Coco Gómez, One of Cuba's Historic Baseball Directors, Passes Away

July 16, 2023

The outstanding baseball manager and coach Juan "Coco" Gómez, the first National Series player who managed in that same tournament, passed away last Tuesday, July 11 at the age of 89, according to official media on the island.

Popularly known by his nickname, Gómez began his official connection with baseball at the age of 13 in Matanzas while studying at the La Progresiva school in Cárdenas, according to a report read during the midday broadcast of Cuban Television News.

He made his debut in the second edition of the National Series (1963) as a catcher for the Occidentales team, which finished in third place at the time, but two years later he was appointed manager of the Granjeros team from Camagüey, where he had worked with youth teams.

From then on, Coco Gómez never separated from his great passion, and in addition to managing teams, he served as a coach, even with the national team in several first-rate international tournaments.

His extensive record of service accumulated experience as a director of various teams in the National Series. His campaigns are mostly remembered leading the Havana and Industriales teams, but he also managed the representatives of Constructores (1972-73), Henequeneros (1974-74), Guantánamo (1983-83), and Santi Spíritus (1983-85).

With none of these teams did he achieve outstanding results, but he explained the reasons in an interview he granted to the newspaper Juventud Rebelde in 2011: "They would send me to provide services in other provinces. Many times I couldn't even complete the work, because results don't come right away. I accepted that I was going to plant seeds and that others would reap the fruits."

During the 1967-68 season, Gómez led the Havana team and took it to the championship with a record of 74 victories and 23 losses that remains as a reference in Cuban baseball classics.

Added together from all those seasons, the outstanding strategist accumulated 350 victories and 308 defeats, but he also was in charge of the Ciudad de La Habana team in the 1991 Selective Series, which closed with a record of 39-24.

His international debut occurred in 1966, during the Central American and Caribbean Games in San Juan, Puerto Rico, assisting manager Gilberto Torres. He accompanied Roberto Ledo at the Pan American Games in Winnipeg in 1967, where the Cuban team finished second, behind the United States.

As third base coach on the team directed by Alfonso Urquiola, Coco returned to the same Canadian city for the 1999 Pan American Games.

His last involvement with a national team was as an assistant to the team that participated in the 2000 Sydney Olympics tournament, where they lost in the final.

After that tournament, Gómez decided to retire from active baseball, although he continued contributing his experience to the provincial academy of the capital and advising the national commission.