 7. With the win Granma was the first team to advance to the East Final in 2012

Granma defeated Villa Clara 4-2 in Game # 7 and advanced with a 4-3 victory in the series.

Now they wait for the next opponent that could be defined today at 8:30 pm in a game contested by Ciego de Avila and Las Tunas.

There is little we can say about the performance of Granma, a tean that before the tournament appeared particularly weakened by the absence of a bat as Céspedes, who left the team with many questions about who would be responsible for producing runs. However, it became the eternal and best man, Alfredo Despaigne, who assumed the role.

The team was balanced and others were perhaps underestimated in previous years who were now more prominence. So we find a first baseman Yordanis Samon a class act batting all year, third in the league batting .363 this season, with 82 rib's, but also the undisputed leadership of the tournament with 133 hits . Yes, this Samon and many like him are the ones who lead the team in this seventh and deciding game for Granma

With him and Despaigne the whole year were the names of Ramon Tamayo, Urmaris "The Yogi" Guerra, Roel Santos, Luis Alberto Ferrales and why not an entire pitching staff lead by lefty Leandro Martínez with a record of 12-9 and 2.62 PCL and in this seventh game by far received the honor of pitching the game of his life.

So others like Ciro Silvino Licea veteran did not hesitate this time what might have been his best postseason, returned to the team after announcing his retirement and ends with a win and a save complying with a fan base to which he owed ​​something.

Granma is much more than the names mentioned above as it was a team effort taking the first step and advancing in the Playoffs and are now in the final of the East and for the first time in many years believe they can go all the way.


Three moments for Granma in the game. From left to right Yordanis Samon with two rbi on a hit to the center in the first inning, Ramon Tamayo and Alfredo Despaigne scored the first two of the Granma run and Roel Santos greets his first base coach after homering in the ninth
From left to right Granma celebrates their triumph in foreign fields in Game # 7 of the Finals to the astonishment of Ramon Moré manager of Villa Clara

Vladimir Garcia sends series to deciding Game # 7
Player of the game : The righty Vladimir Garcia was a giant when his team needed to tie the series at three games apiece. Garcia managed the triumph and #16 of the season.

Ciego de Avila 12 Las Tunas 2

Domingo, May 06
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Ciego de Avila advances in the East and will face Granma in the division championship series

Granma was a 4-3 winner over Villa Clara this weekend and became the first team to qualify for the Oriental Division championship.

Ciego de Avila had to overcome a two game disadvantage and came away with a 12-2 win on Saturday to tie the series at 3 games each and followed that game up with a 4-1 win on Sunday. Ciego de Avila will battle against Granma for the Oriental division championship.

In the Occidental division, the Industriales with sqare off against the Cinderalla team Matanzas for their league championship.

Should be an exciting series on both fronts.

Ciego ends the East Season for Las Tunas in Game 7 and is the last league finalist


by Ray Otero

May 7, 2012

Player of the game : The righyt Yander Guevara again faced Las Tunas and said the third time was the lucky charm winning the decisive Game 7 of the series placing his team in the 2012 Eastern Finals

Ciego de Avila would, could and did do what seemed impossible for their followers and with three wins in a row overtook Las Tunas 4-3 to qualify for the Eastern division 2012 championship Playoffs of Cuban baseball and as a result repeat their Eastern Final championship of 2011.

This Thursday at 8:30 pm meet on home turf of José Ramón Cepero Stadium the Colts of Granma.
From left to right Yorbis Borroto, who did everything right with the glove in Game 7 and hit a home run, a decisive shot. Diaz Lisdey defense shone as well yesterday afternoon and he also landed the final blow with homer in the seventh off Yoelkis Cruz.


Now Ciego de Avila goes to their home field José Ramón Cepero on Thursday to host the first two games against a team that already won this same stage last season, Granma.

