Baseball: Cuba, Mexico to open 2014 Caribbean Series

Cuba will play Mexico in the opening baseball game of the 2014 Caribbean Series, to be held from Feb 1 to 8 in the Venezuelan resort of Margarita Island.

After playing Mexico, Cuba's national team goes on to play Venezuela Feb 2, the Dominican Republic Feb 3 and Puerto Rico Feb 4, reports Xinhua.

Cuba, which returns to the series as a guest next year after an absence of 53 years, will be represented by its team from Villa Clara, champion of Cuba's National Series.

The Caribbean Series will pit each team against all the others in a single round, with the four top-scoring teams going on to the semifinal and finally the top two teams playing each other in the final.

Cuba won seven of the first 12 editions of the tournament, which began in 1949, but stopped competing in 1960, after the revolutionary government of Fidel Castro banned professional sports.