The departure of 2007 Cuban League home run champion Alexei Ramirez from his home island, rumored for more than a week, has now been confirmed with the announcement of a Thursday (September 20) press conference scheduled for Santo Domingo. Ramirez's marriage to a Dominican citizen, who has been a medical student in Havana (the couple has two children) for the past couple of years, has cleared the way for the 26-year old Cuban star to enter the Dominican Republic legally and obtain a permanent residence visa there. What remains something of a mystery are the circumstances of the ballplayer's departure from his home in Pinar del Rio: did he receive an exit visa from the Cuban government? (seemingly not a very likely scenario); or, like other some other ballplayers who have left Cuba to seek financial opportunities in North American professional baseball, was his "escape" illegally orchestrated by an opportunistic sports agent operating outside the island? (more likely, but certainly as yet unconfirmed). Several recent press accounts of Ramirez's arrival in Santo Domingo last week have been quick to use the popular term "defector" which the North American press seems so enamored with and uses so liberally to strike convenient blows against the Cuban socialist system and against Cuba's "not for profit" national sport. (To his credit, Willie Weinbaum reporting on Ramirez for mlb.com, refrained from the use of loaded terms like "defector" and stuck strictly to the baseball implications of Ramirez's arrival in the Dominican Republic.) Whatever the circumstances or rationales for the ballplayer's departure from the Cuban League, however, they are not nearly as interesting or important as two more cogent questions. First, what are Ramirez's prospects as a potential major leaguer? And second, what will be the impact of his leaving on the fortunes of Cuba's vaunted national team, which is about to defend the World Cup title (Taipei in November) which it has owned since 1984 (nine straight gold medal victories and counting)? 

Regarding the first issue, I was quick to point out on the heels of the 2006 World Baseball Classic that Alexei Ramirez was one of my half dozen choices (along with Ariel Pestano, Frederich Cepeda, Pedro Lazo, Eduardo Paret and Osmani Urrutia) as likely immediate impact major leaguers. An outfielder for Pinar del Rio during most of his first seven Cuban League seasons, Ramirez (pictured here celebrating a homer versus Panama in the 2006 Olympic Qualifier tournament) was only recently relocated to second base in the national team starting lineup for this past summer's Pan American Games in Rio de Janiero. The switch came in part as a result of the suspension last March of national team third baseman Michel Enriquez (Isla de la Juventud) and the consequent shifting of Yulieski Gourriel from second to third. But it also came as a result of the log jam of talented young outfielders now flooding the Cuban League, most especially Granma's Alfredo Despaigne (20) and Yoennis Cespedes (22) and Santiago's Alexei Bell (22), the trio that awaits to inherit national team starting roles when Cepeda, Urrutia, Yoandry Urgelles and Giorvis Duvergel display the slightest signs of decline.

Ramirez enjoyed a breakout season this year for Pinar del Rio, not only batting .335 and smacking a surprising league-leading 20 homers, plus topping the circuit in total bases with 195, but also finishing in the top ten in runs (ninth), hits (fifth), RBI (second), game-winning hits (eighth), and slugging percentage (second at .574). Ramirez runs like a long-legged deer, has a solid outfield arm, displays good if not exceptional range at second and shortstop, and boasts surprising power in his frail-appearing 6-3, 172-pound frame. Built along the physical lines of a young Ernie Banks or Hank Aaron, Ramirez has great wrists and an exceptionally quick bat, as well as excellent plate discipline; nonetheless he is a line drive hitter and not primarily a home run slugger and his 20 round trippers this past winter were perhaps something of an aberration. With the likes of Alex Mayeta and Jose Julio now in the league, Ramirez was not a likely prospect to defend his home run crown in the coming National Series. He may therefore have left Cuba at the precise moment when his resume was at its fullest. Agent Jaime Torres (Jose Contreras's agent) has already been signed on by Ramirez who has announced his intentions to shoot for the big league contract which will undoubtedly be forthcoming. Torres claims that his new client "will make a big league roster right out of spring training" and this may well be the case, given the Pinar del Rio star's speed and versatility, as well as his rather potent bat.

