Omar Linares

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Omar Linares Izquierdo (born October 23, 1967 in Pinar del Río, Cuba) is a former Cuban baseball player. Linares, who played third base for the Cuban national team and for Pinar del Río in the Cuban National Series, is considered one of the greatest Cuban players of all time. Because he started playing regularly as a teen, the public knows him affectionately as El Niño, meaning "the kid".

[edit] Career in Cuba

Linares spent 20 seasons with Pinar del Río in Cuba's National Series, compiling a career .368 batting average for the second best in the league's history, with 404 home runs, 1,547 runs batted in and 264 stolen bases.

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 undistinguished seasons with the Chunichi Dragons of the Japan's Central League. He retired in 2002.

[edit] International career

Men's Baseball
Olympic medal record
Gold	1992 Barcelona	Baseball
Gold	1996 Atlanta	Baseball
Silver	2000 Sydney	Baseball

As a 14 year old, Linares was the starting second baseman for the Cuban National youth team at the world championship, where they got the gold. Linares was a mainstay on the Cuban national baseball team 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 and 1996, and the silver medal team in 2000.