By Bruce Baskin
The Barcelona Baseball Cup (BBC), in which the Mexican Pacific League’s Guasave Algodoneros were going to play as part of their preseason schedule in September has been postponed until 2022 because of the coronavirus pandemic. The event would have been the first European tournament to feature a Mexican professional club.
The BBC tournament in Spain was announced four months ago and was to include the Algodoneros along with teams from Italy, The Netherlands, Asia and the Spanish Baseball League. Games were to be played at two venues: Estadio Carlos Perez de Rosa (home of the host Barcelona Baseball Club) and at another Barcelona ballpark, used for the 1992 Summer Olympics and currently home of the Spanish League’s CB Viladecans.
However, after a meeting among tournament organizers, it was determined that the event will be held off for a year in the hopes that the global pandemic will have diminished by September 2022.
Algodoneros CEO Luis Fernando Garcia and sports manager Alejandro Ahumada conferred with Jordi Valles, head of the BBC’s organizing committee, to discuss the pros and cons of the measures taken by the Spanish government, which would essentially make the Cup a tournament without fans in the stands and the two chose to postpone it instead
“We regret the postponement of this event, since we had the objective of showing the Spanish fans our style of baseball, and also to be able to position the Algodoneros brand in Europe,” said Garcia. “The pandemic has forced stricter measures to be taken and Spain is no exception. The event is still on for September 2022, if conditions allow it.”
Ahumada said in a statement, “The security measures in Spain prevented, for the moment, the realization of the BBC, which was an excellent opportunity for our players to have international competition and to show that the Algodoneros brand is synonymous with stability, seriousness and improvement. We did not want this to happen, but health measures require it.”
Valles said the Barcelona Baseball Cup remains firm for 2022: “It is difficult to do this since the times we are living in do not allow us to carry out the project with tranquility in this month of September.
“Obviously, we seek the desired success for the public who would see the games out, but we will be prepared and wishing with all our might that the Algodoneros will arrive in Spain next year and can show us their great power in this beautiful sport, which is baseball.”
Bruce Baskin writes on Mexican baseball at BaseballMexico.blogspot.com. His BASEBALL MEXICO newsletter has provided the world’s only regular English-language coverage of Mexican baseball since 2009.
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