Dreaming of the major leagues: young Cuban baseball players – in pictures

Children chat before baseball practice in Havana

Kevin Kindelan, 8, climbs on his father’s motorbike to go to baseball practice

Kindelan, a hot-handed shortstop for a central Havana junior league baseball team, and teammate and first baseman Leoni Venego, 7, both dream of stardom. Kindelan says he wants to play for Cuba’s national baseball club, but Venego, recovering his composure after a big swing and a miss during a recent practice session, admits he’s set his sights on a bigger prize

‘I want to get to the Major Leagues and be like Yuli Gurriel,’ Venego says, referring to the Cuban all-star first-baseman for the Houston Astros, a team in the US

Success in baseball, Cuba’s national pastime and a favourite pursuit of former leader Fidel Castro, is increasingly measured beyond its borders. That mirrors a broader exodus from the stagnating communist-run island, which is racked by social and economic crisis

A child watches a baseball match between Industriales and Artemisa at the Latinoamericano stadium

Cuba’s economy shrank by 11% in 2020 and has only inched upward since. The country has been plagued by the pandemic and further throttled by the US’s cold war-era embargo. Long lines for food, medicine and fuel are the norm, driving a nearly unprecedented exodus of more than 157,000 Cubans to the US since October last year, according to the US customs and border protection agency

‘In the past six years the number of baseball players that have left the country has also tripled compared with the decade between 2000 and 2010,’ says Francis Romero, a Cuban baseball expert and author. He says many young players are no longer as motivated by communist ideology or love of country, a force that for decades helped drive Cubans to achievements including Olympic gold medals for baseball in Barcelona in 1992, Atlanta in 1996 and Athens in 2004

Players from the Industriales baseball team cheer before a match at the Latinoamericano stadium

A boy is comforted by his coach Luis Ramirez, 26, during a baseball match

David Mena practices before a match at the Latinoamericano stadium

Children react during a baseball match at a vacant lot

Children play baseball in a vacant lot. No one, not even these children, escape the impact of Cuba’s grinding economic crisis – or the draw of migration, says youth coach Irakly Chirino, a former player in Cuba’s national league who began his career at Ponton. ‘Here, we don’t have gloves, bats, shoes, or even balls to play with … and when we do, they are too expensive.’

Lack of supplies has led once-avid ballplayers to the less gear-intensive sport of soccer, the favourite elsewhere in Latin America, or to dream of playing abroad from a younger age, Chirino said

Kevin Kindelan plays baseball with friends