Team Cuba: Why Team Asere?

Team Cuba: Why Team Asere?
Fecha de publicación: 
16 March 2023
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Everything started with a meme and ended up being the Team Cuba hallmark at the World Baseball Classic.

El Pelotazo facebook profile, dedicated to meme-making related to baseball, was the first the use such nickname (Team Asere), which went viral once the Cuban baseball team played its first game at the 5th World Baseball Classic.

On the origins of the nickname Team Asere, CubaSí talked to sports beat writer Boris Cabrera Acosta, who has deep knowledge on the story and refers that while chatting with Cuban baseball players via Internet about this popular nickname, they say that “people love it,” and has been widely used in Japan.

The journalist also explains that several Caribbean teams also use nicknames: Dominican Republic’s Platano Power, Puerto Rico’s Team Rubio; Venezuela’s Arepa Power, and then Team Asere came up, being asere a word widely use in Cuba.

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Cuban official media and the world covering the WBC have embraced the nickname and this weekend, under the hashtag #TeamAsere, was trending topic on social networks.

The term asere may be rude for some, but all Cuban know the word, and now the word is converging point for identifying ourselves around baseball.

Something similar has happened with tattoos. Decades ago, the few people with tattoos were frowned upon as they were linked to marginality and jail. Today, a lot of Cubans, especially young people, showcase their tattoos without prejudice, and tattoos are now part of their identity.

If the word asere has not always been accepted for associating it with vulgarity, there must be a lot of Cubans who feel identified with #TeamAsere up!

And the excitement will be greater when on Wednesday, Armando Johnson's team play a clutch game, which will decide who travels to the city of Miami for the semifinal round. Then, we will know if the nickname Team Asere will or will not be remembered in the history of our baseball.

Translated by Sergio A. Paneque Díaz / CubaSí Translation Staff

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