For young players it's make it to the major leagues or bust
By DAVID CARRIGG, Edmonton Sun. Tuesday, August 15, 2000.
It's "major league or bust" for Cuban baseball defectors, says the agent who plotted the escape of two young Cuban players from Edmonton last week.
But the same man, New York-based Joe Kehoskie, conceded yesterday he doesn't represent any Major League Baseball players.
"I've got dozens of clients with minor-league contracts that are slowly advancing on to the major league," Kehoskie said. "My company is only four years old and my market is 16-, 17- and 18-year-old Latin kids who sign their first professional contract through me."
Kehoskie was in Edmonton last week to co-ordinate the defection of Cuban catcher William Plaza, 17, and Yolexandry Reina, 18, to an unknown country, believed to be Mexico.
"If you defect from Cuba it's Major League Baseball or bust," he said.
After the defections International Baseball Federation member and Edmonton 2000 World Junior AAA Baseball Championships director Gaston Panaye slammed Kehoskie.
"They approached me, there was no luring," Kehoskie said. "I'm not some greedy agent that waits outside the field with hundred-dollar notes trying to lure impressionable young players. We got in, did what we had to do and got out. They are very good players. Plaza is one of the
top two Cuban pitchers in his age group, which is the prime professional prospect age group. Reina is also considered a great player. He was approached in Venezuela by agents who suggested he consider a career in pro ball."
Kehoskie hopes the two players will get "six-figure contracts" within the next four weeks.
Kehoskie then gets a cut of their rookie league contract. Kehoskie won't say where the players are, but did say the pair did not stop in the U.S., where they would have faced passport checks, and applied for refugee status in the country of landing as soon as they arrived.
"They know they'll miss their family but at some point they'll be reunited in a much better life than they have in Cuba," he said.
"All Cubans I've dealt with are proud to be Cuban but they say it's hell to live there."
Foreign baseball players who win contracts in the U.S. are given a visa that allows them to stay in the country.
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