Cubans Dominating Major League Baseball!!

A Riveting Microcosm of Cuba-U.S. Relations

{Updated: Tuesday, August 27th, 2013}

        This past Sunday -- August 25th, 2013 -- the New York Times used the above photo of Cuban outfielder Alfredo Despaigne to illustrate a long article, written by Ben Strauss, entitled: "Stream of Talent Continues to Flow From Cuba." Strauss pointed out that Despaigne is playing professionally in Mexico with Cuba's permission as the island reacts to the flood of other players being siphoned off by U. S. Major League teams. Despaigne played 33 games for Piratas de Campeche in Mexico and hit .338 with 8 homers. He kept 80% of his salary with the remaining 20% going to Cuba's National Institute of Sport. 

The arrangement with Despaigne reflects the resilience that keeps Cuba from being devoured.

But America's devouring the island's wealth of baseball talent is particularly nettlesome.

Cuba is peeved that Cuban-exile extremists are now facilitating baseball defections.

 

      According to Cesar Lopez's informative www.cubanball.com, as of today there are 136 Cubans playing professional baseball in the United States with 34 in the Major Leagues, many of them multi-millionaire superstars. And recently elements have conspired to create The Perfect Storm that has opened the baseball spigots from Cuba wider than ever before. The unfathomable convergence includes:

1: Cuba now very freely issuing exit visas on the island, even for dissidents to leave and return.

2: Television revenue providing billions of dollars for 30 Major League teams to purchase players.

3: A cottage industry of money-makers attaching themselves to the gigantic financial windfalls.

4: Revengeful Cuban exiles believing baseball defections are another way to hurt Castro's Cuba.

5: Cuba realizing that multi-millionaire baseball players will aid family members on the island.

And.........

6: Cuba per capita unprecedentedly producing more baseball talent than any place on the planet.

Now let's view how the Cuba-to-U.S. baseball spigot evolved into a perfect storm scenario:

       Yasiel Puig has emerged as the most sensational Major League baseball player in 2013. The Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder is only 22-year-old; he was born on December 7, 1990 in Cienfuegos, Cuba, and he is a prime example of the young Cuban superstars who are now dominating Major League baseball. The Dodgers signed the 21-year-old Puig for $42 million last season. At age 22, Puig is already far superior to many Major League players earning upwards of $20 million a year, so his future earnings are stratospheric!

         The awesomely rich Dodgers were in last place and trailed the Arizona Diamondbacks by 10 games in the NL West when Puig was called up on June 3rd. Since then, the Dodgers have been the best team in the Major Leagues and are now running away with the NL West divisional title, largely thanks to Yasiel Puig!

         The Miami Marlins Jose Fernandez is the most sensational young pitcher in Major League baseball. Born on July 31, 1992 in Santa Clara, Cuba, Fernandez was siphoned off the island to Miami at age 14. 

This week when the Dodgers played the Marlins in Miami, Puig and Fernandez met face-to-face.

The sensational Fernandez beat Puig and the Dodgers; the next night Puig's 2-run homer beat Miami.

       Yasiel Puig also made news this week when he said, if afforded the opportunity, he would play for his native Cuba in international competitions. Of course, the hostile Cuban exile-controlled American Cuban policy would not allow that and Puig, in line to make hundreds of millions of American dollars, would not jeopardize his future contracts. Cuba once totally dominated international competition, but no more.

       Adeiny Hechavarria is Jose Fernandez's teammate as the young shortstop for the Miami Marlins. Adeiny is 24-years-old; he was born April 15, 1989 in Santiago de Cuba. The re-building Marlins play their home games in their new stadium in Miami's Little Havana district. Now that the floodgates have been opened to baseball-rich Cuba, look for the Marlins to add as many Cubans as possible. However, they will have to join the frenzied, effervescent bidding that also involves the other 29 Major League teams.

Jose Iglesias was born January 5, 1990 in Havana; he's already the star shortstop for the Detroit Tigers.

This is Jose Iglesias and teammate Austin Jackson celebrating a win over the Chicago White Sox.

The star shortstop and best player for the Chicago White Sox is Cuban Alexei Ramirez.

Alexei Ramirez {above} was born on September 22, 1981 in Pinar del Rio, Cuba.

A few years ago Yoenis Cespedes {above} was a great young hitter for the Cuban National Team.

Yoenis Cespedes was born October 18, 1985 in Campechuela, Granma Province, Cuba.

Now Yoenis Cespedes is a great young hitter for the Oakland Athletics.

Last month Cepedes won the Home Run Derby at the All-Star Game.

Cepedes {left} and Puig {right} can now exchange views on what it's like being new multi-millionaires!

        The Cincinnati Reds made Aroldis Chapman a  young multi-millionaire. He was born on February 28th, 1988 in Holguin Province, Cuba, and began pitching for the Holguin Sabuesos in 2006. He pitched for the Cuban National Team in the 2007 Pan American Games and in the 2009 World Baseball Classic. Cincinnati on Jan. 10-2010 guaranteed him $30.25 million as a prelude to the much bigger contracts that will follow. 

Aroldis Chapman got his 33rd "save" for the Reds this week.

He is the only pitcher ever to throw fastballs consistently at around 105 miles-an-hour. 

And now that the Cuban pipeline is wide open, the beat goes on!

       Cuban right-hander Vladimir Garcia {above} has defected and several Major League teams are begging him to let them make him 50-million-dollars richer. Potential alone creates instant millionaires in baseball.

This big first baseman, Jose Abreu, has defected and soon he might have $100 million in his bank account.

       That's Jose Abreu sliding into second baseball for Cuba against Japan in recent international competition. Many scouts believe Abreu is a better hitter than either Yoenis Cespedes or Yasiel Puig, both of whom have quickly become Major League superstars. Abreu's statistics in Cuban baseball far exceed comparable numbers put up by Cespedes or Puig. In Cuba the baseball fans lovingly call Abreu "Pito." 

