Lazaro Blanco, best bowler in Cuban baseball, resides in the United States

First Amendment: 05/06/2021 – 00:40Last update: 05/06/2021 – 00:38

Havana (AFP)

Lazaro Blanco, the best Cuban soccer player, decided to secede from his country and remain in the United States, becoming the second player on the Cuban “team” to defect in pre-Olympic games in Florida, and the player himself announced this. Friday.

Blanco, 35, told Miami Telemundo Channel 51 that it was a “decision I made while I was in Florida” and “it’s not that I’m going to play baseball” in the States. Facebook network.

“The important thing is that I feel good about the decision I made, well, it’s a new life I’m going to live for now,” Blanco added, acknowledging that if he couldn’t play baseball, he’d devote himself to “anything.”

In a brief note, published by JIT, a newspaper affiliated with the Cuban Sports Institute (Inder), the Cuban Baseball Federation (FCB) confirmed that “Lázaro Blanco decided to remain in the United States in violation of his contract with Mexican team Saraperos del Saltillo.”

Blanco is the third member to leave the Cuban delegation that participated in the baseball preliminaries for the Olympics of the Americas in Florida.

Player Cesar Prieto, considered one of the greatest talents in domestic baseball, left his squad on May 26, before the Cuban “team” made its debut in the tournament.

And on Thursday, the team’s psychiatrist Jorge Cel Figueroa left his country’s delegation shortly before the start of his return trip to the island, a source close to the team confirmed to AFP, requesting confidentiality. His escape has not been confirmed by the FCB.

Blanco and Carlos Juan Vieira, considered the second best player on the island, had to travel to Mexico from the United States, where they both got FCB endorsement to play in the Mexican league with club Saraperos de Saltillo.

In a broader note published after Prieto’s escape, Bayern criticized the player’s decision, which they said was “inconsistent with the commitment they made to the people and the team”.

“Encouraging this kind of behavior was a sign of the numerous attacks against our sport, victimized by the actions of traffickers and traffickers that were favored by the United States Government’s decision to disrupt the agreement aimed at normalizing the inclusion of our players in the MLB circuits,” noted afterwards.

In the pre-Olympics, the Cubans in their first two matches against Venezuela and Canada gave the same 6×5 score, which left Cuba, holder of three titles under the five rings and 25 world crowns, for the first time from the Olympics. in their national sport.

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© 2021 AFP