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In Cuba, players
look for a way out
Seeing others' success, defection attempts
continue
By Joe Connor / Special
to MLB.com.
January 26, 2004.
With Cuba having recently
marked the 45th anniversary of its revolution,
MLB.com contributor Joe Connor visited this
Caribbean baseball hotbed for more than
three weeks. He interviewed numerous players
and officials and visited their academies,
sports institutes and ballparks across the
country's 14 provinces. What he discovered
was that more changes are quietly sweeping
Cuba. Today we begin a special, five-part
weeklong series, taking baseball fans inside
"The Forbidden Isle."
When Cuban superstar outfielder-first
baseman Kendry Morales and catcher Barbaro
Canizares took to the diamond on Dec. 28
in Cienfuegos, only they knew this would
be their last game on their native soil.
Or so they thought.
Two days later -- under the cover of darkness
and some 36 hours before the island nation
of Cuba would mark the 45th anniversary
of the Cuban Revolution -- Morales and Canizares
were apprehended by national security police
for attempting to flee the country in a
boat targeted for the Bahamas.
According to multiple sources within Cuba,
the planned exodus from Caibarien, a port
town in Villa Clara province about 200 miles
northeast of the capital city of Havana,
had been tipped to police. The Commissioner
of Cuba's National League, Carlos Rodriguez,
later confirmed the incident when asked
to explain the absence of Morales and Canizares
from Industriales, one of Havana's two clubs
in the country's 16-team amateur league
that plays a 90-game regular season schedule
from December to April.
"The [other] players knew Kendry was
leaving the country illegally; the players
don't want that," Rodriguez said in
an exclusive interview with MLB.com. "They
betrayed the love of the Cuban people."
Added a Major League scout who covers Latin
America: "The word is an agent set
this deal up, then started popping his mouth
off and the kid got busted."
The attempted defections by Morales and
Canizares are just two of several made by
Cuba's top players in recent months and
come against the backdrop of the Olympic
Games fast approaching. Having won the gold
medal in the 1996 Olympics, the Caribbean's
largest island hopes to recapture their
standing after losing to the United States
in Sydney, Australia, in 2000.
The attempts to leave Cuba are hardly a
rarity among baseball's elite. The development
of tourism and the introduction of the U.S.
dollar -- both in the 1990s following the
collapse of the former Soviet Union -- has
helped lead to the exodus of more than 45
baseball players from Cuba's shores since
1990.
Agents, who stand to earn a significant
amount of money off a Cuban defector who
flees to a country such as the Bahamas or
El Salvador and declares free agency, frequently
aid in those defections. The recent defections
by Maels Rodriguez and Yobal Duenes came
on the heels of defections in recent years
by Jose Contreras, Danys Baez and Orlando
"El Duque" Hernandez, among many
others.
"Guys are seeing that their peers
are having success at the Major League level
and saying to themselves, 'What's going
to happen to me when I'm done [playing]?'"
said Rudy Santin, the Devil Rays' director
of Latin American operations, who left Cuba
when he was nine on a visa after his father
fled the country on a boat in 1960.
Santin cited former right-hander Lazaro
Valle as an example of what typically happens
to players once their careers are over.
In the 1990s, Valle was considered one of
Cuba's premier pitchers. Now retired, the
luxuries once afforded Valle as a player
-- a nice house, a car, money -- are all
gone.
"He would have demanded a tremendous
Major League contract in the 1990s,"
Santin said. "I talked to El Duque
the other day and he said [Valle's] really
struggling down there."
In late October 2003, Rodriguez, a star
pitcher, and Duenas, a veteran second baseman
-- both projected to play in the Olympic
Games in Athens, Greece -- successfully
defected to El Salvador. Later, two players
on Villa Clara's provincial team, second
baseman Yunieski Betancourt and pitcher
Zaidel Beltran, unsuccessfully tried to
flee Cuba from Havana following their Opening
Day contest against Industriales at Latin
American Stadium, which marked the start
of the 43rd Cuban National League season.
Beltran was the winning pitcher in that
day's game.
Two months later, 34-year-old pitcher Jose
Ibar of Havana's provincial team -- another
expected Olympic participant who had pitched
in the Sydney games -- was apprehended for
trying to flee Cuba, and remains incarcerated,
according to multiple sources, because he
tried to leave the country on a boat from
Cuban shores.