For those numerous nay-sayers gleeful about any Cuban losses or failures, it will be most disappointing to learn that the departure of Alexei Ramirez will have negligible impact on Cuban League baseball as a whole and on the vaunted Cuban national team in particular. Santiago second base prospect Hector Olivera played brilliantly on the Cuba B team during the recent Rotterdam World Port Tournament and impressed this writer and the MLB scouts on hand with his exceptional defensive range and offensive bat speed. Olivera could move right in at second for the November Taipei tournament without a beat being missed. A second scenario might have Michel Enriquez returning the national team lineup in the not-too-distant future (now that his suspension has been lifted) and Yulieski Gourriel thus moving back to second. If Alexei Ramirez is notably missed it will be by his home team in Pinar del Rio during the upcoming National Series campaign, but not likely by the constantly renewing national team juggernaut. It is not an unreasonable speculation that one reason for Ramirez departing the Cuban national squad at this point in time may well have been the pressures of Hector Olivera breathing down his neck; Alexei may well have sensed that his days were numbered in the Cuba A starting lineup and his big league prospects would never again be higher. The Cuba B team sent to Rotterdam in August possessed enough talent to rival Cuba A (Pan Am Games gold medalists) as almost assuredly the second best squad on the international scene. As this author and others have noted in recent years, the seemingly endless supply of Cuban talent has been cycling through an exceptional peak in recent seasons, and the departures of disaffected players like Contreras, Kendry Morales, Maels Rodriguez and now Alexei Ramirez seem only to provide the necessary openings for young studs like Alfredo Despaigne, Yadel Marti, Yoennis Cespedes and Hector Olivera who wait rather impatiently in the wings.

Freelancer Jim Albright (www.baseballguru.com) has recently provided an interesting if controversial article which purports to answer the question "Who Have Been the Top Players in Cuba in the Castro Era?" Albright is to be praised on at least a couple of counts here. Foremost, he calls attention to Cuban League baseball, which is so often totally off the radar screen in the North American media. And secondly, he bases his assessments on what certainly appear to be three most reputable sources: my own A History of Cuban Baseball, 1864-2006, the 1999 Cuban League Guide, and "the official website of Cuban baseball" (the link for which unfortunately does not open in his article). Because of the faulty link it is not possible to tell exactly what Albright selects as "the official site of Cuban baseball"--it might be the INDER site, that produced by JIT, the Radio COCO site, or www.baseballdecuba.com. There is a major question, of course, about why the author would rely on the 1999 League Guide and seemingly ignore the seven published for subsequent seasons (they are not that difficult to find, and the 2006 Guide is available on-line from at least two of the sites mentioned above). And his use of my own book is welcomed here not out of pure ego-interest but rather because of the fact that it is indeed, without much question, the most thorough available English-language discussion (especially in Chapter 11) of contemporary Cuban ballplayers.

The problem with Albright's article is at least two-fold. First, like most SABRmetric-style analyses it is one-dimensional, relying almost exclusively for its rankings on offensive and pitching stats (in this case the overall career records and the numbers of times that individual players have appeared in the listings of National Series league leaders). In short, it ignores the Cuban baseball establishment's own assessment of its ballplayers in terms of selections for spots on the Cuban national team (the equivalent of the national all-star team); it downplays the highest level of competition in top international tournaments (where Cuban players have undergone their severest tests), and it also ignores first-hand assessments of these ballplayers by those who have witnessed their performances up close (i.e. Cuban journalists, MLB scouts, or the handful of Americans like the present author who have witnessed the Cuban stars perform during island play over the past decade or two).

