He reportedly arrived in Cuba taking care of a gift horse from Spanish King Alfonso XIII to Cuban President Mario García Menocal.

[14] As administrator of Cuba's sports commission under Batista (Spanish: Dirección General Nacional de Deportes, or DGND), Mariné has been credited with helping to revive the Cuban League, after the financial instability brought by the Great Depression.

[15][16] Batista considered the disarray of the Cuban League to be a national disgrace, and he entrusted Mariné, along with professional baseball commissioner Ignacio Galíndez (another army officer), with restoring the circuit it to its former glory.

[26] Researcher Peter C. Bjarkman wrote that Mariné and the DGND were responsible for the surge in popularity of amateur baseball in Cuba, which grew to rival the professional Cuban League in the 1930s and early 1940s.

Germany's and the Soviet Union's investments in wide-ranging sports organizations to promote health, provide recreation, build character and martial spirit, as well as to cull the best athletes to represent the nation, became models followed by many countries, but especially post-revolutionary Cuba.

The pomp and circumstance of military pageant was now reserved for victorious athletes, disciplined like soldiers, who would proudly carry national flags and occasionally wear native garb.