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Contreras Resurfaces As Red Sox Nemesis

By Jimmy Golen, AP Sports Writer. Oct 3 2005.

CHICAGO - Jose Contreras picked the New York Yankees over the Red Sox when he defected from Cuba, and now he is in the way of Boston's title hopes again.

The White Sox right-hander will start Game 1 of the first-round playoff series against the Red Sox, three years after spurning them for their biggest rival. More ominous for Boston: Contreras is no longer an untested international prospect like he was when the Yankees signed him, but an established, topflight starter for Chicago.

"That's life and that's baseball," he said Monday on the workout day before the start of the series. "You don't know where you are going to be tomorrow. That's why you've got to be thankful for where you are at the moment. I feel comfortable with the White Sox."

Contreras (15-7) faces Matt Clement (13-6) on Tuesday in the opener of the best-of-five series.

Contreras was a 31-year-old Cuban star when he was the subject of an intense bidding war between the two AL East rivals. Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein went to Nicaragua, where Contreras had established residency, reportedly buying up every room in a hotel so other teams couldn't get close to the player or his agent.

But on Christmas Eve 2002, the Yankees gave Contreras a deal for four years and $32 million - the largest ever for a Cuban defector.

"He was a consensus top-of-the-rotation starter. That's why there was a bit of a bidding war for him," Epstein said. "You never really know with an international free agent."

Contreras moved quickly through the Yankees' system and went 7-2 with a 2.78 ERA in half a season for New York in '03. His ERA ballooned to 5.64 in the first part of last season before the Yankees sent him to Chicago at the trading deadline for Esteban Loaiza.

Things didn't start much better for him this season, when he won just one of his first eight starts. But starting with seven shutout innings against the Yankees on Aug. 9, he won eight of his last nine starts.

"I had no doubt in my mind, ever," Contreras said. "Even though the first half of the season didn't go as I wished, as everyone expected me to be, you've just got to face that you have ups and downs. I'm glad that it's on an 'up' side right now."

White Sox general manager Kenny Williams credits the change in environment for Contreras' turnaround. Getting out of the pressure in New York helped, along with having fellow Cuban Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez on the staff and a Spanish-speaking manager in Ozzie Guillen.

"I knew Jose would feel better here than he (felt) in New York," Guillen said. "It's different around the clubhouse with the people around him."

Contreras also changed his pitching motion, dropping his arm down at times and using his fastball to set up his other pitches, instead of the other way around. He is 11-2 since the All-Star break and reached career highs with 15 wins, 32 starts, 204 2-3 innings and 154 strikeouts.

"He's a little different than he was in the past," Epstein said. "I think the guy's future is finally manifesting itself. He's had a really good second half."

In that way, Contreras has been the opposite of Clement.

The Red Sox righty pitched across town for the Cubs the last three years and was courted by the White Sox, among others, when he became a free agent. He picked the defending World Series champions and cruised through the first half, winning more games by the All-Star break than he did in all of 2004.

He was 10-3 when he was hit in the head by a line drive on July 26 and missed a start, then went just 3-3 the rest of the season. After a seven-run, 1 1-3 inning loss to Oakland on Sept. 18, he pitched six shutout innings against the Orioles and then gave up four runs in five innings against the Blue Jays in his final regular-season start on Thursday.

"It's been a strange season from the get-go," he said. "(I) switched from a place where I was really comfortable and go to a place I didn't know much about and had a pretty good run at it early.

"It took a little time to get back on my feet. I was pretty lucky to ever throw another pitch after getting hit in the head," he said. "But stats are stats. I have to be ready to go."

Elian Gonzalez: Nothing Good About Time In Miami

WPLG Click10.com, Oct 3, 2005.

Six years after he was the focus of a struggle between Cubans here in South Florida and the communist government on the island of Cuba, Elian Gonzalez spoke about his feelings in a television interview.

Elian is 11 now, and he shared his thoughts on the ordeal during an interview on "60 Minutes." He described Fidel Castro as both a father and a friend.

Elian also said there was nothing good about his time in Miami.

