One more Cuban victory over the Japanese collegiate all-stars here in Haarlem on Friday evening will likely set up a welcomed rematch of Cuba's Beijing-favorite Olympic squad and a crack team of American college stars bound for next week's World University Games Tournament in the Czech Republic. In last Sunday's preliminary-round match between the two clubs, Team USA walked off with a thrilling 1-0 win in a highly entertaining pitchers' duel. The Americans (who can finish no worse than 4-1, if they drop today's match with Chinese Taipei) have clinched first seed in the pool-play round, with Cuba (at 4-1) finishing second. Cuba thus faces Japan (who they earlier defeated 5-3) in tonight's first semifinal, with the USA squaring off against the undetermined fourth-place finisher in tomorrow night's second semifinal. The opponent for the Americans will likely be Taipei, if the Chinese can win either end of today's doubleheader with the Americans and the Dutch Caribbean entry. A double loss for Taiwan, however, will force a complex tie-breaking rule (fewest head-to-head runs allowed) between Taipei, Holland (the Dutch Olympic squad that finish a disappointing 1-4 after last night's loss to Cuba) and the Dutch Antilles.

Pictured above is this author in his role here in Haarlem as the entire "unofficial" Cuban press corps, crowded in amongst a corps of Japanese press and scouts. Economic conditions have forced Cuba to send its normal baseball press corps directly to Beijing, bypassing Haarlem. The only "Cuban" writer here as a result is yours truly (doing play-by-play and game stories for both www.baseballdecuba.com and www.radiococo.cu). If the depressed economy in Cuba has cancelled their press appearance here, it is a lack of interest in international baseball that has also left the American press unrepresented. The only other American here on press row is Larry Little, press officer for Team USA who is filing daily reports of www.usabaseball.com.

It is noteworthy that this photo features a Japanese scouting contingent of considerable stature, all here to watch the Cuban Olympic squad. Immediately in front of me stands Japanese Olympic team manager Senichi Hoshino, former manager and current GM of the Japanese League Hanshin Tigers. tT the left of Hoshino sits former Japanese League home run champ Koichi Tabuchi, and to the far right is former batting champ Kohji Yamamoto, one-time manager of the Hiroshima Carp. An impressive corps of Japanese "big leaguers" indeed. 

Author (left) relaxes with all-star Cuban outfielder Freddie Cepeda during Monday's Haarlem rain delay.

Greetings from wet and soggy Haarlem (Netherlands) where the 23rd edition of the showcase Haarlem Honkbal (Dutch for "baseball") Week has gotten off to a rain-plagued if nonetheless exciting start. The first two days found all four games completed, though a couple were played under drizzily conditions. But the heavy rains have now set in, washing out last night's Cuba-Chinese Taipei match and prompting a rare triple header for today's fifth day of competitions. The rain has only worsened here on Tuesday morning, again cancelling the make-up Cuba-Taiwan contest and putting in doubt this afternoon's (USA-Dutch Caribbean) and this evening's (Netherlands-Japan) games as well. Another cancellation today will likely throw the week's remaining schedule into chaos and necessitate the emergency use of a second smaller venue to keep the schedule on track. Semifinals were originally scheduled for Friday and Saturday nights, with the finals pencilled in for Sunday afternoon.

Two major upsets have already marked the early tournament on-field action, with host Netherlands (the Dutch Olympic team) falling 6-4 to Chinese Taipei (college all-stars), and favored Cuba being upended 1-0 by Team USA (also a collegiate all-star team bound for the World University Games in Prague later this month). The American win came courtesy of a strong starting pitching effort by Vanderbilt's Mike Minor. It should be noted (not to take anything away from the strong American showing) that Cuba's Olympic team is using this tournament as a final conditioning exercise for Beijing and thus focussing far more on morning workouts than on the afternoon-evening games themselves. The lack of Cuban hitting in the first two games (they earlier nipped Dutch Caribbean 2-1) may well be explained by the fact that the team is undergoing strenuous morning running and weight lifting regimens and each Cuban batter is also taking 200 swings of batting practice daily.