Albright's selection of "Cuba's best since 1962" includes the following position players: Lazaro Junco, Pedro Jose Rodriguez, Osmani Urrutia, Enrique Diaz, Orestes Kindelan, Javier Mendez, Victor Bejerano, Michel Enriquez, Victor Mesa, Fernando Sanchez, Luis Casanova, Omar Linares, Antonio Munoz, Wilfredo Sanchez, Romelio Martinez, Antonio Pacheco, and Luis Ulacia. The list of pitchers is as follows: Omar Ajete, Lazaro de la Torre, Santiago Mederos, Jose Luis Aleman, Wilfredo Ruiz, Jorge Luis Valdes, Pedro Luis Lazo, Braudilio Vinent, Rogelio Garcia, Carlos Yanes, Faustino Corrales, and Jose Ibar. Those wishing to study Albright's rankings or assess his arguments can pass directly to his article found at www.baseballguru.com; I will not take up space repeating his analysis here in any detail. Some of the choices are beyond debate no matter what measures are used. But there are some odd choices here indeed. Carlos Yanes with 208 career losses? Javier Mendez and Lazaro Junco with lengthy careers as league mainstays but no significant appearances on Team Cuba in the big international events? Omar Ajete who was a talented enough southpaw but spent much of his career injured and was hardly anything approaching a national legend? Where is the truly legendary Jose Antonio Huelga (victim of a tragic auto accident that ended his life at mid-career) with his seven-year lifetime 1.50 ERA and career .695 winning percentage? Where are Orlando Hernandez (Cuba's all-time winning percentage leader) and Jose Ariel Contreras (the most successful Cuban hurler ever in big-time international matches with a perfect 13-0 mark), both of whom later proved their world class status in the majors? Where are Juan Castro and Ariel Pestano, the subjects of endless debates about who was Cuba's all-time greatest catcher? And where is German Mesa, acknowledged as a near-clone of Ozzie Smith by just about every MLB scout who ever saw him play? Perhaps such omissions are to be expected in an article penned by an author who scans National Series records but has never been to Cuba to witness a league game or talk with Cuba's knowledgeable fans. But even an assessment of major league players using this methodology of examining yearly league leaders would likely leave out the likes of Ozzie Smith and Bill Mazeroski from any discussion of "Who Have Been the Top Players in the USA in the Eisenhower-to-Bush Era?"

Albright's work, like so many SABR-genre approaches, is based heavily on number crunching and thus provides a very stilted picture of Cuban baseball. Any listing of the island's top players for the past quarter-century or half-century simply HAS TO INCLUDE German Mesa (pictured) and Norge Vera, just to give two of the most obvious examples. Mesa was likely the best defensive middle infielder I have seen in any league on any continent, and almost any North American expert who saw him even in late career (often playing on less than MLB-manicured carpets) has claimed that Mesa was the near-equal to Cooperstown's Ozzie Smith. If there was a Cuban Leaguer anywhere that could have stepped right in and played successfully in the majors it was Mesa (Cubans to the last man will tell you that Mesa was head and shoulders above Rey Ordonez, who defected from Cuba largely because both Mesa and Eduardo Paret blocked his route onto the national team.) But because he does not boast big offensive numbers (his .286 16-year career BA was solid but not eye-popping) Mesa does not appear on Albright's list. Less than a decade ago former big leaguer Conrado Marrrero (who is now in his 90s and saw both Martin Dihigo and Willie Miranda play) told this writer that German Mesa was easily the best glove-wizard he had ever seen, including his time in the majors with the Washington Senators during the era of Pee Wee Reese and Phil Rizzuto.

Santiago right-hander Norge (Nor-Gee) Vera (perhaps remembered by USA fans for his stellar May 1999 performance versus the Orioles in Baltimore), has been the best pitcher in Cuba over the past ten years (anchoring one of the best staffs in the circuit) and even a look only at the numbers will certify that. Vera has always been "on another level" above Jose Ibar (an Albright selection) in both league and international contests and a description of some of his accomplishments (such as winning both the semifinal and final games of the 2003 World Cup in Havana) are outlined in Chapter 11 of A History of Cuban Baseball, 1864-2006. The only two Cuban hurlers of the past decade to rival Vera in overall talent are Jose Contreras (Cuba's most dominant ace ever in big international competitions) and Pedro Lazo (national team stopper of the past five years after Contreras's departure). Note here that Contreras does not make Albright's listing either, probably because he left Cuba at the height of his career and also because the Albright numbers reflect National Series and not national team performances. But Vera stands by himself, even numerically, with his 127-50 mark (.718 W-L Pct. that trails only El Duque Hernandez) and a 12 year 2.63 ERA entering the past National Series season. It is most puzzling and most telling that while Vera is nowhere to be found in the Albright ranking, recently retired Carlos Yanes makes the cut with his career .500 ledger of 208-208, apparently on the strength of 200 wins. (This kind of sounds to me akin to ranking Wlbur Wood ahead of Sandy Koufax or Pedro Martinez on the basis of some kind of longevity standard.) Yanes has almost no significant national team experience and I doubt any Cuban--from the league commissioner down to any fan in Havana's Parque Central--would ever hand him the ball ahead of Vera or Contreras to face Team USA or Team Japan in the Olympics or World Cup. I personally haven't seen any better pitcher in Cuba (one owning clear big league prospects) than Vera. Right behind him in recent years has been Granma's underrated Ciro Silvino Licea (last year's ERA leader). Certainly Maels Rodriguez had the best arm I ever saw in Cuba (or maybe anywhere else) before injuries ended his career at age 22-plus. But Carlos Yanes is a journeyman who might have pitched at the AA level in the USA at best. Perhaps Jim Albright knows something about Carlos Yanes that I don't. I wonder if he has ever seen him pitch?

