Cuban baseball continued its decline this year, falling to the 10th place in the world ranking according to the latest update from the World Baseball and Softball Confederation.
After finishing all the season's international competitions, the island's national sport, which just 12 years ago was at the top of that list, was the one with the least points among the top ten.
This had a lot to do with the poor performance of the team from the largest of the Antilles at the Premier 12 Tournament, held in November in Taiwan, where it won just one out of five games, relegating it to second-to-last place, its worst result in the history of this competition.
A month earlier, another team representing the island, made up of young talents, had to settle for third place at the Caribbean Cup, in the Bahamas, where just six teams, of dubious quality, participated.
At that event they suffered defeats against Curacao and the US Virgin Islands, claiming a lackluster bronze medal by defeating the small island of Saint Martin in the last game, with a score of 2-1.
Another failure was that of the Matanzas Crocodiles in the Barcelona Baseball Cup, where they won against All Stars Spain but were defeated by Catalonia's regional team and by the Algodoneros de Guasave, a team that was preparing to compete in the Mexican Pacific League.
At the youth levels, which offer points for the world ranking, Cuba did not stand out as it did in past decades, when it boasted hegemony, although it is fair to say that it was not all bad news, considering the state of baseball in the country.
Just a few days ago the under-15 team was crowned champion at a competition organized by the Caribbean Confederation of this sport, but with only four low-ranked squads, and without the presence of the area's powerhouses.
The triumph could not make up for Cuba's performance this year in that category, as for the first time in its history it was unable to qualify for the continental competition held in the Dominican Republic.
The under-12 team did better, first thanks to the participation by the Villa Clara team in the Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, and then a bronze medal won by the national team at the Pan American Championship in Panama, which served to secure it a place in next year's World Championship.
The under-18 team also qualified for the World Cup after placing fourth in the qualifier, also in the Central American nation, a far cry from their achievements of yesteryear.
Finally, women's baseball also came up short in these last 12 months, as the team that represented the country in one of the qualifying groups for the final phase of the World Cup was eliminated, with only one win in five outings.
The decline of Cuban baseball has no limits and the factors that are causing the failure are still there as long as there is no Professional League or change in the social system.
Athletes continue to leave the country, along with other young people and children, the lack of resources in the midst of an unprecedented economic crisis continues to worsen, and managers' management is getting worse every day, so the future of Cubans' greatest pastime is far from encouraging.