The full tournament action, including live play-by-play of all games for Team Cuba, can be found on our Cuban League website at www.baseballdecuba.com. The fortunes of Team USA can also be followed on www.usabaseball.com. Afternoon games here in Haarlem begin at 8 am EST (for North American followers interested in the play-by-play action) with night games starting at 1 pm EST. Tune in an and enjoy international baseball at its finest. 

Having just returned from Havana, where I covered the Jose Huelga Memorial Tournament for www.baseballdecuba.com, this author is about to departed for the Netherlands (July 2) to provide full coverage of the Haarlem Baseball Week for the same USA-based Cuban League website. The Huelga Tournament in Havana (June 5-15) was part of Cuba's final lengthy selection process to determine its Beijing Olympic roster. The event thus saw the current Cuban 44-man pre-selection roster divided into two equally match squads (Cuba Red and Cuba Blue) which competed in a round robin against national teams representing Venezuela and Puerto Rico. As expected the two Cuba ball clubs lost only to each other, with the Blue squad taking the deciding championship match. Full details of the tournament can still be found on our Cuban League website at www.baseballdecuba.com.

Author in Estadio Latinoamericano (Havana) with Cuban national team right fielder and 2008 National Series home run champion, Alexei Bell, on final night of Jose Huela Memorial Tournament (June 15, 2008)

Having now trimmed their Olympic roster to 29 players, the Cubans next head to Holland on June 29 to take part in the always entertaining ten-day Haarlem Baseball Week, a prestigious international tournament this year involving six entrants: favored Cuba (Olympiuc roster), host Netherlands (Olympic roster), USA (university all-star squad enroute to the late-July World University Games in Prague), Japan (also a university squad headed to the same Prague event), Korea, Chinese Taipei, and the Dutch Antilles. I will be doing play-by-play internet live coverage for all Team Cuban games on www.baseballdecuba.com, beginning with the July 4 opener (Cuba vs. Dutch Antilles, at 8 am EST). The Cuban contingent will leave Haarlem on July 14 (with the roster further trimmed by five additional cuts) and head on to Asia for a final series of friendly matches with Japanese and Taiwanese squads before the official August 13 Olympic Baseball tournament opener.

Prepared to defend its Olympic crown and avenge its recent surprise World Cup loss to Team USA, Cuba's Baseball Federation has just announced the 43-man roster now in training for the upcoming Beijing Games. It is from this expanded roster that the final Beijing club will be selected later this summer. This roster will also provide the lineups for the Cuba A and Cuba B squads scheduled to square off next month at Sancti Spiritus (June 5-15) in the renewal of the once-popular Jose Huelga Tournament, as well as the Cuban team that will participate in the Haarlem Baseball Week Tournament (Netherlands) in early July (4-13). Team Cuba will also take part in a number of additional Asia-based tune-up exhibitions on the eve of the Olympics competitions at summer's end. This year's Team Cuba edition contains few real surprises, features few departures from the November 2007 Taiwan World Cup contingent, and boasts the expected balance of powerful hitting and masterful pitching that normally marks the big-league-level squads representing the perennial world champions.

The biggest eye-opener on this year's edition of Team Cuba is probably the manager, as Santiago's Antonio Pacheco (pictured) has been named to replace Rey Anglada (Industriales). Anglada headed up last year's Pan Am Games and World Cup clubs after replacing current commissioner Higino Velez on the heels of the March 2006 World Baseball Classic. Pacheco--a former national team star performer of the 1990s, Cuba's career base hits leader, and manager of the 2007 and 2008 league champion Santiago de Cuba Avispas (Wasps)--had been subject of much speculation before last summer's international campaign. It was believed in many quarters within Cuba last summer that Pacheco would head the 2007 edition of Team Cuba, but minor health problems kept Pacheco on the sidelines and Rey Anglada on the bench. With three National Series championships to his credit in only four years at the head of the powerful Santiago club, Pachedo seems the logical choice to now inherit the reins of Cuba's polished veteran national team lineup.

