Armando Capiró Returns to Palmar del Junco Stadium

March 31, 2022

I achieved the essentials during my sports career; I believe I have accomplished some of the most important results that a baseball player can aspire to, said this Wednesday with particular excitement upon his induction to the Palmar de Junco Hall of Fame, Armando Capiró, a glory of Cuban sports.

The slugger, the first in the history of Cuban winter baseball to hit more than 20 home runs in a single contest and also to reach the figure of 100, stated that he is living happy hours, full of enthusiasm for accessing a place of such high honor, reserved for only a few.

After a brief but emotional ceremony in which great moments from the player's life were relived, Capiró, a native of the municipality of Boyeros in the province of Havana, shared anecdotes with other renowned figures of this sport on the island such as Félix Isasi, Evelio Hernández and Fernando Sánchez, among others.

I remember from Palmar del Junco the era when I was part of the so-called Havana Terror Squad, in the 1960s, the fierce duels with local teams and the characteristic of the stadium, where the ball traveled more through the right-center field area, recalled he who participated in 14 national baseball series.

Capiró, selected along with three other former athletes to enter the Hall of Immortals this same year, was unable to attend the official ceremony on February 21st, held at the baseball park itself, a National Monument.

Later, in an interview granted to the digital site Cubadebate, the tall 74-year-old former outfielder assured that if there was something he had left to do, it was to return to the century-old Palmar, which hosted the first official game of baseball in the Greater Antilles, according to most experts.

In the sixth induction to the Hall, Rogelio García, Mariano Álvarez and Andrés Antonio "El Haitiano" González were enshrined, as well as Pedro José Rodríguez, Julio Germán Fernández, Zoilo Versalles and Roberto Barbón, the latter inducted in 2020.

To date, more than 60 glories of baseball in the Greater Antilles have been enshrined at the legendary grounds, the oldest active baseball field in the world according to specialized literature, among them Martín Dihigo, José de la Caridad Méndez and Orestes Miñoso.