Juan Francisco Puello Herrera, commissioner of the Caribbean Professional Baseball Confederation (CBPC).

Photo: JIT

The Gran Caracas 2023 Caribbean Series will be historic due to the participation of eight teams.

Juan Francisco Puello Herrera, commissioner of the Caribbean Professional Baseball Confederation (CBPC), was enthusiastic about the progress that the organizing committee (OC) has made to provide a show that is up to the task.

"It has great significance because we are celebrating the 65th Caribbean Series. So we wanted to do something big, as big as Caracas is. In fact, two new guests were thought of, although for me Cuba is not a guest in the good sense of the word, because it participated for the first time in Margarita 2014", highlighted Puello Herrera.

"We received Curaçao in a very beautiful city, which I have known since 1966, when I made my first trip. I really love Caracas," he added.

The CBPC commissioner was part of the prison that offered a press conference to national and international media, along with Giuseppe Palmisano, president of the Venezuelan Professional Baseball League and CO, and Humberto Oropeza, president of Cardenales de Lara and general director of the CO.

Also present were Antonio José Herrera, president of Tiburones de La Guaira and member of the OC;

Juan Reinaldo Pérez Pardo, president of the Cuban Baseball Federation;

Carlos Manrique (Arco League), Vitelio Mejías Ortiz (Lidom), David Salayandia (Probeis) and Jedrek Magdalena, president of the Curaçao Baseball Federation.

"We are going to have a magnificent Caribbean Series, especially with those two stages, one in La Rinconada and the other in La Guaira," added Puello Herrera.

"We are working for a magnificent series thanks to the security that Venezuela offers us, something very important. It will be of excellent proportions. I have not the slightest doubt," he said.

Palmisano stressed that in principle it was planned to include the University Stadium, but it was a plan that changed in recent months.

"In principle, we had the Universitario and the Jorge Luis García Carneiro Stadium in Macuto as venues. We started working on the UCV park and we continue to do so, but then the extraordinary surprise of La Rinconada appeared, a stage that will be ready and will be the great star of the Caribbean Series", explained Palmisano.

"It is a great work that is being completed. Although we have not stopped making improvements to the Universitario because baseball is played there and it is a World Heritage Site. In that sense, I must thank the authorities who have given us the support regarding the infrastructures for the competition," he said.

The Los Chaguaramos field will serve as a practice park for the teams that request it.

In parallel, visits are being made to select the hotels in the capital that will house the visiting delegations and thus offer them the best service and comfort, Oropeza reported.

"The calendar of the competition has already been approved," added the manager from Lara.

"The Caribbean Series will open on February 2 and will run until the 9th of that month. The details will be revealed in the next few hours by the CBPC," he concluded.

(Taken from JIT)