After losing the last out that gave Cuba the victory over Australia 4-3 and with it the ticket to the semifinal phase of the V World Baseball Classic, personally the first thing I felt was enormous joy and the second thing I remembered what I wrote in this same space two years ago.

In addition, it is that many called me a conservative when I affirmed, repeatedly, that there was no crisis in Cuban baseball due to the defeats that were already becoming daily in every international competition the national squad intervened.

At the time, I wrote: “if there were a crisis, we would not have so many players who shine today in the Major Leagues of the United States. On the other hand, isn't that where the best baseball in the world is played?

My insistence on this point of view had no other purpose than to oppose those who demanded a total change in the preparation systems from the base and blamed the coaches for the dismal results in the international arena.

I am not saying that it is not necessary to improve in many points if it is a question of baseball structure, but it is "blind baseball players" not to recognize that the departure of our best players, seeking to prove themselves in the Major Leagues, was, and is, the main cause of those missteps, and even the decline in the quality of our domestic struggles.

Moreover, this Asere Team is not even half of what it could be if all the Cuban luminaries of the Big Top were in it, so being included among the big four is practically a feat.

Moreover, one last detail that it would not be right to ignore: a Cuban team with such harmony and combativeness in its ranks had not been seen for years. It seemed that all those players added years in the collective. This Wednesday I remembered the phrase that one day I heard from my grandfather, who did not understand baseball, but did understand life: "having fun and enjoying what one knows how to do is the best way to succeed in each task that one sets out to do."