The Cuban lineup itself is packed with veteran pitching, headed by Pedro Luis Lazo (fresh off a new Cuban League record for career pitching victories) and Norge Vera (who seems only to improve with age and who returns to the national team scene after a surprise absence last fall in Taiwan). Heading up the offense will be 2008 National Series MVP and home run champ, Alexei Bell, as well as such national team standbys as Freddie Cepeda, Yulieski Gourriel, Eduardo Paret, Ariel Pestano, six-time batting champion Osmani Urrutia, and 2006 BA leader Michel Enriquez (the only National Series batting champ outside of Urrutia since 2000). The return of Enriquez to the national team scene is itself a mild surprise, since the Isla de la Juventud star sat out all of the 2007 national and international campaigns due to a severe disciplinary infraction (an off-field assault on a league umpire). In a more detailed article about the recent national team selection (to be posted on www.baseballdecuba.com) I will be speculating further on the implications of Enriquez's return to the potent Cuban lineup.

The complete Team Cuba 2008 roster announced on Sunday is as follows:

Catchers: Rolando Merino (Santiago), Yosvani Peraza (Pinar del Rio), Eriel Sanchez (Sancti Spiritus), Ariel Pestano (Villa Clara), Osvaldo Arias (Cienfuegos), Yenier Bello (Camaguey).

Infielders: Alex Mayetta (Industriales), Yoandy Garlobo (Matanzas), and Jose Julio Ruiz (Santiago) at first base. Hector Olivera (Santiago) and Yoilan Cerce (Guantanamo) at second base. Eduardo Paret (Villa Clara), Luis Miguel Navas (Santiago) and Yadil Mujica (Matanzas) at shortstop). Yulieski Gourriel (Sancti Spiritus), Michel Enriquez (Isla de la Juventud) and Ronnier Musteller (Santiago) at third base.

Outfielders: Alexei Bell (Santiago), Freddie Cepeda (Sancti Spiritus), Giorvis Duvergel (Guantanamo), Yoandry Urgelles (Industriales), Yoennis Cespedes (Granma), Alfredo Despaigne (Granma), Osmani Urrutia (Las Tunas), Leonis Martin (Villa Clara).

Right-Handed Pitchers: Pedro Luis Lazo (Pinar del Rio), Norge Luis Vera (Santiago), Yunieski Maya (Pinar del Rio), Jonder Martinez (Habana Province), Yadier Pedroso (Habana Province), Vicyohandri Odelin (Camaguey), Ismel Jimenez (Sancti Spiritus), Alberto Bicet (Santiago), Yoelkis Cruz (Las Tunas), Miguel Lahera (Habana Province), Vladimir Garcia (Ciego de Avila), Luis Miguel Rodriguez (Holguin).

Left-Handed Pitchers: Yulieski Gonzalez (Habana Province), Aroldis Chapman (Holguin), Elier Sanchez (Camaguey), Adiel Palma (Cienfuegos), Ian Rendon (Industriales), Norberto Gonzalez (Cienfuegos).

Only one of the league's sixteen ball clubs was left without a single representative on the 43-man roster--Havana's perennial doormat, Metropolitanos. Among players surprisingly excluded were Industriales veteran outfielder Yasser Gomez (who batted .400-plus for much of the recent 2008 campaign and trailed only Garlobo and Villa Clara's Martin in the individual batting race) and Pinar del Rio infielder Donald Duarte, a productive member of last summer's Cuba B lineup. Also notable for his absence this time around is long-time national team outfield fill-in Carlos Tabares from Industriales, remembered especially for his game-saving catch in the 2004 Athens Olympic finale, and his game-saving throw in the crucial WBC round-two victory over Puerto Rico in San Juan.

