14ymedio, Havana, 7 January 2021 — Cuban baseball is in crisis. This Friday it was revealed that Yunior Tur, one of the best pitching prospects, has been missing for two days, and the abandonment of Eriandy Ramón, the third athlete to escape since the start of 2022, and six players from the Las Tunas team were all confirmed, while two members of the coaching staff have covid-19.
Tur was excluded from the patriot team assembled by manager Eriel Sánchez for the U-23 World Cup that took place in the northern state of Sonora (Mexico) last September and represented the worst bloodletting in Cuban baseball with 12 players fleeing. The athlete, like Yosimar Cousín, was questioned about “discipline” and “patriotism,” a veiled allusion to his possibility of defecting abroad.
Under the same arguments, Tur was excluded from the representative who participated in the I Junior Pan American Games held in Cali, Colombia. To which was added the refusal of the Cuban Federation to be hired by the Mexican ninth of the Charros de Jalisco.
“The closer Yunior Tur is a loss for Santiago de Cuba,” columist Yirsandy Rodríguez of Play off Magazine shared in his social networks. “Now the Wasps are going to have to totally reconfigure their bullpen. And obviously hope their starters can go far enough in every game.”
The disappearance of the player born in Santiago de Cuba, and the fact they he does not answer calls on his mobile, has led to rumors of a departure from the Island. “A possibility that was always on the minds of the fans of the Santiago team and of the fans of the pitcher himself,” according to Swing Completo.
Amid speculation about the whereabouts of Tur, the third abandonment of the Island was confirmed in January 2022. Eriandy Ramón joined the escapes of José Ramón Alfonso Jr. and that of Orestes Reyes. The three are in the Dominican Republic from where they will continue their preparation in search of an opportunity with a Major League team from the USA or Canada.
Ramón stood out as second baseman in the U-15 World Cup that took place in Panama in 2018, where he had four hits, scored three runs and had three strikeouts. “He bunked with Dyan Yamel Jorge, who is about to sign with the Colorado Rockies,” stressed journalist Francys Romero in FR Baseball. “From that 2018 team, nine players have already emigrated out of a total of 20, which shows that the Cuban player between 13-19 years old still does not see a future on the island.”
To this we must add that since the end of 2021 Alexis Pérez Leyva, director of Sports in the province of Las Tunas, confirmed that a player from los Leñadores had symptoms of coronavirus and there are currently six players and two technicians with the disease, according to Periódico 26.
These infections are part of the 1,946 positive and 5,218 active cases, which the Ministry of Public Health reported this Friday. Cuba has diagnosed 5,219 new cases in the last 14 days, according to official data.
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