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February 3, 2003.
Cuban players cash in on mystique
Rod Beaton USA TODAY
Because they remain beyond the reach of major league baseball teams, players
from Cuba come with a certain mystique when they defect.
For Mike Arbuckle, the Philadelphia Phillies (news)' assistant general
manager, it's ''this aura that springs up,'' compelling teams to invest millions
in Cuban defectors who never have thrown a pitch or taken a swing in a major
league game.
It hasn't always been money well spent.
''The bidding reaches dollars beyond the value,'' Arbuckle says. ''We'd
rather spend that kind of money on Kevin Millwood,'' the established
right-hander the Phillies acquired from Atlanta this winter and signed to a $9.9
million contract for this season.
Since pitcher Rene Arocha walked away from the Cuban national team during a
stopover at Miami International Airport in 1991, more than 50 players have
defected from Cuba.
The latest is pitcher Jose Contreras, the former ace of the Cuban national
team, who is on the verge of finalizing a four-year, $32 million contract with
the New York Yankees (news). Contreras' contract is the heftiest yet for a Cuban
defector.
Unlike other baseball-playing Latin American countries such as the Dominican
Republic and Venezuela, where players are scouted and signed as teenagers, Cuba
doesn't allow its players to leave the country to play professionally in the
USA. Defection has been the only way for Cuban players to reach the majors since
Fidel Castro came to power in 1959.
Such isolation has created the mystique surrounding the top players fleeing
Cuba, particularly the pitchers. And those defectors able to set up residency in
a third country, thus avoiding baseball's yearly June draft, have been able to
command millions from major league teams.
Contreras a no-risk expense
In this pricey market, the Yankees typically have been the most
free-spending team, encountering the washouts and the successes.
Before Contreras, their coup acquisition was signing right-hander Orlando
''El Duque'' Hernandez to a four-year, $6.6. million contract in 1998. Sent to
the Montreal Expos (news) this month in a three-team trade, El Duque has a 9-3
postseason record.
But washout third baseman Andy Morales, who got a $4.5 million contract, and
right-hander Adrian ''El Duquecito'' Hernandez at $4 million and still in the
minors with the Yankees, have been investments who failed to pan out.
''We've said it a thousand times, the high-revenue clubs can make up for
their mistakes with another signing,'' says Seattle Mariners (news) general
manager Pat Gillick. ''This time they've got a real good one'' in Contreras.
Contreras, impressive with eight shutout innings in a 1999 exhibition game
against the Baltimore Orioles (news) in Havana, could be the best Cuban pitcher
to defect in the past 10 years. His contract terms eclipsed the previous record
deal (based on annual average): the four-year, $14.5 million contract the
Cleveland Indians (news) gave right-hander Danys Baez in 1999.
The Yankees believe Contreras is a no-risk expense. He has command of four
excellent pitches. His fastball and curve are better than most, and he can go to
a slider and a splitter. Last season he was 13-4 with a 1.76 ERA, best in the
Cuban league, which determines which players make the national team.
Overall, Contreras was 117-50 with a 2.82 ERA in his career in Cuba. He is
7-0 with a 0.59 ERA in games against pro players.
''He's the real deal,'' says Milton Jamail, author of Full Count: Inside
Cuban Baseball. ''He should be able to fit right into the Yankees' rotation.''
Gillick says Contreras is ''a real competitor,'' superior to his
predecessors in this wave of Cuban pitchers who have defected.
The other Cuban pitchers who have slipped out have done little overall. None
has had a 20-win season, earned an All-Star berth or Cy Young award. For fairly
consistent quality in major league performances, the exceptions are ''El Duque''
and his half-brother Livan Hernandez, who pitches for the San Francisco Giants
(news).
Livan Hernandez is 69-69 with a 4.42 ERA in seven seasons. But he's 6-2 with
a 4.00 ERA in 10 postseason games, including MVP awards for the 1997 National
League (news) Championship Series and '97 World Series (news - web sites).