The two players most surprisingly absent from the Albright evaluation of Cuban talent are perhaps in the end Ariel Pestano (pictured) and Eduardo Paret. This might be obvious to anyone watching World Baseball Classic games in March 2006 on television, even if they had never set foot in Cuba. Pestano is Cuba's best-ever catcher and Paret is viewed by just about any scout who has seen him as a sure-fire big leaguer. Juan Castro (Pinar del Rio star of a couple decades back and the new manager at Sancti Spiritus) has his supporters among old-timers and veteran CL watchers as perhaps Cuba's best defensive backstop, and those claims may have considerably merit. But Pestano has starred in Olympic tournaments for nearly a decade during an era when the competition level and ballplayer quality is much higher, now that other countries are using professionals, than it was in the 1970s or 1980s. Pestano doesn't boast exceptional batting numbers for his 15-season National Series career with Villa Clara (.290 BA, 94 HRs) but he has been the mainstay and on-field leader of the national team for a decade, and also has come up huge offensively in the big international tournaments (e.g. as Athens Olympics MVP). He is expert at handling Cuba's top pitchers in the high-tension international matches; he has an accurate gun of an arm, and he is a recognized "second manager" on the field of play. For me Pestano is hands-down the best catcher Cuba has developed in any decade going back to Christopher Columbus (not just back to the arrival of Comandante Castro). To leave him off the list is symptomatic of compiling any such ranking by lumping together all position players and then relying on yearly OFFENSIVE numbers to make your selections.

There are several smaller but not unimportant issues with Albright's article that trouble me. He claims that one of his three sources is the 1999 Cuban League Guide. Why write an article in 2007 using the 1999 Cuban League Guide? What happened to the Guides for the past seven winters? (This reliance on out-dated material may explain the absence of players like Pestano, Paret and Vera from the list.) He also refers to the "official Cuban League website" (it is not clear which one, as mentioned above) as his data source, yet the current Guides provide much more detailed numbers (top ten rankings, complete team stats, etc.). At any rate, Albright's work (in my opinion at least) would have benefited substantially by some infusion of first-hand reports from scouts and writers who had actually seen these Cuban stars perform over the years. Albright writes:  "I am sure that if I had the top tens for each season that my choices would have been better"; but of course these "top tens" are indeed available year-by-year in Guides published regularly since the 1998 National Series.

Perhaps one final comment is in order here. In ranking the best players in Cuba over recent decades one certainly should not ignore the opinions of the top Cuban coaches and league administrators/officials (the technical commission, which usually includes former players) who select their own very best players each summer in the effort to win yet more gold in the top international tournaments. It isn't a perfect process (often causing much debate on the island) but it is indeed a rigorous selection process of league all-stars and the Cuban baseball brain trust takes it very seriously. The measure of the success of these selections is tied directly to the incredible success of the Cuban team in dominating Olympic-style tournaments (even after the introduction of major and minor leaguers to such competitions following 1999). It is thus a bit odd to find any list (like this one) of all-time Cuban greats of the past nearly fifty years that contains players like Carlos Yanes, Javier Mendez, Lazaro de la Torre, Lazaro Junco, Victor Bejerano, and Romelio Martinez--all of whom were rarely selected for the vaunted national team (or who rarely performed a major role on the few occasions when they got there). That is to say that Javier Mendez or Rogelio Martinez (plus the others mentioned) were almost never judged among the superstars by the Cuban brain trust itself. (Again Albright appears to know something here that veteran Cuban League watchers and insiders don't!) Vera and Pestano and Paret, on the other hand, have anchored those Olympic and World Cup championship teams for years and played a most significant role in many of Cuba's greatest victories ever. It is more than a mere aberration that these three, for example, don't make the cut in this exceptionally narrow-viewed SABRmetric analysis. This fact in itself seems to reveal the most cogent flaw imbedded in Albright's "outsider's" analysis of Cuban baseball.