FEATURE: Author shows politics, intrigue of Ruth's 1934 baseball tour of Japan

Kyodo - May 7 (00:51)

When Babe Ruth barnstormed across Japan in November 1934 with a
team of American All-Stars, he was welcomed not only as a baseball
hero, but also as a broker of friendship between two nations drifting
toward war.

The 18-game exhibition tour, hailed by politicians on both sides
as a chance to promote goodwill, is the subject of ''Banzai Babe
Ruth,'' Robert Fitts' third book about Japanese baseball history.

''Ruth understood the importance of the tour for
Japanese-American relations,'' Fitts told Kyodo News. ''He rose to
the occasion and became an ambassador for the United States for the
month he was in Japan.''

Although the 1934 tour was a hit, drawing enthusiastic crowds to
see Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx and the other American stars go
undefeated against a team of top Japanese players, baseball could not
prevent the looming crisis. Fitts details an extremist plot to murder
the tour's organizer and plans to stage a bloody military coup while
Ruth and his teammates were still in the country.

'''Banzai Babe Ruth' focuses on a month with a lot of back
story,'' Fitts said. ''I did two years' worth of research before I
started writing. I wanted to take the facts and present them as a
story.''

Fitts, 46, first took an interest in Japanese baseball when he
lived in Tokyo in the early 1990s, finishing his American archaeology
dissertation while his wife worked for an international law firm. He
collected Japanese baseball memorabilia in his free time and played
infield on a recreational company team.

''Baseball really became my way to get into Japan and introduce
myself to the culture, pick up a little bit of the language -- enough
to carry on a baseball conversation,'' Fitts said.

A few years after the couple returned to New York, Fitts started
a website about Japanese baseball cards in 1999. Originally only a
sideline to his job as a consulting archaeologist, the website became
a job in itself with the sensation of Ichiro Suzuki's 2001 rookie
year in Seattle. Fitts soon began to prepare biographies of Japanese
ballplayers for his American customers.

In 2003, this led to an opportunity to meet and interview the
late Wally Yonamine, the first American player after World War II to
join the professional league in Japan.

''Wally's stories were so wonderful and he was such a good
storyteller,'' Fitts recalled. ''Being in Japan in 1951 was so
different from Japan today -- I was just enthralled. I remember just
forgetting about the article I was planning to write, and saying to
myself: 'That's a book.'

''What I wanted to do was get as many of these guys who played
in Japan as possible to talk to me and tell me their stories. That
became my first book. It was an oral history of Japanese baseball.

''I figured out within a month into it that this is what I
really wanted to do. It was creative, it was fun, and I learned
things while doing it.''

Fitts followed ''Remembering Japanese Baseball'' with a
full-length biography of Yonamine. His research for ''Banzai Babe
Ruth'' started in 2007, and included two trips to Japan's Baseball
Hall of Fame in Tokyo to pore over primary source material with
bilingual research assistants.

''There are lots of asides I could have gone down, but they went
too far off the story,'' Fitts said.

Among those that made the final cut are stories about the
rumored spy career of camera-toting catcher Moe Berg, the blackmail
by which Russian refugee Victor Starffin was forced to join the
Japanese team, and the legendary performance of 17-year-old pitcher
Eiji Sawamura, who held the Americans to one run in the tour's
closest contest. Sawamura, sometimes called the Japanese Cy Young, so
impressed the Americans that he was offered a chance to play in the
major leagues, but decided to stay in Japan and later died as a
soldier in World War II.

Although the 1934 tour could not forestall conflict, it remains
a memorable early example of Japanese-American friendship on the
baseball diamond in an era of explosive politics. Fitts shows how the
tour ultimately led to the founding of the Tokyo Giants and the
creation of a Japanese professional league.

The first player to come from Japanese pro ball to the majors,
pitcher Masanori Murakami of the 1964 San Francisco Giants, is the
subject of Fitts' next research project.

''Banzai Babe Ruth'' was published in March.