''El Duque'' is 53-38 with a 4.04 ERA in a five-year career with the
Yankees.
With El Duque out and Contreras in, the Yankees still must determine how
seven starters fit into five slots, with Roger Clemens, Mike Mussina, Andy
Pettitte, David Wells, Jeff Weaver and Sterling Hitchcock in the fold.
The Yankees ''will find a place for him,'' Gillick says of Contreras.
Uphill battle with homesickness
Al Avila, assistant general manager of the Detroit Tigers (news), says two
reasons many Cuban pitchers fail after their escape are the new, higher level of
competition and the homesickness they confront.
The Cuban national team travels the baseball world. Excluding exhibitions
like the one with Baltimore three years ago, in which Contreras starred, they
are rarely challenged.
''Homesickness might be the biggest obstacle,'' says Avila, whose father,
Ralph, took his family from Castro's Cuba to the USA and became a scout and
executive for the Los Angeles Dodgers (news). Many players, Avila says, must
leave a family behind, with no guarantees they will be reunited.
The cultural changes also present hardships. The players, Avila says, are
dazzled by the money after leaving an island where giving a can of shaving
cream, a hair bush, jeans, CDs or other consumer items makes one a friend for
life.
''To get away from a dictatorship and then to have everything, it can be a
dangerous transition,'' Avila says.
Avila signed Livan Hernandez, who packed on 30 pounds in his first few
months in the USA. Hernandez had discovered the Big Mac. He has fought a battle
of the bulge since.
For those reasons, Contreras is no sure thing for the Yankees. His age, arm
and approach seem to assure success, but . . .
''If anyone tells you they know what's really inside the player, they're
lying,'' Avila says, ''but everything that you look for from a pitcher is
there'' with Contreras.
Cuban dissident Paya returns home to continue pro-democracy project
By Mar Roman, Associated Press Writer Sun Feb 2, 6:03 PM ET
HAVANA - Greeted with a burst of applause from family and friends, Cuban
dissident Oswaldo Paya returned home Sunday, pledging to continue his
pro-democracy petition drive and stressing that a peaceful change of regime here
will be possible.
"I'm back at home with the same hope," said a cheery and excited
Paya after embracing his wife, Ofelia, and his tearful 79-year-old father,
Alejandro, at Jose Marti International Airport.
"Our Varela project continues. It's a campaign from the Cuban people
and we will continue until all Cubans achieve their rights," he said.
Paya is the lead organizer of the Varela Project, which took advantage of a
clause in Cuba's communist constitution allowing citizens to seek a national
referendum if they can collect 10,000 signatures.
In May, Cuba's opposition leaders delivered a petition with 11,020
signatures to the National Assembly, demanding election reforms. The government
has ignored the move.
Paya, who founded the Christian Liberation Movement, left Cuba on Dec. 14 to
receive the European Union's top human rights award, the Sakharov Prize. Since
then, he has visited several countries, including Spain, Mexico, the United
States and the Czech Republic seeking endorsement of his Varela project.
During his 48-day world tour, Paya has held talks with Pope John Paul (news
- web sites) II in Rome, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites)
in Washington, leaders of Cuba's exile community in Miami and Mexican President
Vicente Fox in Mexico City.
"The world's reception to the Varela project is a solidarity message
supporting the Cuban people and its right" to peaceful change, said Paya,
adding that many Cuban exiles in the United States are aiming for a peaceful
move to democracy in the Caribbean island.
"The change in Cuba is going to happen," Paya said with a big
smile before disappearing in a wine-colored 1950s Chevrolet.
Those waiting for Paya's arrival at the airport included other prominent
Cuban dissidents such as Vladimiro Roca and Hector Palacios, members of the
nonviolent opposition movement which calls for political and economic changes in
Cuba's communist system.
"Now is the time when the Varela project starts," Palacios said. "Paya's
travel abroad is a very important event for us."