Cuban League baseball--the variety played across the 90-game National Series schedule each December through May--is unique for its special structure as well as its colorful style of play. Cuban ballplayers don't change teams, except on the rarest of occasions. Each athlete plays for the squad representing his own province and remains with that club through his entire Cuban league tenure. Only in special circumstances will league officials reassign an athlete to another club, as has happened at times when fan-favorite Havana Industriales has been strengthened with prospects from the capital city's less popular Metros squad. But Cuban League managers are the clear exception to the rule. They don't always hail from the province claiming the squad they direct, and many are sports-academy trainees and not former league players. Often a veteran manager--as with the recent cases of Pinar del Rio skippers Jorge Fuentes and Alfonson Urquiola--will leave the league (and the country) for several seasons for a tenure "on loan" as a manager or coach for other national baseball programs, like those in Colombia, Nicaragua, Italy, Guatemala, Panama, or Japan.

The current off-season has been one of the most active of the last two decades in terms of managerial changes throughout the 16-team National Series circuit. Cuban commissioner Carlitos Rodriguez (pictured) and his team of technical commission advisors have seemingly burned the midnight oil all summer long to come up with fresh blood for several of the circuit's more lackluster or underperforming ball clubs. The result has been a changing of the guard for six (and possibly seven, depending on the Santiago situation) of the Cuban League ball clubs. The biggest buzz throughout June and July among island fans and the Cuban baseball press attached to the celebrated switch in Sancti Spiritus. There former national team slugger and five-year veteran manager Lourdes Gourriel voluntarily relinquished his post, on the heels of several disappointing post-season collapses by his talented squad that features a bevy of top national team stars. But there was also significant news coming out of Ciego de Avila, on the eve of the Rio-based Pan American Games, when it was announced that popular veteran backstop Roger Machado had unexpectedly taken the reins of a team he had anchored for 13 seasons as one of the league's top defensive specialists.

The heralded transition in Sancti Spiritus--from Gourriel to former catching great Juan Castro--drew most of the summertime attention, especially since the two-month gap between Gourriel's announced resignation and Castro's surprise appointment was filled with endless and even sometimes wild speculations about the a probable replacement skipper. Lourdes Gourriel (pictured) had suffered through a stormy up-and-down five-winter career in charge of an underachieving ball club that featured national team headliners Yulieski Gourriel (the manager's own son), versatile catcher Eriel Sanchez, and slugging outfielder Freddie Cepeda--one of the best one-two-three batting punches found anywhere in the league.  Sancti Spiritus, representing one of the island's smallest provinces, burst on the scene in 2002, reaching the championship finals for only the second time in team history. That 2001-02 club, the first under Gourriel's direction, showcased 20-year-old pitching phenom Maels Rodriguez, who dazzled fans and rewrote the record books with a pair of 200-plus season-long strikeout performances. But Maels soon fell victim to career-ending injury and there was wide criticism of Gourriel for possibly over-using his star hurler. In the past two seasons the Sancti Spiritus team has struggled in getting back to the top, and Gourriel's squads have collapsed in the playoffs at the close of each of the last two National Series, both times versus arch-rival Industriales. Again it was Gourriel, as expected, who took much of the heat for his team's failure to turn the corner at season's end, especially after two final embarrassing defeats at home during games six and seven of the May 2006 league semifinals.

For several weeks this past summer there was rampant speculation as to exactly who the new manager of the orange-and-blue-clad Gallos (Roosters) might finally be. Half-a-dozen names were prominently mentioned on the Radio COCO Cuban league website, and these included some of the biggest headliners of Cuban baseball. The most prominent and perhaps most surprising figures advanced were a celebrity trio of past greats: former Pinar del Rio backstop Juan Castro (considered by many the greatest-ever Cuban national team catcher), former Industriales shortstop nonpareil German Mesa (pictured, and also lately rumored as a likely replacement for Rey Anglada with Industriales), and one-time Villa Clara star Pedro Jova (field boss of a Villa Clara club that walked off with three consecutive National Series crowns in the mid-1990s). Also thrown into the mix was santiago's Higinio Velez, who could also boast three straight national championships (1999-2001) and who is best known off the island as the colorful leader of Cuba's highly successful runner-up in the 2006 MLB World Baseball Classic.