Cuban League’s Quarterfinals Produce Few Surprises

by Peter Bjarkman

You have to hand it to Victor Mesa – the legitimate headline grabber of this year’s National Series baseball season. This truly has been “The Year of Matanzas” and “The Year of Victor Mesa.” Despaigne and Abreu chased a new home run record; an oddball and unprecedented tie-breaker-scenario tandem no-hitter spiced a season of record-book rewriting; Enriquito Diaz finally achieved his seemingly endless quest for a new base hits standard; and the capital city favorite Industriales club is back in the title hunt under rookie manager Lázaro Vargas, after an uncharacteristic off-season suffered during last year’s Golden Anniversary campaign. But the much-ballyhooed return of colorful Victor Mesa as the manager of usually hapless Matanzas has remained the talk of the Cuban baseball world ever since late last November, and the rather wild success saga of Victor and his upstart Crocodiles team just refuses to go away.
Victor Mesa and Matanzas are writing this year’s Cuban League Cinderella Story

Victor enjoyed numerous managerial successes over the span covering his earlier 8-year reign (2002-2009) in Villa Clara. His National Series winning percentage (442-276, .616) ranks fifth all-time among managers with eight or more years of service, and only Jorge Fuentes (979), Higinio Vélez (623), and Eduardo Martin (548), won more regular-season league games. On three occasions Mesa guided his club into the championship finals. But on the whole his teams never seemed to do well in the post-season and his overall post-season record (36-42, .462) is one of only two sub-.500 playoff ledgers found among the five most successful National Series skippers (the other belongs to Eduardo Martin, who both preceded and followed Victor in Villa Clara). This notable dip in late-year playoff games may well have something to do with Mesa’s flamboyant and often controversial bench style – a style that most often calls more attention to the manager pulling the strings on the bench than to the players themselves on the field. Mesa inspires young athletes but seems to quickly wear out his welcome with seasoned veterans.

But the commission’s decision to reinstate Mesa in Matanzas (rather than in Villa Clara), where diamond fortunes have bottomed out over the course of two decades since a one-time powerful team known as Henequeneros was rebranded as Matanzas – seems to have been a pure stroke of genius. Matanzas was already staffed with a wealth of young talent at the finish of National Series #50 and seemed ready to move up despite last year’s seventh-place Occidental League finish. Prospects like catcher Lázaro Herrera, infielder Yurisbel Gracial, outfielder Ariel Sánchez and pitcher Jorge Alberto Martinez (who missed all of last season due to injury) only needed to be instilled with a huge shot of confidence and shown how to win, and Victor seemed the ideal man for the job. This year the young Crocodile ball club raced to an early advantage, then barely hung on at the wire to achieve a first-time, first-place finish (and thus also a first-ever playoff appearance) for any squad bearing the name of Matanzas. And it now suddenly looks like Victor may also be perfectly poised to make his best post-season showing ever.

Everything went pretty much as anticipated with the four opening-round quarterfinal series. If there were any mild surprises they were found in the ease with which Industriales handled the challenge from Cienfuegos, and also in the notion that Granma somehow managed to torpedo underachieving Villa Clara. The Industriales-Cienfuegos matchup was the only one that failed to last the distance, even though most pundits had likely seen that pair of second and third-place Occidental rivals as the most tightly matched clubs among the eight contenders. Despite the presence of Alfredo Despaigne and a strong contingent of supporting sluggers (mainly Yordanis Samón and Urmanis Guerra), the Granma Stallions boast the worse defense and the shoddiest backup pitching found anywhere in the league, and thus hardly seemed a good bet to survive any post-season series – especially one against Villa Clara, easily the league’s most balanced club all season long. Ciego de Avila and Matanzas escaped from the other two opening series just as expected, but it took surprising small “miracle” comebacks for both to survive.

