Baseball player Yoenis Céspedes will join the Cuban team for the World Baseball Classic in March 2023

November 27, 2022

Baseball player Yoenis Céspedes has made it clear that he will play for Cuba in the upcoming World Baseball Classic, scheduled to take place in March 2023.

"La Potencia" spoke for the first time on the Dominican radio program Grandes en los Deportes about the reasons that lead him to want to wear his country's uniform:

"I know there has been a lot of controversy about Cuban baseball players who are in the United States. There was a lot of commotion about that. I left Cuba, not because of political problems, but chasing a dream, behind a dream. I always said that, if at some point when I finished in the United States, I could represent my country again, I would do it with great pleasure. They called me to represent in the Classic (the Cuban Baseball Federation) and of course I said yes and here I am," said Céspedes.

Céspedes has been away from the Major Leagues for two years and returned to Dominican winter baseball for the second time with Águilas Cibaeñas, where he has been preparing to represent Cuba during the upcoming month of March.

"La Potencia" also spoke about what this second opportunity with the twenty-two time Dominican champions has been like.

"Almost two years without playing and being able to come here, with the quality of this baseball, the pitching of this baseball perhaps hasn't come out the way I expected, because I know I can give a little more, but I also feel happy that after two years I still have the timing and I can continue playing baseball," said the Cuban.

"I came back, really, because Águilas was the team that gave me the opportunity for the first time to play professionally and that never left my mind. I wanted to come back with Águilas again and here I am," he concluded.