The just-completed 47th Cuban National Series was definitely "one for the record books" which saw better than 125 new individual and team records set. These included marks for both regular-season and playoff action, and also featured some of the most noteworthy achievements in Cuban baseball annals. Heading the list of new standards were the individual home run and RBI records set by National Series MVP Alexei Bell (pictured) of league champion Santiago. Also of top significance were the career mark for pitching victories established by Pinar's Pedro Lazo, and the career playoff victories record rung up by Santiago's Norge Vera. A summary of some of the top marks established in the various major record book categories are as follows:

National Series (Regular Season) Single Season Records:

Home Runs: Alexei Bell (Santiago de Cuba) 31

RBI: Alexei Bell (Santiago de Cuba) 111

Consecutive Pitching Victories: Yulieski Gonzalez (Habana) 15 (15-0)

National Series Lifetime Records:

Career Batting Average: Osmani Urrutia (Las Tunas) .368

Career Pitching Wins: Pedro Luis Lazo (Pinar del Rio) 237

Career Pitching Losses: Carlos Yanes (Isla de la Juventud) 223

Playoffs Lifetime Records:

Games Played: Rolando Merino (Santiago de Cuba) 146

Career Wins: Norge Vera (Santiago de Cuba) 31

Career Games Started: Ormari Romero (Santiago de Cuba) 44

Career Games Pitched: Pedro Luis Lazo (Pinar del Rio) 68

Playoff One-Season Records:

RBIs: Rolando Merino (Santiago de Cuba) 24

Hits: Rolando Merino (Santiago de Cuba) 28

Runs: Hector Olivera (Santiago de Cuba) 22

Special Career Records:

Most Seasons Managed: Carlos Marti (Granma) 25

Most Seasons Played: Carlos Yanes (Isla de la Juventud) 25

Most Hits in a Single Inning: Alexei Bell (Santiago) 3 (versus Villa Clara)

This listing of records was compiled by webmaster/columnist Yasel Porto at Havana's Radio COCO baseball website. A complete listing of the 100-plus records set this season can be found on the Radio COCO site at http://www.radiococo.cu/cocobeisbol/serie%20nacional/coment-not/records-47series.htm.

April 23, 1921 marks the birthdate for Hall-of-Famer and renowned southpaw Warren Spahn. A hero of my own baseball youth spent in Hartford, Connecticut, Spahn was the smoothest looking lefty I ever witnessed--that is, until I had the chance a half-century later to watch Faustino Corrales.

For more on the Spahn birthday tribute the reader can turn to: http://rksbaseballbookshelf.wordpress.com/.

For more on Faustino Corrales you will have to wait for my publication of Who's Who in Cuban Baseball, 1962-2008 (due out from McFarland sometime next spring).

April is indeed the cruelest month--at least for the fans of baseball's most colorful spectacle--and inevitably another Cuban League season has now wrapped up and shut down for the summer months. But not without a considerable bang and a final hurrah. Santiago's powerful offense swept to a fourth straight win over Pinar del Rio last night to claim a second straight league title and eighth in club history. The championship run by the offense-minded Wasps (Avispas) tacked a final exclamation mark on National Series #47--a record-breaking campaign that witnessed some of the most impressive individual performances in recent league annals. Over the course of the 90-game season Pedro Luis Lazo (Pinar del Rio) finally claimed a new standard for lifetime pitching victories (236), Santiago's Alexei Bell set new marks for single-season homers (31) and RBIs (111), southpaw Yulieski Gonzalez (Habana Province) rang up an unprecedented 15-0 pitching mark, Isla veteran Carlos Yanes also climbed over the 200 level in career wins, and Granma outfielders Alfredo Despaigne and Yoennis Cespedes became the first pair of teammates to log a total of 50-plus homers between them. But in the end the big story was again Santiago, and fittingly it was "Player-of-the-Year" Alexei Bell who knocked home the deciding run (off Pedro Lazo) in last night's tight 2-1 finale.

