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Higinio Vélez
Higinio Vélez Carrión (July 27, 1947 – May 12, 2021)[1] was a Cuban baseball manager and executive. He was the longtime president of the Baseball Federation of Cuba as well as manager of the Cuba national baseball team, which he led to three consecutive championships at the Baseball World Cup from 2003 to 2005. BiographyAfter leading Santiago de Cuba to three straight championships in the Cuban National Series (1999–2001),[2] he became the manager of the Cuba national baseball team, that would take home a gold medal from the 2004 Summer Olympics.[3] He also managed the Cuban team at the 2001, 2003, 2005 editions of the Baseball World Cup. Vélez was replaced as manager of the national team after the Classic, when he was asked to head the Cuban National Baseball Commission. In June 2008, he was elected president of the Cuban Baseball Federation, a position which he would hold until his death.[4] Despite his success as a manager, Vélez's legacy as head of the Cuban federation is polarizing. Some described his tenure as the beginning of a period of decline in Cuban baseball, noting increased defections from Cuba as players increasingly sought to play in Major League Baseball. However, Vélez also sought to open up Cuban baseball by permitting more players to pursue professional contracts in Japan and elsewhere in the Caribbean.[5] He also brokered an agreement that would have allowed Cuban baseball players to sign with MLB teams without having to defect, but the deal was revoked by the Trump administration in April 2019.[6] Velez died from COVID-19 on 12 May 2021, at age 73, in Havana during the COVID-19 pandemic in Cuba.[7] References
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