# Isidro Pérez, one of Cuban baseball's great relief pitchers, has died

**Date:** 08/10/2021

On the same day that the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games concluded, the death from cancer of one of the most outstanding relief pitchers to pass through Cuba's National Series was made official.

It was the Santa Clara native Isidro Pérez, as announced on his Facebook profile by provincial commissioner Ramón Moret. Isidro had been suffering from cancer for several years, a situation that meant everyone saw him traveling around the city of Santa Clara in a special vehicle for better mobility. Precisely with that means of transportation he became famous at Augusto César Sandino stadium, as he often took charge of transporting pitchers from the bullpen to home plate.

At 70 years of age (born May 15, 1951), he stood out throughout the entire decade of the seventies with the mythical Azucareros teams, national champions on three occasions, and later would have an essential role from the emergence of Villa Clara in 1977-78 and until he hung up his glove as an active player in the late eighties. As well as with the Las Villas roster in the Selective Series that emerged in 1975.

Owner of exceptional control and remarkable intelligence for mixing his breaking pitches with a normal fastball, he had several seasons in which he was the best closer in Cuban baseball. One could even say that he was the top figure among relief pitchers after the retirement of Raúl "La Guagua" López and the prime years of fellow Havanan Euclides Rojas.

"The Fireman of Dobarganes," as he was popularly known, never played for the national team not for lack of quality, but because the strategies of that time did not include the presence of a natural relief pitcher on the Cuba team.

Among his multiple outstanding seasons (he pitched 11 in total), the best was undoubtedly the 1977 Selective Series, possibly his best year, when he pitched to a 0.90 ERA (6 runs in 60.1 innings) in addition to an excellent 8-1 record.

After his retirement he worked for several years as a pitching coach, especially when Eduardo Martín was at the head of the Santa Clara squad.

Santa Clara journalist José Antonio Fulgueiras recounts an interesting anecdote about Isidro.

"I nicknamed Isidro Pérez the Fireman of Dobarganes because he was the classic pitcher you always brought in when the stadium was on fire and the orange team was about to get burned.

Isidro warmed up little or not at all, maybe two or three pitches at most, and he'd say: 'I'm ready now!' At the end of his career he relied more on his cunning than on his speed, with soft, crafty pitches like the ones that struck out Lázaro Junco at the Sandino with the bases loaded. The only problem was that the next time at bat the Havanan hit him a towering home run and they're still looking for the ball.

There's a very funny anecdote about him. The first time Isidro went to pitch in Havana, the Villa Clara team stayed at the Latino to play against Industriales. They arrived on a Friday and since the subseries began on Saturday they had a free night. The Fireman took the opportunity to visit a family he knew in the Mantilla neighborhood. He asked which bus went in that direction and boarded it. On the way back, around midnight, he noticed from a stop that a bus was approaching. He looked at the sign above the windshield and boarded it smiling. Only four or five people were traveling on the bus. Isidro settled into a seat near the rear door. He kept looking constantly out the window saying to himself: 'The moment I see the stadium stands right there I'm getting off, because I'm not going to ask and look like a peasant.' But minutes passed and more minutes, and no sign of the stands or the stadium. The driver, a black man with glasses and a bus driver's cap, reached the end of the route and, seeing that Isidro wasn't getting off, said to him:

—Hey, buddy, you're not Eusebio Leal to be wandering around Havana. Come on, get off, this is the last stop.

—The last stop?

—Yes, the ride is over. So where were you trying to go?

—Me, to the stadium.

—But this route doesn't go by the stadium.

—Don't tell me that, you think I don't know how to read. Look there on the windshield how it clearly says: Palatino".