Akron Aeros pitcher has tips for Akron pair bound for Cuban trip
By Jim Carney. Beacon Journal staff writer . Published Monday, June 12, 2000, in the Akron Beacon Journal.
Akron Aeros pitcher Danys Baez gave an Akron educator and his Colombian-born wife some Cuban travel advice during a dugout meeting before the Aeros game yesterday.
Michael Hauber, a foreign language specialist with the Akron public schools, leaves a week from today for a month-long trip to Cuba, where he will lead college tour groups, including a group from the University of Akron.
Baez, who defected from Cuba last year and signed a $14.5 million contract to pitch with the Cleveland Indians, suggested that Hauber and the group visit an area of hot springs in Cuba known as San Diego de los Banos.
But Baez ``gracefully declined'' an offer by Hauber to visit with his family, which lives in a rural area of Cuba, said Mick Papp, a Kenmore High School Spanish teacher and friend of Hauber's who accompanied the couple to Canal Park to meet with Baez.
Baez said he was not comfortable with Hauber's visiting his family because of uncertainty over what could happen to Hauber, Hauber said.
He also said that because of the political climate between Cuba and the United States and because Baez himself had defected from the Cuban national baseball team, Baez was concerned that Cuban officials might think Hauber was a baseball scout if he visited the family.
Hauber, who said he is not a baseball scout, gave Baez some Cuban cigars and a book on cigars as well as a can of mango marmalade.
Baez smiled a friendly grin when he received the gifts from the Haubers.
Baez defected last July during the Pan Am Games, first obtaining a visa from the Costa Rican consulate in Montreal and living in Costa Rica for five months before signing a contract with the Indians.
Hauber and his wife, Silvia, speak fluent Spanish and had a friendly 10-minute conversation in the muggy dugout yesterday before the Aeros game with Harrisburg.
Baez, a 6-foot-4-inch 22-year-old, pointed out his hometown and tourist attractions on a map of Cuba that Hauber brought with him to the dugout meeting.
The two men exchanged phone numbers, and Hauber said he would try to meet with Baez later this summer after he returns from his trip to Cuba so they can talk about the trip and speak some more Spanish together.
Silvia Hauber said Baez was happy to be able to speak Spanish with someone.
``He is a nice young man,'' Hauber said of Baez.
He said he hopes that relations will be normalized with Cuba so there is no longer a trade and travel ban with the country. Hauber's trip to Cuba will be made from Toronto.
Hauber said the meeting with Baez, and the visits of Americans to Cuba, are ``small steps'' that someday may lead to normal relations. |