News »

Meeting the needs of the National Baseball Series and more

deportes puloversThe Cuban sports industry has not detained its operations during the pandemic, focused on the immediate objective of guaranteeing needed articles for the 60th National Series, set to begin September 12.

Ruslán Olivares, director of development for the Batos enterprise, told Granma, “The priority is the National Series, as one of the country’s major cultural events and what it means to Cuban sports.”

He reported that Batos has on hand all the essential prime materials to supply bats throughout the season, “The wood used is majagua, which allows us to avoid imports and contribute to the national economy.”

Carpenter-toolmaker Fernando Claro, at the Madera factory, added, “We make official bats, as well as children’s, for training, and softball. My personal record is 74 bats in a day. With the leftover wood, we make other articles like the little chairs used at child care centers, game tables and blackboard erasers.”

New this coming season is “a third baseball uniform, responding to a longstanding interest of Cuban fans: to include the mascot name on uniforms. The Cuban Institute of Sports, Recreation and Physical Education, Inder, approved our proposal and this shirt will be worn during home games,” Olivares noted.

As for the design, he said that these are based on team proposals, which may be accepted or not, explaining, “The technology we have enters into this aspect. At times, they make requests that technologically we can’t handle, given the machinery we have to process certain prime materials. There are designs that, from the aesthetic point of view, cannot be reproduced.”

WOMEN AT WORK

Odalis Martínez, head of the garment workshop, reported, “The processes associated with the production of uniforms are fundamentally manual, from the cutting of cloth to the embroidery of identifiers like the team name, number, player name, etc. Among the 16 members of the workforce, we produce an average of 150 to 200 pieces a day, depending on their complexity. We are working, as well, on producing the 1,600 facemasks that will be delivered to teams.”

Iskra Corratgé, the company’s adjunct director, emphasized, “This year, in addition to the National Series uniforms, outfits are also being produced for the Sub-23 division and the 13-14 age league, and shortly, we will need to complete competition wear for wrestling and boxing.”

For her part, the company’s commercial director, Dunia Civill, summarized the job explaining that each team competing in the National Series will receive 50 modules containing hats, socks, protective wear, short and long-sleeve jerseys, two pairs of shorts, a towel and duffle bag, in addition to 30 bats per team, 20 gloves, catchers’ gear, plus two uniforms per player.

OTHER PRODUCTS

“Inder, Cuban sports’ guiding institution, is the principal client Batos has, and most of our production goes there. The ministries of Education, Higher Education, and Public Health are other clients,” Olivares added.

In addition to all the articles manufactured for the National Baseball Series, the company distributes others including board games like checkers, chess and dominoes; balls for basketball, soccer, volleyball and hand ball; and baseball gloves, with a line for children under development.

“In 2019, our industry fabricated 25,000 balls, which were, as directed by Inder, distributed across the country to guarantee their availability in every municipality. Likewise, we produced some alternative board games to guarantee some level of availability in these places,” he said.

Loraine Gari, ball production analyst, added, “Around 300 are produced every day, of different kinds, depending on the requests we receive. During the manufacturing process, those that fail to meet quality standards

are not thrown away, but rather re-used in the production of therapeutic balls, as an alternative among our productions. These are sold to hospitals to be used in therapy and rehabilitation processes.”

Olivares noted that, last year, when the Pan American Games took place in Lima, Peru, Cuban athletes in more than a ten disciplines wore Batos uniforms. The company makes uniforms for the school league, the national soccer championship, and the country’s basketball league, as well, while also supplying sportswear to schools for promising young athletes across the island.

Iskra Corratgé added, “During this period as the country is confronting the pandemic, we received orders for 70,000 blackboard erasers for schools set to reopen in September. In addition to the factory in Havana, those in Santiago de Cuba, Florida (Camagüey) and Buey Arriba (Granma) are working on this task.”

(Source: Granma)

Make a comment

Your email address will not be published. The mandatory fields are marked. *

*