The Sports sector in Ciego de Ávila has the first field for practicing baseball five (B5), a street version of the classic baseball-softball game that is gaining more followers every day, mainly young people.
The area, located in the municipality of Primero de Enero, meets all the requirements for this discipline, such as its square shape, in which one of the corners coincides with home plate, and the batting box is outside of that valid territory.
Franklyn López Agustín, baseball commissioner in that town, told the Cuban News Agency that a mixed team is currently training there with athletes between 16 and 18 years of age, who seeks to be part of the province's team to participate in national competitions.
He pointed out that the number of players on each roster that intervenes in B5 is eight, three of them on reserve, and the five active when they are on defense, one at each of the three bases, another at shortstop and one midfield fielder; they can, before each action, change their positioning according to the team's tactics.
The rules of the game establish that there are five innings and the local team starts defensively, López Agustín said.
Unlike baseball and softball, in this sport there is neither a pitcher nor a catcher, everything is part of the offensive player who must carry out the mechanics of hitting the ball in a batter's box that measures three by three, he explained.
Cuba was crowned champion of the first youth World Cup, held in Mexico City in November 2022, by defeating its counterpart from Japan in two sets in the grand final of the event, with scores of 9-1 and 6-2.
Eros Bernal Morales, national technical head of the B5, told Cubadebate in December 2022 that "the modality has spread very quickly because it is mixed and because you can practice it with just a rubber ball, starting from the basic fundamentals of baseball."
He explained that in 2018 they began to celebrate the first national championships, they have three senior tournaments and in 2022, they debuted with the first youth national.
The discipline, made official in 2017 in the world, requires being very offensive to score runs, there are neither homers nor extra-base hits, so you have to achieve several hit connections to reach home play, he alleged.