Industriales experienced few if any hurdles during the opening round and the renewed presence of the capital city team in the semifinals (after sitting on last year’s post-season sidelines) will now once again engage the bulk of Cuba’s rabid fan base. The Blue Lions were able to close down Cienfuegos even before the calendar turned a page into May and in the process assured themselves a lengthy and welcomed rest (eight days as it turns out) before having to face rival Matanzas. Mainstay right-hander Odrisamer Despaigne was the obvious pitching hero with his two solid outings: a complete-game four hitter in the lid-lifter and 7.2 shutout innings in Game 4. Veteran Cienfuegos southpaw Norberto González was on the losing end of both contests. Lions outfielder Yasmani Tomás upstaged Elephants slugger José Dariel Abreu with three round-trippers in the short five-game series. The only Cienfuegos triumph came in Game 2 at Latin American Stadium (by a 3-1 count) when the Elephants temporarily evened the series largely on the strength of a strong 7.1-inning, 3-hit shutout effort by starter Noelvis Entenza and some crafty bullpen work from reliable closer Duniel Ibarra.

In Matanzas the Cinderella story continues, but only after Mesa rallied his club from the 3-1 hole they had dug themselves on the road in Sancti Spíritus. Not only did the Crocodiles have to crawl out of their deep pit with three straight victories, but they also had to finally get around Gallos ace Ismel Jiménez, who had already beaten them twice in the series and was gunning in Game 6 for a record-tying twentieth victory on the year. In short, it wasn’t quite as smooth as everyone expected in what had appeared at the outset to be the easiest matchup of the four to predict. The turning point seemed to come in a must-win Game 5 – the final home match for the eventual losers. One victory away from moving on to the semis, and coming off an 11-1 laugher behind Jiménez a day earlier, Sancti Spíritus bats fell silent against Jorge Alberto Martínez (8.1 innings of 3-hit shutout pitching). It was all downhill after that for a Matanzas club that crushed five Gallos hurlers 8-2 in Game 6 and then squeezed past Jiménez 4-3 in the wrap-up game.

Granma provided the one small taste of upset seen so far in post-season 2012 and they did so by equally Ciego’s feat of taking two final must-win games on the road. Villa Clara looked like the league’s best team from November through April, and ironically Granma somehow managed to overcome the Orangemen more through heroics from their much-maligned pitching staff than from the exploits of their vaunted sluggers. Despaigne did provide three round-trippers in the series but none were struck during the final two critical games. Manager Indalecio Alejandrez’s Stallions benefitted most from outstanding bookend pitching performances by veteran Ciro Silvino Licea (Game 1 win, 1-0) and fast-developing fifth-year southpaw Leandro Martínez (Game 7 victory, 4-2). Licea’s gutsy opening-match 9-hitter erased an excellent complete-game effort by Freddie Asiel Alvarez for the Orange. In the finale Martínez upped his overall season’s mark to 12-4, only six victories shy of his entire previous four-year ledger. And in a pivotal fourth game that might have left Granma down 3-1 in the series, the Stallions prevailed (on the strength of a Despaigne homer) even though they committed several of the worst base-running blunders of the entire campaign.

Ciego de Avila and Granma will now restage their semifinals clash of a year ago – won by the Tigers in six games. The two Occidental contenders didn’t even make it into the post-season a year ago and that fact perhaps puts the intangible element of recent post-season experience squarely on the side of the two Oriental clubs. Manager Roger Machado started out at a huge disadvantage in this one, but an assist from the weather suddenly turned things back his way. Machado was forced to use Vladimir García (his normal series opener) in the final match of the regular season (a must-win game in Cienfuegos for playoff qualification) and thus had to leave his ace on the sidelines until quarterfinal Game number three. That also meant two starts at the most for Garcia – last year’s semifinals hero. When he finally did appear Vlad rewarded with a brilliant complete-game effort that produced the Tigers’ first victory of the series. But earlier rain delays also meant that the ace righty could be brought back for crucial Game 6 (after Ciego had rallied in a final home game to cut the series deficit to 3-2). Garcia again worked eight masterful frames of a one-sided series-tying 12-2 victory. In the decider on the road Yander Guevara (only a .500-level hurler for the entire season) essayed a brilliant complete-game 4-hit effort the kept Machado and Ciego squarely in the heart of championship contention.