Santiago de Cuba's Eight National Series Championships

1980 Manager: Manuel Miyar

1989 Manager: Higinio Velez (current Cuban League commissioner)

1999 Manager: Higinio Velez

2000 Manager: Higinio Velez

2001 Manager: Higinio Velez

2005 Manager: Antonio Pacheco

2007 Manager: Antonio Pacheco

2008 Manager: Antonio Pacheco

2008 Championship Series Recap (National Series #47) 

Game 1 - Santiago de Cuba 8, Pinar del Rio 2 (Guillermon Moncada Stadium)

Veteran ace Norge Vera cruised through a complete-game effort with plenty of support from his teammates' 12-hit attack. Catcher Rolando Merino and outfielder Alexei Bell (above) both homered (Bell's long-ball number 34 on the year) while national team second baseman Hector Olivera went 3-for-5 with a run-producing double. The game was put away with a seven-run fifth inning uprising against Pinar starter Yosvani Torres.

Game 2 - Santiago de Cuba 9, Pinar del Rio 2 (Guillermon Moncada Stadium)

Santiago's relentless hitting was the story for the second straight day as timely offense dispatched Pinar ace Pedro Lazo. Merino and Bell (two for the latter) again both homered. Santiago starter Alberto Bicet suffered a quick hook from manager Antonio Pacheco in the opening frame, but young bull pen stud Yaumier Sanchez performed brilliantly with 8.2 effective relief innings.

Game 3 - Santiago de Cuba 10, Pinar del Rio 4 (Capitan San Luis Stadium)

All the Santiago scoring this time came in two innings (a 4-run third and 6-run seventh) as six Pinar pitchers failed to slow the Wasps' championship express. Pedro Poll smacked two doubles and Merino knocked home three runs to lead still another impressive offensive charge. Osmany Tamayo was the winning Wasps pitcher, allowing but a single harmless hit in four wrap-up relief innings.

Game 4 - Santiago de Cuba 2, Pinar del Rio 1 (Capitan San Luis Stadium)

The most competitive match of the short series was broken open by Bell's clutch single off the relief delivery of Lazo in the top of the eighth. Ronnier Mustelier's solo shot in the third accounted for the other Santiago run. Middle reliever Reinier Roibal worked five effective innings after replacing starter Osmari Romero. Game 1 starter Norge Vera earned the championship save with a three-and-out ninth inning flawless performance. Pinar's Yunieski Maya also hurled 7.1 strong innings yet suffered the ill-deserved loss when Lazo couldn't retire Bell in the crucial eighth frame.

Cuba's version of the MLB World Series kicks off tonight (April 16) in the eastern port city of Santiago de Cuba, with the defending champion Santiago Avispas (Wasps) seeking their second consecutive crown and third in four years under manager (and former national team star) Antonio Pacheco. The opposition will be provided by eastern section champion Pinar del Rio in a seven game set stretching through next Thursday (if it lasts the full duration). The full playoff schedule is as follows:

April 16 (Wednesday 8:00 pm EST) at Santiago (Guillermon Moncada Stadium)

April 17 (Thursday 8:00 pm EST) at Santiago (Guillermon Moncada Stadium)

April 20 (Sunday 2:00 pm EST) at Pinar del Rio (Captain San Luis Stadium) 

April 21 (Monday 8:00 pm EST) at Pinar del Rio (Captain San Luis Stadium)

April 22 (Tuesday 8:00 pm EST) at Pinar del Rio (Captain San Luis Stadium)

April 24 (Thursday 8:00 pm EST) at Santiago (Guillermon Moncada Stadium)

April 25 (Friday 8:00 pm EST) at Santiago (Guillermon Moncada Stadium)

Tonight's opening action in Guillermon Moncada (above) will feature a pair of starting righties: Santiago's Norge Vera (9-2, 2.89) and Pinar's Yosvani Torres (8-2, 3.29). The veteran Vera (at 145-54) owns the second-best career won-lost mark in Cuban League annals. The defending champions, who dominated the league offensively all season long, seem the overwhelming favorites over a Pinar club that won its division yet played only .500 baseball (45-45) throughout the regular campaign. But the gritty Pinar team has been the true surprise of the post-season so far with its upsets of both Industriales and Sancti Spiritus in the early rounds; certainly the Pinarenos can not be counted out in any short series--especially since they boast the pitching of national team stars Pedro Lazo and Yunieski Maya and the hefty bat of catcher Yosvani Peraza (29 homers).

