14ymedio/Swing Completo, Havana, 10 December 10, 2024 — The more than twenty players of the Marianao team from Havana abandoned their coach, Annie Fonseca, by failing to show up for the game they had this Monday. The club, which is in last place in the Provincial Series, forfeited the game to Plaza by “not being present” in an act that the Facebook page Por La Goma described as “detestable” and “macho.”
According to the same publication, the team has a “miserable” attitude by “questioning the ability of a coach just because she is a woman.” It also highlighted Jordan William Bustamante, Daniel Yanes, Pedro Remolar, Yankiel Hernández, Kevin González, Rayco Víctores, Daniel Escalona and Dayron Miranda (injured), the only players from Marianao who did show up for the game.
Por La Goma reported that in the series there are teams like El Cotorro, which is also lagging behind but does not question its coaches. “You can have problems and situations, you can have difficulties and differences, but the pledged word cannot be ’prostituted’ with abandonment; that is not for good men, that is not correct.”
The position of the players generated other reactions. The women’s magazine Alas Tensas interpreted the athletes’ decision “as an act of rejection towards the female figure in command, which has ignited the debate on gender equality in Cuban sport.”
Annie Fonseca, who was chosen this year to take charge of Marianao in the 64th edition of the Provincial Series of Havana, is not an ’improvised’ coach. As a player, she won the national softball championship in Guantánamo (1998) with Havana. She is currently in the fifth year of a degree in Physical Culture, Sport and Recreation at the University of Sports.
Last year, when Marianao became the runner-up, Fonseca was a bench coach. In November, in a chat with Swing Completo, she accepted that running the club would be a challenge because sexist beliefs still persist. However, she took on the challenge. “I firmly believe that women also have the right to earn respect within the field of baseball. We’re here to build and help the sport that we all love,” she declared.
“I was born a baseball player, and I’m a woman,” the coach said. “I can’t be more woman. Everything is in the person.” Fonseca has relied on elite players such as Dayron Miranda and Jordan William Bustamante.
This Tuesday Por La Goma considered that the sports authorities of Havana should “reformulate their strategies, allowing women who have talent and dedication to represent themselves.”
Translated by Regina Anavy
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