Sources say the four other players have
been released from police custody because
their attempts to leave were the result
of third parties outside the country delivering
a vessel to Cuban shores.
Players caught trying to flee Cuba have
traditionally been banned from baseball,
effectively relegated to having to find
work in a country in which the average salary
is $10 (U.S.) a month.
Morales is a marquee player, however. He
is a 21-year-old switch-hitter considered
by many Major League scouts to be the most
talented Cuban position player since Omar
Linares, who chose to remain rather than
accept opportunities to defect in the mid-1990s.
Now, Morales' record-setting rookie year
in Cuba's National League and in international
tournaments will be forever removed from
the country's record books.
Robert Rowley, Latin and Central American
scout for the Padres, remembered seeing
Morales "destroy the U.S. team all
by himself" in July 2001 at an 18-and-under
Junior Pan-American Games Qualifier that
featured six Americans who would later be
drafted in the first round of the 2002 First-Year
Player Draft. Pitching that day, Morales
hit two home runs and also outdueled Mets
prospect Scott Kazmir by going the distance
and allowing just four hits.
"I remember all of the Cubans were
saying before the game, 'How are we going
to beat these guys?' Well, Kendry tore everybody
apart by himself," Rowley said.
"He would have been a great hitter
in the Major Leagues, probably bat third
in the order. He can hit any kind of pitch,
he's so good," Rowley said. "I
say 'would have been' because I don't think
he has a chance in hell to get out of Cuba
now. I think he's finished."
Added another Major League scout: "[Morales]
is Stan Javier with less speed and more
power. Is he Barry Bonds? No. But he's a
Major League player. This guy could play
every day and hit 20 to 25 home runs. He
can really throw and he can really hit."
Rodriguez did not rule out Morales' return
to the national team but others within Cuba
insisted such a scenario will never happen.
"If a player wants to get out of the
country, he may go the legal way,"
Rodriguez said. "They leave the team
when they are in another country in order
to defame our country. They are encouraged
to leave the country through propaganda."
In early November 2003, fewer than six
weeks before Morales would make a life-changing
decision in Caibarien, the Pre-Olympic Qualifying
Tournament in Panama was ripe with rumors.
"Even before he came down here, the
word was out that he was going to defect,"
Rowley said. "Then all of the sudden,
halfway through the tournament, they send
him back to Cuba."
Humberto Rodriguez, president of Cuba's
National Institute for Sports, Physical
Education and Recreation (INDER), said in
Cuba's state-run national newspaper, Granma
International, that in Panama, "there
were attempts to encourage our players to
defect."
INDER, which oversees all player movement
including transportation, has heightened
security to quell attempts by others to
flee. For example, in August 2003, Rodriguez,
Duenes, Morales, Canizares and reliever
Pedro Lazo did not travel to the Pan-American
Games in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.
And despite being named Most Valuable Player
of the 2002 World Cup, Canizares, 24, was
not allowed to participate in the October
2003 event held in Cuba. Canizares is considered
by Major League scouts to have a good arm
but below-average hitting ability.
This month, Eduardo Paret, the projected
starting shortstop on Cuba's Olympic team
and a member of Villa Clara's provincial
club, has been forbidden from practicing
and playing in games, apparently for security
reasons. Paret had been suspended a year
following the 2000 Olympic Games.
While Cuba does its best to shield its
players from the lures of distant shores,
it's a tide that appears to be impossible
to completely stem. Morales, among others,
will probably be tempted to try to defect
again.
"These agents work behind the scenes
setting this up," said an American
League scout who follows Cuban amateurs,
"and I would imagine they will try
again because he's a very talented player
with definite Major League ability."
Joe Connor is a contributor to MLB.com.
This story was not subject to the approval
of Major League Baseball or its clubs.
Cuba's
baseball: At a crisis stage?
Part
I / Players' revolt: Defection attempts
continue as star Kendry Morales and two
other national team members attempt to flee
Cuba
Part
II / Talent factory: An in-depth look at
Cuba's baseball academies and sports institutes
Part
III / Passion of the people: Cuba's historic
National League today. Also, MLB.com catches
up with former Washington Senator Conrado
Marrero and other legends
Part
IV / Olympic-size pressure: Can Cuba's legendary
Olympic team recapture gold in Athens?
Part
V / Cuba's baseball future? More players
to Japan and future contact with MLB in
the form of a World Cup appearance?
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