The Varela petition asks for a referendum on several proposed laws that
would guarantee civil rights such as freedom of speech, assembly and the right
to own a private business. The proposals also include electoral reforms and an
amnesty for political prisoners.
But Cuba's communist government views Paya with grim disapproval, while many
Cubans have hardly heard of him.
A former political prisoner who was condemned to forced labor by the regime
of President Fidel Castro (news - web sites), he says he has often been harassed
and threatened by Cuban security forces.
Paya has also recently been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by outgoing
Czech President Vaclav Havel, who himself was once a dissident against a
communist government.
In Cuba, History's Joy -- and Curse
By Sucharita Mulpuru. Monday February 3, 8:38 am ET.
BusinessWeek Online
Continental Flight 4880, the 8 a.m. departure from Miami for Havana, has an
unorthodox check-in. The flight isn't listed on any of the departure screens.
Passengers must report to a makeshift desk run by the charter travel company
that sells the tickets. There, downstairs by the baggage carousels starting
three hours before takeoff, boarding passes are distributed on a first-come,
first-served basis. It all seems a metaphor for under-the-radar relations
between America and Cuba.
Despite travel restrictions on U.S. citizens and other hassles, tourism is
growing -- albeit more slowly than Cuban officials had hoped. Every year, more
than 200,000 Americans -- politicians, businessmen, artists, journalists,
academics, and legions of Cuban Americans visiting relatives -- manage the trip,
90% with the approval of U.S. authorities. The rest enter illegally via places
like Canada and Mexico.
I became part of that 90% when I toured Cuba for 10 days in December with 28
classmates from Stanford Business School. Every year, MBA students propose
visits to foreign countries, and when Cuba was approved as 2002's destination, I
found the prospect of visiting the Western hemisphere's last communist bastion
in the company of my B-school's card-carrying capitalists to be irresistible.
SALSA, CIGARS, RUM. We ended up seeing the island and meeting with officials
from various government ministries involved with tourism, as well as foreign
hotel owners, beach-resort developers, and former CIA agent Philip Agee, now
operating a Havana travel agency for Americans. Unfortunately, Fidel Castro was
ill and couldn't meet with us.
Americans represent only a small part of the nearly 1.2 million visitors who
come to Cuba every year, mainly from Canada, Spain, France, Germany, and
Britain. They pour nearly $2 billion into the economy, outstripping revenues
from sugar and other core crops such as tobacco. Despite U.S. travel
restrictions, Cuba's tourism receipts are comparable to other popular Caribbean
destinations like Jamaica and Costa Rica. "Until September 11, tourism grew
at a compound annual rate of an astounding 25%," explains leading Cuban
economist Omar Everleny. All this would seem to put tourism on a path to
dominate the island's economy.
Cuba's appeal is evident as the plane descends on Havana and a vista of
stunning countryside and sweeping beaches that cover the longest coastline in
the Caribbean fills the window. On the ground, the weather is almost always
balmy, and you can't help being entranced by the infectious musical rhythms on
every street corner, constant salsa dancing, and seductive aromas of the
island's legendary cigars and superb rum.
Given Cuba's physical and cultural attractions, it's not surprising that in
the late 1950s more than 30 flights a day made the 90-mile hop from Miami.
Americans by the thousands tanned themselves on the beaches and gambled in the
notorious casinos of its capital city.
FAREWELL, COMRADE. The Castro regime quashed all that on January 1, 1959,
when mobs stormed the gambling palaces, smashing roulette wheels and craps
tables. But many years later, the desperate need for dollars after the fall of
the Soviet Union made attracting tourists an imperative. When Soviet support
ended, what Cubans know as the island's "special period" from 1990 to
1993 saw a 35% decline in gross domestic product -- a decline that Mark Frank,
editor of the Economic Eye on Cuba newsletter, says "could only be
comparable to a country after war."
To rescue the economy, Castro decided to accept the U.S. dollar as legal
tender, privatize small businesses, court foreign investment from countries like
Spain and Canada, and boost tourism, which was generating a mere $250 million in
1990.
