| CUBA
NEWS
The
Miami Herald
Early Cuba roster devoid of many young
prospects
By Kevin Baxter, jshain@MiamiHerald.com.
Posted on Wed, Feb. 01, 2006.
Cuba might be more interested in returning
from next month's World Baseball Classic
with a full plane than with a gold medal,
judging from the 60 players selected to
the country's preliminary roster.
Although teen pitchers Alberto Soto and
Israel Soto and high school-aged outfielder
Dayan Viciendo are among the players invited
to the opening of Team Cuba's training camp
in two weeks, nearly half the roster is
made up of aging national team veterans
who aren't likely candidates for defection.
Among those are 35-year-old left-hander
Adiel Palma, 32-year-old infielder and team
captain Eduardo Paret, 31-year-old catcher
Ariel Pestano, 35-year-old outfielder Juan
Carlos Linares -- all of whom have played
at least 10 seasons in Cuba's domestic national
series -- as well as veteran right-handers
Danny Betancourt, Vicyohandri Odelin and
Valeri Garcia, all of whom have spent significant
time recovering from injuries.
''These are guys with extensive travel
experience who can reasonably be expected
to return home,'' said one baseball expert
who closely follows the Cuban team, which
opens play March 8 in Puerto Rico against
Panama.
For Cuba, which has lost approximately
100 players to defection since 1991, that
game will mark its first appearance on U.S.
soil in nearly seven years. (Puerto Rico
is a U.S. territory).
However, the Cuban team could be competitive
in the Classic since its preselection also
includes infielder Michel Enriquez, who
is leading the Cuban league in hitting (.442);
former league batting champion Osmani Urrutia,
an outfielder who was hitting .439; power-hitting
infielder Yulieski Gourriel (a league-best
16 homers); and left-hander Maikel Folch,
who won his first eight decisions this winter.
Cuban has until March 2 to trim its roster
to the tournament-limit of 30 players. Including
players, coaches and trainers, the Cuban
team's delegation in Puerto Rico will be
limited to 45.
To accommodate the World Baseball Classic,
Cuban officials announced this week that
the island's national series will suspend
play for six weeks beginning Feb. 12.
Exiles, ex-communists are new medical
partners
Newly democratic Ukraine
is building a partnership with Miami's medical
community after severing ties to Cuba.
By Oscar Corral, ocorral@MiamiHerald.com.
Posted on Fri, Jan. 27, 2006.
On the surface, a group of Ukrainian doctors
visiting the University of Miami medical
school might seem like it has nothing to
do with Cuban exile politics.
Guess again.
The geopolitical struggle for influence
between Cuban leader Fidel Castro and the
Cuban exile community recently led a delegation
of prominent Miami doctors and politicians
to the heart of Ukraine -- a democracy plagued
with high cancer rates because of the Chernobyl
nuclear disaster of the 1980s.
Until recently, Cuba sent doctors to Ukraine
and hosted Ukrainian children for treatment,
a program of solidarity between the once-Soviet
satellite and the longest-standing communist
country in the Western Hemisphere.
But once Ukraine established itself as
a democracy after the so called ''Orange
Revolution'' in 2004, officials severed
most of their medical ties to Cuba and were
looking for alternate ways to help their
overwhelmed medical system.
Enter Cuban-American U.S. Rep. Lincoln
Diaz-Balart.
Diaz-Balart's office helped organize a
delegation to Ukraine last year to study
how Miami -- and the United States -- can
help treat the many cases of young people
fighting cancer related to radiation exposure
decades after the explosion at the Chernobyl
nuclear plant in 1986 killed 31.
''Ukraine needs help,'' Diaz-Balart said
at a news conference at UM's Batchelor Children's
Research Institute Wednesday. "We are
now committed and connected for life to
Ukraine.''
One of the visiting Ukrainians, Dr. Svitlana
Donska, said that during Soviet times, Cuba
and the Soviet Union had programs to connect
people and doctors.
But since then, Cuba's declining program
is "not for treating serious diseases.''
She said the trip was mostly to learn how
the UM and Jackson Memorial Hospital's administrative
systems and new technologies function.
''The philosophy is to put new service
in the country,'' she said.
Dr. Steven E. Lipshultz, chairman of UM's
School of Pediatrics, traveled to Ukraine
with the delegation and said he was surprised
by the ''miracles'' doctors there perform,
given limited resources.
He said the Ukrainians have an opportunity
to learn first hand from some of the best
doctors around the world during the Masters
of Pediatrics Conference in Miami Jan. 25-30.
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