Aquino Abreu, stellar pitcher from Villa Clara, dies at 96 years old

February 12, 2023

On Friday, February 10, the stellar pitcher of the Cuba teams and of the central region, Tomás Aquino Abreu, passed away—the man who accomplished a feat that no one has been able to match in our baseball: pitching, consecutively, two no-hitter shutout games, an event that occurred on January 16 and 25, 1966, in the Sandino and Latinoamericano stadiums, respectively.

Aquino made his debut in the I National Baseball Series with the Azucareros team, and was in the national pre-selections from 1962 to 1970, a period in which he joined on more than one occasion the Cuba team that participated in the IX Central American Games in Kingston, in 1962; the IV Pan American Games in São Paulo, in 1963, in which he achieved the leadership in earned run average, with 0.50, and two victories without losses, and in the X Central American Games in San Juan, Puerto Rico, in 1966.

He possessed a very strong arm, which he demonstrated on December 28, 1965, when he pitched 19.1 innings and a third in a game that went on for 20 innings. Among his merits is the fact that he was selected among the ten best athletes in Cuba in the years 1966 and 1968; in addition to having achieved the leadership of pitchers during the VIII National Series, when he obtained a record of ten wins and one loss, and an earned run average of 1.09. He was 86 years old at the time of his death.