Cuban Semifinals Schedule

Occidental League

Industriales at Matanzas Game 1 May 9 8:30 pm Victoria de Girón
Industriales at Matanzas Game 2 May 10 5:00 pm Victoria de Girón
Matanzas at Industriales Game 3 May 12 8:30 pm Latinoamericano
Matanzas at Industriales Game 4 May 13 2:00 pm Latinoamericano
Matanzas at Industriales (Game 5) May 14 8:30 pm Latinoamericano
Industriales at Matanzas (Game 6) May 16 8:30 pm Victoria de Girón
Industriales at Matanzas (Game 7) May 17 8:30 pm Victoria de Girón

Cuban Semifinals Schedule

Oriental League

Granma at Ciego de Avila Game 1 May 10 8:30 pm José Ramón Cepero
Granma at Ciego de Avila Game 2 May 11 5:00 pm José Ramón Cepero
Ciego de Avila at Granma Game 3 May 13 5:00 pm Martires de Barbados
Ciego de Avila at Granma Game 4 May 14 5:00 pm Martires de Barbados
Ciego de Avila at Granma (Game 5) May 15 8:30 pm Martires de Barbados
Granma at Ciego de Avila (Game 6) May 17 5:00 pm José Ramón Cepero
Granma at Ciego de Avila (Game 7) May 18 8:30 pm José Ramón Cepero

Industriales, with its first-series momentum, huge fan base, and relatively deep pitching, now looks to be in the driver’s seat. But Matanzas seems to have Destiny on its side – and also Victor Mesda, a factor that might yet tip the balance in either direction. Granma with its porous defense and penchant for sloppy efforts on the base paths is the one team that likely won’t hang around for very long. More than anything it appears that Ciego – back from the dead in Las Tunas – is now well positioned to be the true “dark horse” (and even the gambler’s favorite) in this complex race. My bet is that Matanzas will win out over Industriales in six games – mainly on the often overstressed strength of the home field advantage. Ciego should also edge past Granma, although the Stallions have enough offense to drag that series out to a full program of seven games. What may well be emerging piece-by-piece is a glamorous final-round faceoff between two of Cuba’s most controversial managers and also between two teams that have never before won a league title. If it happens it would in fact be the very first such title clash between first-time hopefuls.

Victor Mesa has his many critics who think that his bench antics (which have already led to one five-game suspension this season) detract from the on-field spectacle. Roger Machado is less than popular with most observers and commentators in the Cuban media who think he badly mishandles his frontline pitching (appearing to have little faith in his starters outside of ace righty Vladimir García). Both criticisms are largely unfair: if Victor is colorful he also usually gets the best out of his players; and Roger has reason enough to rely on the best arm in his arsenal. A clash between these two crafty bench bosses would certainly provide one of the most entertaining Cuban League finals in many years. But of course we have a long way to go yet before we get there.

Victor Mesa

You have to hand it to Victor Mesa – the legitimate headline grabber of this year’s National Series baseball season. This truly has been “The Year of Matanzas” and “The Year of Victor Mesa.”

the much-ballyhooed return of colorful Victor Mesa as the manager of usually hapless Matanzas has remained the talk of the Cuban baseball world ever since late last November, and the rather wild success saga of Victor and his upstart Crocodiles team just refuses to go away.


Roger Machado

Victor Mesa has his many critics who think that his bench antics (which have already led to one five-game suspension this season) detract from the on-field spectacle. Roger Machado is less than popular with most observers and commentators in the Cuban media who think he badly mishandles his frontline pitching (appearing to have little faith in his starters outside of ace righty Vladimir García). Both criticisms are largely unfair: if Victor is colorful he also usually gets the best out of his players; and Roger has reason enough to rely on the best arm in his arsenal. A clash between these two crafty bench bosses would certainly provide one of the most entertaining Cuban League finals in many years. But of course we have a long way to go yet before we get there.