All the playoff action can be followed on radio (Radio Rebelde) or television (Cubavision International) via links provided on our Cuban League website at www.baseballdecuba.com. If you have never experienced the excitement and color of a Cuban League game it might be well worth having a look. Full commentary on the championship series will also be provided starting tonight with my own columns (English) and those of webmaster Ray Otero (Spanish)--all available on the same www.baseballdecuba.com website.

In one of the wildest semifinal series of recent memory, Pinar del Rio was twice able to climb out of deep holes on the road in Sancti Spiritus this weekend. With their tandem comeback miracles the Group A champs were thus able to salvage a berth in the Cuban League championship series that opens Wednesday night in Santiago's Guillermon Moncada Stadium. Needing back-to-back road wins to survive elimination, Pinar took advantage of crucial home club errors on two successive days and twice came from behind in late innings to somehow snatch victory from the apparent jaws of defeat. On Saturday night, trailing 3-2 in the seventh, Pinar railed when the door was opened by shortstop Raikel Morales's second bobble of the night. The fatal boot put Rafael  Valdes on base and permitted Yosvani Peraza to reach the plate. Peraza then belted a game-deciding 400-foot blast over the centerfield fence, his 29th homer of the campaign.

On Sunday afternoon Pinar seemed to be coasting in the late frames of the deciding Game 7 match when homers by Freddie Cepeda and Yulieski Gourriel keyed a five-run late-inning comeback that finally knotted the affair in the bottom of the ninth for the hometown Gallos. But then a key throwing error by Gourriel on the back end of an apparent inning-ending twin killing gifted the opportunistic Pinarenos with the winning margin in the tenth. The wild finale didn't end quitely, however, as Pinar still had to weather one final bases-loaded storm in the bottom of the extra frame. Details of the two wild and woolly semifinal games this weekend in Jose Huelga Stadium will be provided in greater detail in articles published tomorrow on our Cuban League website. at www.baseballdecuba.com. That same site will also carry TV and radio feeds for the best-of-seven title series beginning this coming Wednesday.

For a couple of days (games number 3 and 4 in Villa Clara) it looked as though Victor Mesa's veteran Naranjas (Orangemen) team might make the eastern sector semifinals interesting against defending champion Santiago de Cuba. Yet when the dust had finally settled in Santiagio's Guillermon Moncada Stadium on Friday night, the juggernaut Wasps (Avispas) were headed back to the finals in grand style on the heels of a knockout 8-inning 16-6 thrashing of an outmanned Villa Clara ball club that permitted double-digit uprising in all four of their defeats. It was the second straight season, in fact, that Villa Clara pitching suffered a huge meltdown (allowing 10 or more runs) in each of the final two semifinal series contests against Antonio Pacheco's slugging Wasps nine. This time around the clincher came courtesy of a 19-hit onslaught paced by long-balls off the bats of Alexei Bell (the season's home run leader), Jose Julio Ruiz (league leader in base knocks), and normally light-sticking shortstop Luis Nava. Reinier Roibal hurled 6.1 quality innings out of the bullpen (in relief of shaky starter Osmel Cintra, who lasted less than two frames) to pick up the crucial series-ending victory.

