Jorge Arangure Jr. of Vice Sports continues his “Cuba Diaries” series. Today he writes about the Cuban Baseball Hall of Fame, which stood dormant from 1960 until very recently, with no inductions or anything. Basically, it just ceased to be due to socialism, its reluctance to acknowledge professional baseball as opposed to national team baseball and other related complications.
Arangure talks to the man behind the resurrection of Cuba’s Hall of Fame and, interestingly, notes that the new Cuban Baseball Hall of Fame has a much more sensible means of inducting players than does its counterpart in the United States:
Each committee member would serve a two-year term. After that two-year term a brand new set of committee members would be elected. The goal was to make the process more inclusive. No one person, or set of persons, would have too much power. In other words, they wanted to make the process as different as possible from the American system in which the Baseball Writers Association of America elects players to the Baseball Hall of Fame, usually with controversial results. Curiously enough, in socialist Cuba they decided on the most democratic way to elect Hall of Famers.
Their Hall of Fame features Minnie Minoso. Ours does not. Advantage: Cuba.