He said, "And my uncles would talk to me about my mother, and that, it was better not to remind me of that. Because that tormented me to be remembering all that."

Those closest to Elian's family here in Miami say that they doubt those are really Elian's feelings.

They maintain the family did nothing but love Elian and try to give him a better life.

U.S. Sees Democracy for Post-Castro Cuba

By George Gedda, Associated Press Writer, Oct 1, 2005.

Fidel Castro looks like the 79-year-old he is, and the Bush administration has big ideas for Cuba once he departs.

When that day comes, U.S. officials want to leave little to chance about the island nation's political fate. They are prepared to go to some lengths to ensure that the communist system Castro created goes out with him.

It is official U.S. policy to "undermine" Cuba's planned succession from Castro to his brother Raul, 74. Just how that process would unfold is not clear.

"We are looking to support a genuine transition to political freedom for the Cuban people," said Caleb McCarry, the State Department official recently put in charge of transition matters for Cuba.

McCarry, a Republican who spent many years on Capitol Hill as an aide on Latin American issues, declined in an interview to address how the U.S. would carry out its policy on Cuban succession.

McCarry's appointment on July 28, with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice presiding, was one of the few at the department made in front of television cameras.

It gave Rice a platform for denouncing communist rule in Cuba, a stance perceived as a political winner for years among constituencies in South Florida and elsewhere in the U.S.

The appointment of a "transition coordinator" for Cuba arose in a 2004 report to President Bush by the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba, led by then-Secretary of State Colin Powell.

The report spells out steps to bring pressure on Castro and provide assistance if and when a democratically inclined leadership takes power.

Bush said upon the report's release: "We believe the people of Cuba should be free from tyranny. We believe the future of Cuba is a future of freedom."

The prospect of political transitions in other countries usually does not merit much attention. Cuba, however, is a special case.

A friendly government in Havana would mean an end to a security headache for Washington that has lasted 46 years.

According to the report last year, not long after Castro's demise, 100,000 tons of food could be purchased quickly and shipped to Cuba.

U.S. charities would be encouraged to create and contribute to a foundation to aid a "Free Cuba." American government officials would carry out a "hands-on needs assessment" as soon as possible. There are detailed plans for upgrading Cuba's health and education system.

The 400-plus page report discusses ways to modernize Cuba's aviation, railroad and maritime infrastructure. It envisions U.S. assistance in holding free and fair elections, fighting corruption and establishing independent trade unions.

Wayne Smith, a Cuba expert and former U.S. diplomat who long has advocated establishing normal U.S. relations with Cuba, said he is outraged by the administration's plan. It is "blatant intervention in the internal affairs of another state," Smith said.

"They talk about how we are going to oversee and facilitate the transition. Who gives us that right?" Smith asked.

The president of Cuba's National Assembly, Ricardo Alarcon, likens the U.S. plan to an annexation or occupation of Cuba. He says the U.S. would regard Cuba "as a piece of land administered by the U.S."

"The whole strategy," Alarcon said in reference to the report, "is getting in forever."

Castro, not surprisingly, debunks the notion that any change is needed in Cuba.

"We had our transition in 1959," he has said, alluding to the year that he took power.

McCarry rejects charges that Washington's assistance plan is a blueprint for U.S. control.

"The offer is not an imposition," he said, asserting that none of the proposed programs would go into place without the consent of the transitional government on the island.

McCarry noted that some of the recommendations in Powell's report already are in effect.

Measures to reduce travel to Cuba by Americans as well as by Cuban-Americans are believed to have reduced the island's dollar income by some $500 million, McCarry said.

TV Marti, a U.S. government broadcasting service to the island, reaches more households in Cuba these days because new technology has been able to partially overcome Cuban jamming, he said.

"We need to give Cubans the opportunity for a different future and better future," McCarry said. "What people lack under the dictatorship is hope. They have to hope there will be a better future."

American Group Builds Playgrounds in Cuba

AP, Sep 30, 2005.

A group of Americans has found a unique way to work in Cuba despite tough U.S. restrictions on travel to the communist-run island: building playgrounds for children.

