Omar Linares Izquierdo (born October 23, 1968)Biography of Omar Linares
is a former Cuban

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...

player. He was born in

San Juan y Martínez San Juan y Martínez () is a municipality and town in the Pinar del Río Province of Cuba. Overview Its economy is centered mainly on agriculture and the crop of its farmers, the largest of which being tobacco. In Cuba, San Juan y Martinez is k ...

Pinar del Río Province Pinar del Río is one of the provinces of Cuba. It is at the western end of the island of Cuba. Geography The Pinar del Río province is Cuba's westernmost province and contains one of Cuba's three main mountain ranges, the Cordillera de Guanig ...

Cuba Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribb ...

. Linares played

third base A third baseman, abbreviated 3B, is the player in baseball or softball whose responsibility is to defend the area nearest to third base — the third of four bases a baserunner must touch in succession to score a run. In the scoring system us ...

for the

Cuba national baseball team The Cuba national baseball team (Spanish: ''Selección de béisbol de Cuba'') represents Cuba at regional and international levels. The team is made up from the most professional players from the Cuban national baseball system. Cuba has been d ...

and for Pinar del Río and Vegueros in the

Cuban National Series The Cuban National Series (, SNB) is the primary domestic professional baseball competition in Cuba. Formed after the dissolution of the Cuban League in the wake of the Cuban Revolution, the Series is a part of the Cuban baseball league system. ...

wearing the number 10 on his jersey. After a career as a player in Cuba, Linares, along with other Cuba baseball players such as Antonio Pacheco, Orestes Kindelan, and German Mesa, in coordination with the Cuba national baseball commission, decided to try the

Nippon Professional Baseball or NPB is the highest level of baseball in Japan. Locally, it is often called , meaning ''Professional Baseball''. Outside Japan, it is often just referred to as "Japanese baseball". The roots of the league can be traced back to the formation ...

. Linares spent three seasons with the

Chunichi Dragons The are a professional baseball team based in Nagoya, the chief city in the Chūbu region of Japan. The team plays in the Central League of Nippon Professional Baseball. They have won the Central League pennant nine times (most recently in 2011) ...

, wearing the number 44 on his jersey, before returning to Cuba. In 2009 Linares decided to become a batting coach and first base coach for longtime rival team Industriales, helping them to conquer a national championship (his first as an assistant coach). Although Linares never received an official retiring ceremony, the season of 2001–2002 is considered to be his last appearance in Cuba National Baseball Series.

Career in Cuba

Linares spent 20 seasons with Pinar del Río in Cuba's National Series, compiling a career .368

batting average Batting average is a statistic in cricket, baseball, and softball that measures the performance of batters. The development of the baseball statistic was influenced by the cricket statistic. Cricket In cricket, a player's batting average is ...

, the best in the league's history, with 404

home run In baseball, a home run (abbreviated HR) is scored when the ball is hit in such a way that the batter is able to circle the bases and reach home plate safely in one play without any errors being committed by the defensive team. A home run i ...

s (third among all-times in Cuban league), 1,547

runs batted in A run batted in (RBI; plural RBIs ) is a statistic in baseball and softball that credits a batter for making a play that allows a run to be scored (except in certain situations such as when an error is made on the play). For example, if the b ...

and 264

stolen base In baseball, a stolen base occurs when a runner advances to a base to which they are not entitled and the official scorer rules that the advance should be credited to the action of the runner. The umpires determine whether the runner is safe o ...

s. He led the National Series in batting average four times, in RBIs four times and in walks six times. At the end of his career, Linares spent three seasons with the

of Japan's

Central League The or is one of the two professional baseball leagues that constitute Nippon Professional Baseball in Japan. The winner of the league championship plays against the winner of the Pacific League in the annual Japan Series. It currently consi ...

. He retired in 2004.

International career

As a 14-year-old, Linares was the starting second baseman for the Cuba National youth team at the World Championship, where they won gold. His debut in Cuba national baseball series at the age of 14 was marked by his father's decision of not allowing him to play with Forestales (second team of Pinar del Río) on road games, therefore Linares only played home games that year. The inclusion of Linares in the

at the age of 17, as an optional replacement of slugger Jose "Cheito" Rodriguez after the suspension of "Cheito" by the Cuba National baseball commission, is attributed to former manager Jose Miguel Pineda. Linares was a mainstay on the national team under the guidance of Luis Giraldo Casanova during much of the 1980s and 1990s, as the starting third baseman on World Championship winning teams in 1986, 1988, 1990, 1994, 1998 and 2001. He was part of Cuba's Olympic gold medal teams in

1992 File:1992 Events Collage V1.png, From left, clockwise: Riots break out across Los Angeles, California after the police beating of Rodney King; El Al Flight 1862 crashes into a residential apartment building in Amsterdam after two of its engin ...

and

1996 File:1996 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: A bomb explodes at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, set off by a radical anti-abortionist; The center fuel tank explodes on TWA Flight 800, causing the plane to crash and killing everyone o ...

, and the silver medal team in

2000 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from S ...

. Linares also played for the Cuba national team in the

1999 Baltimore Orioles – Cuba national baseball team exhibition series File:1999 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The funeral procession of King Hussein of Jordan in Amman; the 1999 İzmit earthquake kills over 17,000 people in Turkey; the Columbine High School massacre, one of the first major school shooti ...

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Linares, Omar 1968 births Living people Olympic baseball players of Cuba Olympic gold medalists for Cuba Olympic silver medalists for Cuba Olympic medalists in baseball Medalists at the 1992 Summer Olympics Medalists at the 1996 Summer Olympics Medalists at the 2000 Summer Olympics Baseball players at the 1992 Summer Olympics Baseball players at the 1996 Summer Olympics Baseball players at the 2000 Summer Olympics Pan American Games gold medalists for Cuba Baseball players at the 1991 Pan American Games Baseball players at the 1995 Pan American Games Baseball players at the 1999 Pan American Games Cuban expatriate baseball players in Japan Chunichi Dragons players Pan American Games medalists in baseball Goodwill Games medalists in baseball Competitors at the 1990 Goodwill Games Medalists at the 1991 Pan American Games Medalists at the 1995 Pan American Games Medalists at the 1999 Pan American Games People from Pinar del Río Province