The Latinoamericano baseball stadium celebrated its 76th anniversary on October 26. As the Havana landmark reached this milestone, work in underway to prepare a dossier to declare it National Monument.
This distinguished sports facility, with a current capacity for more than 55,000 people, has an exceptional patrimonial value due to the architectural, historical, cultural, political and sports elements it has.
The also called Coloso del Cerro has witnessed countless sports, political, social and cultural events in its almost eight decades, and it is the civilian facility with the largest capacity in Cuba.
Historian and Doctor of Science Felix Julio Alfonso Lopez explains that some of the most transcendent events in the early years was the closing ceremony of the First Latin American Youth Congress, on the night of August 6-7, 1960, when Commander in Chief Fidel Castro announced the nationalization of large U.S. capital on the island in a memorable and dramatic speech. From that moment on, its name changed from Gran Estadio de La Habana to Estadio Latinoamericano.
"Whenever we talk about this stadium, we cannot foret to mention Armandito “el Tintorero,” its most faithful host, who came from the best baseball fans in the country. After the death of the legendary fan in 2004, a statue was erected by artist José Villa Soberón, which perpetuates his memory in the name of the Cuban people and the Cuban sports movement," recalled Alfonso López.
The Latinoamericano is an indissoluble part of the evolution of baseball as a central element of Cuban culture, intimately related to the history of its practices in the capital and its teams. For all these reasons, the stadium deserves the honorable distinction of National Monument, the Cuban intellectual affirmed.
Translated by ESTI
