The cienfueguero César Prieto is the protagonist of a feat

November 23, 2020

The 21-year-old shattered the record of Santiago native Rey Isaac, which had stood since 1994

César Prieto continues to make headlines: he has already broken the record of 37 consecutive games getting hits, which he crowned last Saturday against Camagüey, in a game that Cienfuegos had sealed with the Bulls. However, after achieving it he has gotten hits in the following two games and the mark is now at 42 consecutive games.

The 21-year-old shattered the record of Santiago native Rey Isaac, which had stood since 1994. In the fourth inning of the pending game, in Saturday's program, his left-handed condition led the Agramon high command to send a pitcher of that same hand to the mound to diminish his chances of contact. Rodolfo Soris arrived with that assignment, but the Cienfuegos player, on two strikes and two balls, launched the rocket to right field with which he entered history. In that very same at-bat he connected another uncatchable (double) in the eighth, something that, according to analyst Yirsandy Rodríguez, the Cienfuegos player has done in 26 of those 42 games.

But, was it against lefty Soris that César Prieto achieved the record? No, he extended the streak against him, because officially that was game 75 of the current season, corresponding to September 24 last, so last Tuesday, November 17, against the pitches of Tunas player Yoalkis Cruz, he broke Isaac's mark, equaled on Sunday the 15th, against the pitches of Avilean Arnaldo Rodríguez. On those occasions he signed his games 37 and 38 without failing.

The curious thing is that he initiated the streak, also against the pitching of the Lumberjacks, on September 19, when he hit an uncatchable against another lefty, Yudier Rodríguez. Now expectations are on how far the emperor of the hit will take this feat.

Beyond dates or official games, it is clear that November 21 will go down in the history of this talented ballplayer and of Cuban baseball, because the accomplished record was of the so-called unbreakable ones and, because the readings of the achievement multiply, in this season there is much more to say about César Prieto: the only game in which he does not have hits is on September 17, when he went hitless against Ciego de Ávila, but pay attention to this fact: in that match he received a walk, which means that in all the games played until Sunday's program, 47 in total, he has reached first base; he is the current leader in average, with .412, in hits with 82, and in runs scored with 50.

Saving distances and logical differences, his mark has not been reached in the renowned Major League Baseball since 1978, the year Peter Rose (Cincinnati Reds) achieved 44 consecutive games. In that circuit, with almost 120 years, since it began with two leagues in 1901, the Cienfuegos player's mark has been achieved only one other time: besides Rose, the legendary Joe DiMaggio, in 1941, with the New York Yankees uniform, achieved 56, which is the current record.

César Prieto is in his fourth National Series. In the first, in only 17 at-bats, he got a single hit, but in the second, between regular season (134) and postseason (10), which he played with Villa Clara, he reached 144; in the previous one, in the preliminary phases he hit 96 and in the playoffs, with champion Matanzas, 15, for 111. In the current one he has 28 games left, so the hundred barrier seems fragile before the willpower of this athlete, a quality that, as German scientist Albert Einstein said, is a driving force more powerful than steam, atomic energy, and electricity.

History wanted it to be on his home grounds of the September 5 Stadium, in the Cienfuegos capital, where he would crown the feat, so that two legends of baseball in that territory, Antonio Muñoz and Pedro José Rodríguez, laden with feats and home runs, would go embrace the new pride of the province and of Cuban baseball, which he has put into orbit, because the news reverberates in all baseball scenarios on the planet.