Perhaps the most prominent sign of tourism's revival is Habana Vieja [Old
Havana], the proud project of Eusebio Leal, an architect-historian who 10 years
ago reinvigorated efforts to preserve the district, which was declared a UNESCO
World Heritage Site in the early 1980s. Once a grand and stately neighborhood,
the quarter-mile-square district fell into disrepair after Castro took power.
Leon talked Castro into allowing him to run a company, Habanaguanex, which
raises funds -- mostly foreign ones -- to renovate buildings, generate cash from
tourists, and pour profits into more rebuilding. More than $200 million has been
raised since 1994, with the current goal being to renovate 25 hotels by 2005.
The new Old Havana already has scores of recently refurbished stores,
cobblestone streets, piazzas, and restaurants, all attracting the musicians and
entertainers who bring the neighborhood alive.
SNOWBIRD DESTINATION? Critics of Leal's project abound. The most charitable
dismiss it as a facade thrown up for the cruise-ship crowd [Havana is a
significant port for European ships]. Others say the project's greatest strength
is its continued ability to bamboozle foreign investors, who have yet to see any
profits and must cede 51% ownership to Cuba's government. "I don't know why
the Europeans keep investing," marvels Teddy Taylor, the Consul General of
the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, the closest thing the U.S. has to an
embassy on the island.
While foreign investors aren't seeing profits, they're at least gaining
market share. Spanish chain Sol Melia now manages 23 properties that account for
almost 25% of the island's 36,000 hotel rooms. Enrique Arias, a banker with
BBVA, a European group whose holdings are primarily in Latin America, believes
investments could pay off -- eventually. "With the high doctor-patient
ratio, inexpensive and nice beaches, and warm climates, Cuban real estate has
real potential for American retirees," he notes.
U.S. travel restrictions remain the most daunting challenge facing Cuba's
tourism industry. Old Havana's renovation and the construction of beach resorts
at places like Varadero were undertaken in anticipation of an influx of
Americans. But the Helms-Burton law passed by the U.S. Congress in 1996 not only
crimped the flow of U.S. visitors but also continues to curtail foreign
investment by penalizing in the U.S. any outfit also doing business in Cuba. Sol
Melia had to relinquish its U.S. holdings to become a player in Cuba.
$50 SPAM. U.S. policy affects tourism in other ways as well. Much to the
surprise of many first-time visitors, Cuba isn't cheap. American staples --
things like steak and shampoo, for example -- are scarce, and imported
substitutes expensive. Additionally, prices are regulated and taxes high. It's
not uncommon to pay $10 for a cocktail, a small bottle of water costs $2, and
seats at the Tropicana nightclub start at $70. Author Isadora Tattlin, who spent
four years in Cuba and recounted her experiences in Cuba Diaries: An American
Housewife in Havana, tells of Spam going for $50 a can.
With the government collecting most of the profits, the few private
Cuban-owned tourism companies have dwindled. Paladares, the tiny restaurants
operated by Cuban citizens in their homes, once numbered some 1,500. Now a mere
200 remain. And despite high prices, heavy taxes have forced many of the
remaining small businesses into the red.
Still, given that the Castro regime exerts an iron grip on the rest of
Cuba's economy, many Cubanos are rushing into tourism -- a trend that has caused
a brain drain in high-skill professions. Thanks to hard-currency tips, educated
Cubans can multiply their incomes by switching to tourist-industry service jobs.
For example, the taxi driver who brought me from the from the airport was an
aeronautical engineer, and one of our hotel's bartenders was a doctor.
Tourism continues to inspire high hopes among some investors. "I
believe that Cuba could be to America like Hong Kong is to Asia," says Enzo
Alberto, the Canadian-Italian CEO of ICC, a major investor in the island's
Internet infrastructure. Perhaps. But not until the U.S. trade embargo ends and
the Cuban government loosens its stranglehold on the economy.
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