The naming of Juan Castro (pictured) to fill the post in late July came as a mild surprise, perhaps, in view of those rumored candidacies of such luminaries as Jova, Velez and Mesa, but certainly not because Castro himself lacked sufficient credentials for the post. It bseemed only a matter of time, i fact, until the former Pinar catching great seized his opportunity to manage once again at the top level in the National Series. Castro had enjoyed an earlier shot at directing a National Series club when he managed Forestales (Pinar del Rio Province) from three winters (1989-1991), but was saddled that first time around with a team demonstrating only sparse talent; a decade later he managed another Pinar outfit (Vegueros) that won back-to-back titles (1990-1999) in the Developmental League (Cuba's version of the minor leagues). Now looking forward to his new assignment in Sancti Spiritus, Castro predicted to Radio COCO columnist Yasel Porto that his new club would continue to build its attack around the power game (as opposed to speed) as Gourriel's teams had done in recent years. He assumed his biggest immediate challenge would be to fill the crucial shortstop position, where a number of young prospects are expected to contest holdover veteran Omar Arrozarena.

Another respected ex-catcher also made headlines only a few weeks before Juan Castro, when it was announced that veteran national team backup receiver Roger Machado would take charge of the Ciego de Avila club, the team for which he has played the past dozen seasons. Barely 30 years of age, Machado (pictured) becomes one of the youngest skippers in National Series history; having announced his retirement at the end of the recent National Series XLVI, Machado is also the first in league nhistory to occupy a manager's slot in less than one year after his retirement as an active player. Having been carefully groomed for a managerial post in the past year (serving as a bullpen catcher and part-time coach for the national team during the WBC action in San Juan and San Diego), the popular Machado inherits a young Tigres roster filled with promising talent but unable to reach its potential and perform up to expectations under a series of recent managerial changes, especially in the second half of the most recent season under the direction of Onesio de Leon.

Still another new managerial appointee was no stranger to a spot on the end of the bench during the National Series. Carlos Marti (pictured) has returned to the top slot as director (the Cuban term for team field manager) of a Granma squad which is one of the league's most improved outfits and also boasts two of the country's top young outfield prospects in Yoennis Cespedes and Alfredo Despaigne. The venerable Carlos Marti owns the Cuban League's longest managerial tenure, having remained at the helm of the Granma Alazanes (Stallions) for 23 seasons and having also served as the club's first skipper back in 1977-78. The long tenure was broken two seasons ago when Marti briefly retired, but his replacement Marcos Fonseca was not popular with local fans, and worse yet his two Granma "editions" both fared poorly in late season, dropping four straight to santiago in the 2006 semifinals and failing altogether to classify for the post-season this past spring. Marti's promising young club on tap for the new season features not only the one-two slugging punch of Cespedes and despaigne but also one of Cuba's best pitchers pitchers in Ciro Silvino Licea (last year's league ERA champion). It very much appears that the seasoned Marti may be returning to the scene at precisely the moment whyen the Granma ball club is well prepared finally to hits its full stride in 2008.

Much speculation also surrounded unfilled managerial slots on several other league clubs, especially the four teams making up Group D in the Oriente portion of the four-division circuit. yet shwn the dust finally settled a number of familiar faces were back at their old posts in the eastern sector of the island. Antonio Pacheco may have weathered his late-season health crisis of last April. Carlos Marti's return was anything but a surprise in Granma. And Hector "Tico" Hernandez (pictured) was perhaps the most noteworthy returnee when he was named to his former role with Holguin, a club that surprised with a rare league championship in 2002 but has been sliding toward the cellar ever since. "Tico" Hernandez stepped down after his league title in 2002, and on the heels of his brief shot at being national team skipper during the Intercontinental Cup matches in Havana later that same year. But Tico's string of replacements (Rene Vera, Carlos Rodriguez and Manuel Cabrera) have turned in nothing but disappointing results in subsequent campaigns at the helm of a Holguin Cachorros (Cubs) team that fell eleven games under .500 this past campaign under Cabrera.

Things remained more tranquil on the managerial front in the western half of the island, as six of eight managers reclaimed their spots in the two groups of teams comprising the Occidentales region of the Cuban League. The biggest surprise here may have been the survival of Roberto Rosique, whose Matanzas team has become the league's worst doormat of late and won the league's fewest games (only 26) this past season. Jorge Millan's Havana Metros club didn't perform much better (claiming but 29 wins) but did show some marked improvement over a more disastrous 2005-2006 outing. In the cases of current national team skipper Rey Anglada, with perennial powerhouse Industriales, or former national team manager Jorge Fuentes, with always strong Pinar del Rio, no one could possibly have expected change, despite all the constant rumors afloat in baseball-crazy havana that local hero German Mesa is being readied to step into Anglada's heavy shoes.

