This Tuesday at a Press Conference held at the Latinoamericano in Havana, Cuba it was ratified by the Commissioner of the Cuban Baseball and Softball Federation, Juan Reinaldo Pérez Pardo, that Las Tunas will be the representative of Cuba in the upcoming Baseball Champions League of the Americas (BCL Americas).
The Las Tunas team, champion of the last two Serie Nacionales, will attend the tournament reinforced by players who play in national tournaments, something similar to what happened in the first edition of the Las Americas Series held in Nicaragua last January. The WBSC, organizer of the BCL Americas, recently announced the schedule of the tournament that will take place from April 8 to 13, 2025 at the Alfredo Harp Helú stadium, home of the Diablos Rojos de Mexico City, champions of the Liga Mexicana de Béisbol (LMB) in 2024.
The BCL Americas will be a six-team event featuring the hosts as well as champion clubs from Cuba, Curacao, Nicaragua, Puerto Rico and the United States. The event was going to be held in 2024, but was postponed. In Group A the locals (Diablos Rojos), the tournament champions Nicaraguan Germán Pomares League (Tigres de Chinandega) and the Florida Titans, winners of the Double-A Superior Baseball League of Puerto Rico will do battle.
While in group B the Leñadores de Las Tunas will play against the winners of the AA League of Curacao (Santa María Pirates) and the Kane County Cougars of the American Association of Professional Baseball of the United States. The Las Tunas squad will make their tournament debut against the Curaçao team on Wednesday, April 9, and a day later they will play against the American team.
The winner of the group will go directly to the Semifinals, while the second place from Group A will play an elimination game with the third place team from Group B and vice versa to define the other two semifinalists. The semifinals will be on Saturday, November 12 and the title match will be played the next day. The inaugural 2023 edition was won by the Fargo-Moorhead RedHawks, the representative of the American Association of Professional Baseball in the United States.