History
Cuban Baseball
The arrival of the North Americans to Cuba, supposed initiators of the sport of baseball in the world, occurred due to the authorization that in the month of March 1795 the attorney for the island, José Tomás González, granted the free entry to the Cuban port of any ship coming from the Atlantic coast of the neighboring country.
Cuba, under Spanish colonial rule and in a convulsive era like the one experienced from the 1860s, caused, among other things, the increasingly weak economic situation of Spain, which between wars and the audacity to keep its colonies in The "New World" made the United States begin to gain economic importance on the Caribbean island.
There is no doubt that the proximity between the United States and Cuba had a decisive influence on the arrival, first, and expansion, later, of the newly created sport within the Caribbean area and other regions to the south of the American continent. With certainty, historians place the arrival of baseball in Cuba between 1864 and 1866, but there are many disputes about how and when this sport began because, for example, there are documents from the Sports Fund of the Provincial Historical Archive of Matanzas that date back so far. such as 1847, which include the prohibition of playing with any type of "ball" in the streets and other public transit points, under penalty of losing the ball, since it damaged the lighting lanterns. Such a decree could well be related to any other game, but it could also refer to the beginnings of baseball on the island.
