Manny Sablan named manager of CNMI baseball team

Manny Sablan, sixth from left, has been selected the manager of the CNMI Men’s National Baseball Team for the Northern Marianas Pacific Mini Games 2022. Also in photo are coaches Derron Flores, eighth from left, and Gary Cruz, second from left, and strength and conditioning coach Joey Tudela, second from right. They are joined by the board of Saipan Baseball League led by its president Jay Santos, right. (MARK RABAGO)

The Saipan Baseball League has chosen Manny Sablan as the manager of the CNMI Men’s National Baseball Team for next year’s Pacific Mini Games that will be played on Saipan.

SBL president Jay Santos made the announcement yesterday during a press conference at the NMSA conference room inside the Gilbert C. Ada Gymnasium. Santos was joined in the press conference by SBL vice president George Camacho, secretary Mark Flores, treasurer Ben Cabrera, and board members Shine Tenorio, David Attao, and Ben Jones. The other SBL board members are Mark Toves and Pete Sablan.

“The board is extremely confident of this guy’s abilities. One thing that we’re most impressed with is he speaks softly but carries a big stick… The guy’s background is incredible and we’re really impressed with his resume.”

Santos admitted that the process of selecting the manager for the national baseball team had been a long process.

“Much longer than most of us would’ve liked. But we feel that at the end of the day, we did it the right way. We’ve had a number of candidates that applied for the manager position to lead our CNMI Men’s National Baseball Team to a gold medal,” he said.

Sablan was given free rein to choose his coaching staff and brought in Derron Flores and Gary Cruz as coaches.

“Playing in our hometown is really a big pressure, but we have the confidence in selecting the right players. Our goal is to win gold. Right now, we haven’t had any leagues for the past 2-3 years, but I think it’s about time to bring them back and start swinging a real baseball bat,” said Sablan.

Sablan is a veteran of the SBL and also coached the Patriots to several undefeated seasons in the Saipan Little League. He also helped the CNMI to gold medal finishes in the 2006 Micronesian Games on Saipan and the 2011 Pacific Games in New Caledonia. Sablan also served as coach of the CNMI baseball team to the 9th Micronesian Games in Yap in 2018.

Aside from the appointments of Sablan, Flores, and Cruz, SBL also brought in Joey Tudela as the national team’s strength and conditioning coach.

“His focus will be to make our baseball players in baseball condition…we’re really excited to have him on board. He’s worked with me and Joey Dela Cruz in the Oceania baseball tournament and we were getting ready for the [Little League] season to start before the pandemic hit.”

Santos said SBL’s goal is to field the best conditioned national team for next year’s Mini Games, which incidentally marks the first time the CNMI will be hosting the quadrennial event.

“We see this process where guys are completely out of shape the first few weeks and Joey has this plan that after a few weeks they will go from only able to walk around the field to being able to run around the field. It’s a beautiful process and we’re really excited about that.”

The SBL president said while the they are shortchanged by SBL not being able to hold a league for 2-3 years now and unavailability of the Francisco M. Palacios Baseball Field because of much-needed repairs, he’s confident that Sablan and company will have what it takes to get the job done.

“We have only 233 days left until the Mini Games so these gentlemen certainly have their work cut out for them in terms of bringing these guys into baseball condition as well as selecting the final cut for the final 20 players,” he said.