Forty-nine volunteers led by San Diego real estate investor Bill Hauf are spending the week digging holes and assembling modern park equipment in four Havana neighborhoods.

But they aren't talking about politics, particularly the U.S. trade and travel restrictions aimed at squeezing the communist-run island's economy and pushing out President Fidel Castro.

"We have been very successful with this project because we have been apolitical," Hauf said. "Both governments seem to understand this program is to help children _ in this case, they happen to be Cuban children. Our objective is to not take political sides."

Hauf led his first group of American volunteers here two years ago to help construct three playgrounds.

The Treasury Department grants Americans licenses to travel to Cuba for humanitarian, religious and academic trips. The U.S. travel ban prohibits all Americans from ordinary tourism in Cuba.

As the government has tightened those limits, the numbers of Americans visiting has dropped. And those who do come seem increasingly reticent to speak out against the decades-old U.S. policy.

The number of Americans coming to Cuba fell 40 percent from 85,809 in 2003 to 51,027 last year, according to a Cuban government report issued this week in protest against U.S. sanctions. The numbers fell further in 2005, the report said.

So-called "people-to-people" travel was encouraged under former President Clinton to plant democratic ideals in Cuba. But President Bush's administration has sought more stringent enforcement of the restrictions forbidding most travel here.

The Bush government complains many American travelers and institutions given U.S. licenses abuse them by engaging in "disguised tourism."

New U.S. rules purportedly aim to cut down on tourism under academic or humanitarian pretenses and ensure Americans see more than white-sand beaches and salsa concerts. Those coming without permission are being fined in record numbers.

"We have to be extremely cautious and make sure that they really want to come and work every day," Hauf said of the volunteers for the playground-building trip. "So far, we've had 100 percent participation."

Americans in shorts and baseball caps set up brightly colored climbing equipment on a recent scorching day in a corner park in a western Havana neighborhood while passers-by peered through a metal fence.

"How lovely!" exclaimed 65-year-old Candidad Gallego, an umbrella shading her from the sun's intense rays. "We are really happy with this _ my granddaughter can hardly wait to come."

The Americans came from more than a dozen states. A dance instructor from Illinois and a retired military officer in Oregon were among them.

"Some of the buildings look really old, it's so different," Katie Roberts, a 17-year-old from Arlington, Va., said of Havana. "But it's good just to be outside the little bubble we live in. This is a lot more rewarding than the beach."

The high school senior's father, Mike Roberts, said he was seeing a different side of Cuba than the one presented by the U.S. government.

"We are so isolated from the Cubans," said the older Roberts, an attorney who represents a shipping company with service to Cuba. "We have impressions that tend to be distorted because of the rhetoric our governments throw at people."

The group _ It's Just the Kids, Inc. _ was constructing four new playgrounds on the weeklong trip ending Saturday. They can return to Cuba in the spring to build four more under its two-year U.S. license.

Cuba May Play in World Baseball Classic

AP, Sep 29, 2005.

SAN DIEGO - Baseball officials said Thursday they expect Cuba to participate in the first World Baseball Classic in March.

"They're not formally in yet," said Gene Orza, the chief operating officer of the players association.

"There's a process that you have to go through to play with the Cubans, through the United States government. The license has been applied for. We're hopeful for a favorable response. I personally don't believe that the participation of Cuba poses any problems," he said.

Japan's players' association agreed this month to participate in the World Baseball Classic, which will be the first international tournament to feature major league players. The 16-country tournament begins March 3.

San Diego's Petco Park will host the semifinals on March 18 and the finals on March 20.

As a contingency, Orza said there are other countries that could fill Cuba's spot if it doesn't come.

"Bear in mind that America plays against Cuba in a host of international tournaments," Orza said. "I fully expect the Cubans to be in Puerto Rico in round one."

Paul Archey, senior vice president of Major League Baseball International, echoed Orza's sentiments.

"We're going through the processes we need to go through in this country and they're going through the same processes. We're going through communications with them that lead us to believe that they'll play."

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