The two semifinal series appeared to be equally one-sided affairs in the early going. Both Santiago and western sector leader Sancti Spiritus sweeping opening two-games sets on home turf in their respective showdowns with Villa Clara and Pinar del Rio. But Villa Clara surprisingly bounced back in the Oriente by taking two straight (by scores of 7-3 and 6-3) when the eastern series shifted to Santa Clara Province. And Pinar del Rio did the same once the Occidental matches moved on to Pinar's Capitan San Luis Stadium. Sancti Spiritus -- a surprise opening-round winner over Group B champ Habana Province -- got off to a fast start thanks to some fine starting pitching in the pair of lid-lifters at Jose Huelga Stadium. In the western opener Angel Pena (with late-inning relief help from Yasnier Sosa) shut down the reputed Tsunami Verde (Green Tidal Wave) offense of Pinar on only three hits and bested career victories leader Pedro Laso in the process by a surprising 5-0 count. Game two found Ismel Jimenez going the route (and scattering seven hits) in a tight 2-1 win over the still-silent Pinar attack. But the Group A champs (inconsistent all season with a 45-45 break-even record) bounced back at home to earn 6-4 and 6-3 series-knotting victories, the second coming on a complete-game effort by the veteran Pinar ace Pedro Lazo. But then in game five Juan Castro's gritty Sancti Spiritus Gallos (Roosters) came from behind to seize the advantage with a crucial 10-6 road victory that put them only one win away from only their third trip ever to the championship round. The vital (and potentially series-turning win) was keyed by a brilliant six-inning relief effort from veteran Noelvis Hernandez (pictured here) -- the game three starter who had lasted less than two frames in his earlier failed outing.

Santiago's six-game romp over Villa Clara was one of the most one-sided in recent Cuban playoff annals, despite the two series-prolonging Villa Clara wins in Augusto C. Sandino Stadium. The opening two matches in Guillermon Moncada were 13-2 and 23-12 laughers and both ended in the seventh inning due to Cuba's 10-run knockout rule. That opening pair of games witnessed Mesa's beleaguered pitching corps yielding 34 base hits to a Santiago offense that boasts the league leaders in homers (Bell 31), hits (Ruiz 126), runs (Bell 96), RBI (Bell 111), total bases (252), slugging (Bell .722), and stolen bases (Ruiz 32). After Villa Clara had managed to even up the series and raise a few false hopes around the circuit that Santiago might indeed be vulnerable, the Wasps bats exploded once again in the final two matches for 12-6 and 16-6 margins, with the final bashing representing the third "knockout" of the wild hit-happy series. Although Santiago's victories did not come thanks to much brilliant mound work on the part of its own normally solid staff (the Wasps mound corps yielded a total of 39 runs and 65 hits in 47 innings of rather shaky work), one of the big stories of the Oriente series was nonetheless veteran Santiago ace Norge Vera. The slim righty captured two games and stretched his 2008 playoff mark to a perfect 3-0. As reported in an earlier blog entry on this site, Vera (pictured here) has this season tightened the gap on former Industriales ace (and current New York Mets stalwart) "El Duque" Hernandez as Cuba's all-time winning percentage leader. Vera (who first name rhymes with "Porgy" and not with "forge") was the author of seven excellent relief innings during the Team Cuba romp over the Baltimore Orioles at Camden Yards way back in May of 1999.

Santiago now seems poised for a second consecutive title, a third in four years, and an eighth overall in the league's 47-year history. There will be no surprises with a Wasps repeat title, since Pacheco's club has largely dominated the current record-breaking Cuban League season from the opening salvo. Bell's offensive explosions not only set a slew of new league marks (he is the first-ever 30 homer and 100 RBI man on the island) but dominated most headlines in a season that also saw Pedro Lazo bust the career pitching victories mark and Habana Province lefty Yulieski Gonzalez ringing up an unprecedented perfect 15-0 regular season mark. There will of course be one surprise in next week's showdown finale and that will be Santiago's eventual rival. Few fans or prognosticators gave either Pinar del Rio (with a .500 regular season ledger despite a slim lead in the Group A pennant race) or Sancti Spiritus (third place finisher behind favorites Habana Province and Habana Industriales) very much chance to survive in the Occidental half of the league's playoff wars.