Javier Méndez

Cuban baseball player, member of the Industriales team. Considered one of the most gentlemanly athletes in Cuban sports.

He made his debut in the National Series wearing the uniform marked with number 15 of the Metropolitanos, until in 1985 he began playing with the capital team Industriales with number 17. He participated in 22 National Baseball Series, in which he accumulated results and merits as an athlete. He surpassed the 2,000 hits mark in national series. He holds the title of Batting Champion in 1987, and Best Center Fielder. After his retirement as an athlete, he began working as a coach and member of the National Baseball Commission.

He was born in Santa Fe, municipality of Playa on April 22, 1964. He began his sports career practicing soccer, which was his preferred sport, although he also played four corners and flojo, like almost all Cuban children. At the age of seven, his first coach Gerardo Hernández took him to the field of "Jorge Sánchez" in Santa Fe itself with the vision of becoming a star of Cuban baseball.

Son of a driver and a housewife, who had nothing to do with baseball, except for that little bug that all Cubans carry inside and that makes them love this sport passionately, which in Cuba moves multitudes.

During his pre-high school years, he participated in provincial tournaments of the sport of the masses, but he was never selected for the national team.

Due to a soccer scrape, he decided to exchange the ball and sticks for the baseball, glove, and bat, although injuries continued to be his eternal companions.

He was part of the youth national team that participated in the World Championship of that category held in 1983 in Venezuela, where he was also chosen as one of the all-star players of the tournament along with two other Cubans who would later be just as stellar, Antonio Pacheco and Armando Ferreiro. That same year he debuted with the Metropolitanos team, where El Javi would play for three seasons with outstanding performances, wearing the uniform marked with number 15 of the Metropolitanos, until in 1985 he achieves one of his most cherished dreams, which was to wear the blue jacket of Industriales, which would catapult him as one of its pillars in the victory of that season.

Javier as the third batter, established an average of .328 with more than two thousand hits and 296 home runs connected, of these 19 in the last championship in which he participated, more than in any other previous occasion.

In 1986 he would become the leader of the batters with an astronomical average of .408, resulting from 53 singles in 130 at-bats.

The beginning of the nineties marked a new stage in the sports career of number 17, as he would integrate for the first time a senior team selection in the world championship held in Canada in 1990. This result was a benefit of excellent performance during the national campaign and the Selection Series in which he was third in offensive average and would contribute to the cause of Havana's title, which in turn set a record of games won for a Selection under the command of Servio Borges.

The decade of the nineties passed for Javier with unforgettable moments, such as for example the .462 average in the Second Revolution Cup, 43 hits in 93 official at-bats.

Furthermore, from 1997 to 2005, Javier Méndez held the batting record in Cuban baseball of all time.

El Javi leaves for the record books the national marks of 381 doubles, and 92 runs batted in for 90-game tournaments, all of this also in the championship of his farewell. And as if that weren't enough, he achieved another of his goals: becoming Champion for the fourth time as a member of the Industriales team.

On five occasions: 1989, 1990, 1998, 1999, and in 2000, he was part of Team Cuba, and if he didn't make it more times, it was due to the injuries that plagued him throughout his long sports career, which began as a child as a soccer player, when he was a midfielder alongside another famous Cuban, Isaac Delgado, El Chévere of Salsa, who according to El Javi "is a monster as a singer and was very good at sports, besides being a magnificent friend."

The most important moment of his sports career was in the National Series, when he set several records and became champion for the fourth time. He also holds the absolute national batting record for a tournament in Cuban baseball of all time, with his .462 average, set in 1997, during the Revolution Cup.

His greatest happiness came at the beginning of the 21st century when he was first chosen among the best 100 Cuban athletes of all time, and later would occupy a position on Team Cuba that took second place in the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games.

Agustín Marquetti was always his idol, so on one occasion he exclaimed: "when I managed to play alongside him that was unforgettable, to see myself on the same field with that baseball player whom I admired so much, and that from that instant became my principal mentor as a batter, helping me greatly in the batting system, in patience, equanimity, and tranquility when batting, that action that I personally enjoy to the maximum."

He decided the exact time of his retirement, because he knew that the succession was already guaranteed to keep Industriales at the top and Team Cuba among the best in the world in baseball.

His retirement was one of the best that a baseball player could have had, as he would be the most valuable player of the series. Leader in runs batted in with a record at that time of 92, as well as 19 home runs and .327 offensive average that gave him the ticket to equally form the Team Cuba that participated in the Pan American Games in Santo Domingo 2003.

He said goodbye in grand style to his millions of admirers throughout the country, leaving them with the pleasant memory of his dedication, discipline, passion, and competitiveness. The center fielder and left fielder of the Industriales and Cuba teams decided his retirement from active sports to continue his studies and add other diplomas in languages and computer science to his degree in Physical Culture and Sports, although he is willing to coach or manage teams in Cuban baseball or in other countries that subscribe to the sports collaboration agreements that Cuba offers to nations in Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America and the Caribbean.

Javier was the blue 17, a number that he likes and apparently follows him, as he lived on 17th Street in El Vedado, now lives in Playa, in a house marked with four digits that start with 17, between 17th A and 17th B streets, and Javierito, his preschool son, was almost born on December 17, but Albita's delivery came two hours early.

His first hit was given by Spiritus pitcher Roberto Caña Ramos. His one-thousandth hit was precisely a home run he connected off Cienfuegos pitcher Bárbaro Arruebarruena. His 2,000th hit was also connected at Cristóbal Labra Stadium on the Island.