The roster of Cuban managers, heading into National Series XLVII (2007-2008), thus now lines up as follows. Changes in team directors/managers are indicated in bold print, and last season's managers that have been replaced are given in parentheses. Teams are listed in the order of last year's finish within each group.

• GROUP A (OCCIDENTAL REGION)
• Isla de la Juventud -- Armando Johnson
• Pinar del Rio -- Jorge Fuentes
• Metropolitanos -- Jorge Millan
• Matanzas -- Rigoberto Rosique
• GROUP B (OCCIDENTAL REGION)
• Industriales -- Rey Vicente Anglada
• Sancti Spiritus -- Juan Castro (Lourdes Gourriel)
• Habana Province -- Esteban Lombillo
• Cienfuegos -- Unnamed (Dessy Lomba)
• GROUP C (ORIENTE REGION)
• Villa Clara -- Victor Mesa
• Las Tunas -- Ermidelio Urrutia
• Camaguey -- Miguel Borroto
• Ciego de Avila -- Roger Machado (Onesio de Leon)
• GROUP D (ORIENTE REGION)
• Santiago de Cuba -- Antonio Pacheco, or Luis Danilo Larduet
• Granma -- Carlos Marti (Marcos Fonseca)
• Holguin -- Hector Hernandez (Manuel Cabrera)
• Guantanamo -- Unnamed (Rolando Quebrun)

One major question mark remaining on the 2007-2008 managerial roster is the situation with defending league champion Santiago de Cuba. Here Antonio Pacheco (pictured here directing Santiago to a dramatic and unexpected National Series crown this past April) may yet have to sit out the coming season due to health problems which popped up during the final stages of the 2007 playoffs, and if Pacheco rests then likely replacement would be assistant Luis Danilo Larduet. Pacheco had been mentioned as a possible national team manager after the glorious finish of his young Santiago team in the 2007 post-season. But the Cuban League's career base hits leader subsequently had to sit out both Rio de Janiero and Rotterdam while his health repaired. (Pacheco was briefly hospitalized with an apparent heart irregularity in the penultimate week of the most recent post-season.) And as of late August the ball clubs in both Cienfuegos and Guantanamo were still without official directors/managers for the rapidly upcoming season.

Even on the national team front the managerial picture is still not all that crystal clear, even as the next World Cup matches loom on the horizon. World Cup XXXVII is slated for Taipei on the mid-November even of a new national Series and will be the highlight of Cuba's so-far-successful 2007 international schedule. Rey Vicente Anglada (pictured here with Alfonso Urquiola, who managed Team Panama in the Pan Am Games this summer) has successfully handled the national team post since Higinio Velez was surprisingly reassigned to technical commission duty following the 2006 World Baseball Classic. There was some speculation on Havana street corners that Anglada would be replaced by Pacheco, or perhaps Victor Mesa, for the Pan American Games, but this clearly didn't happen. Anglada's team won in Rio as expected, but Cuba A didn't show much spark, especially on the offensive side of its game. Victor Mesa's B Team in Rotterdam for the World Port Tournament a month later was more than impressive (twice easily handling the very same USA squad that pressed Cuba A during the Pan Am Games finale), a fact that might improve the Villa Clara skipper's chances for grabbing the most prestigious post in Cuban baseball. Lourdes Gourriel was removed from his slot in the National Series (resigning under apparent pressure) but nonetheless successfully handled a third Cuban team at this summer's Italian Baseball Week. And Armando Johnson of Isla has also recently been picking up valuable international experience with the AA-level national squad. And in the wings sits 1998 World Cup Team Cuba manager Alfonso Urquiola, fresh from directing Panama in the Brazil-based Pan American Games.

When it comes to the fortunes of Team Cuba, Commissioner Carlitos Rodriguez seems to have an embarrassing wealth of choices at hand. If Cuba still has more than enough front-line stars to man perhaps two impressive national team rosters, the reigning international baseball champions also seem to display no apparent shortages when it comes to high quality managers.

See this essay and Pete Bjarkman's other regular columns treating Cuban League topics, all featured on the official Cuban League website found at www.baseballdecuba.com.