       This is Jose Abreu at age 24 in 2011 sliding into second base for the Cienfuegos Elephants in Cuba. That year in just 82 games he hit .453 with 33 homers -- statistics never approached by Puig, Cespedes or any other Cuban player. Now that he has defected and the spigot is truly open in an era when Major League Baseball is awash with billion-dollar television contracts, Jose Abreu is about to cash in big time!

       Havana-born Ileana Ros-Lehtinen has been entrenched in the U. S. Congress from Miami since 1989. She is viscerally anti-Castro and is a key component of the rich and powerful band of Cuban exiles that many feel self-servingly dictates America's Cuban policy. Last month when a Cuban national team was playing a U. S. college-level squad in a five-game tournament, Congresswoman Ros-Lehtinen was the very first to announce that a Cuban pitcher from Santa Clara had defected. She broke the news with this Tweet: "2day pitcher Misael Siver defected hours after arriving in U.S. Welcome 2 freedom." While money is the primary lure for Cuban baseball stars to defect to the United States, there are other factors on this side of the Florida Straits too -- such as revenge by anti-Castro zealots who believe such defections hurt Fidel and thus greasing the skids colors the equation. But a lot of the baseball money ends up in Cuba.

For example....

       Luis Tiant made big money during his 19-year Major League career. Luis never forgot that he was born on Nov. 23-1940 in Marianao, Cuba. During and after his playing days, he sent a lot of money to Cuba.

Luis Tiant was a great pitcher for the Cleveland Indians; he was 21-and-9 for the Indians in 1968.

      And Luis Tiant is in the Boston Red Sox Hall of Fame. From 1973 through 1976 he won 20, 22, 18, and 21 games during a four-year span for Boston where he is still considered an all-time baseball superstar.

Recently, for the first time in 46 years, Luis Tiant smoked a cigar on Cuba soil {above}!

This time Luis Tiant {above} personally delivered roles of dollar bills to Cuban relatives and friends. 

       Antonio Castro, the son of Fidel Castro, is a huge baseball fan. A well-respected doctor on the island, he is also the team doctor for Cuban national teams, as television viewers remember from seeing him during the Olympic and World Baseball Classic competitions. Tony says, "It is bittersweet for me when players like Pito {Jose Abreu} leave the island. And I shed tears with other fans when we learn they have left. But at the same time, we are proud and happy for them as they chase their dreams in the United States. God bless baseball and the United States for giving them such opportunities that we in Cuba cannot give them."

      Tony Castro, on the left above in his capacity as a team doctor in Cuba, is one of baseball's most respected ambassadors. He is Vice President of the World Baseball Federation and is leading the fight to restore baseball to the Olympics. When the Oakland A's played in Toronto against the Blue Jays recently, the Toronto Star reported on the very amiable meeting Tony had with the A's top star, Yoenis Cespedes.

     Fidel Castro turned 87-years-old this month and, like his son Tony, he remains a fervent baseball fan. In the 1940s -- after being named Cuba's Athlete of the Year for his prowess in baseball, track, and basketball -- Fidel was offered try-outs as a right-handed pitcher by both the Philadelphia Athletics and Washington Senators of the American League. He considered the offers and also contemplated Law School at either Georgetown or Colombia University...before he entered Law School at the University of Havana where he got his degree but also acquired a hatred for U. S. - backed dictator Fulgencio Batista. The rest, of course, is history. Fidel, by the way, believes that the best baseball player in Cuban history was a third baseman named Omar Linares, who was afforded many opportunities to defect but chose never to do so although he played parts of three seasons in Japan. Fidel was once obsessed with the career of Camilo Pascual.

     Fidel Castro's favorite Cuban Major League baseball player was Camilo Pascual, a right-handed pitcher like Fidel. Fidel believed he had talent comparable to Camilo and thus closely monitored Camilo's success in the U. S. to gauge what might have been his success had he not spurned a $3,000 signing bonus from the Washington Senators. Instead Fidel finished Law School in Havana and then began his campaign to overthrow the Batista dictatorship. Camilo Pascual was born on January 20, 1934 in Havana. At age 18 he accepted an offer from the Senators and became a Major Leaguer in 1954 at age 20. Camilo spent 18 superb years in the Majors, finishing up with the Cleveland Indians in 1971, and was an All-Star 7 times. 

        In 1961 the Washington Senators franchise moved to Minnesota and became the Minnesota Twins. In 1961 and 1962 Camilo was the best pitcher in the American League. He was 20-and-11 in 1961 and 21-9 in 1962 with the Twins. Throughout the 1960s most Major Leaguers agreed that Camilo had the best curve ball in baseball. As the barometer by which Fidel Castro measured his ability as a pitcher, Camilo Pascual was so good that, according to their good friend Juan Almeida, once in the early 1960s Celia Sanchez was so miffed at Fidel's obsession with Camilo's baseball career that she teased him with this comment: "Sometimes I wish you were really over there pitching alongside your Camilo Pascual! I think you do too." 

       Brayan Pena, the veteran catcher {he was born January 7, 1982 in Havana} for the AL West-leading Detroit Tigers, agrees with Fidel Castro about who was the all-time best Cuban baseball player -- Omar Linares! And Pena has seen or played with or against all of the current Cuban superstars in the Major Leagues. In a recent article in the Detroit News, Pena said, "Omar was like the Miguel Cabrera of our time." {Miguel Cabrera is the current Detroit 3rd baseman and reigning Triple Crown champion -- batting average, homers, and runs-batted-in} Pena added, "Omar was my idol, the idol for all of us. Everybody in Cuba was amazed by the way he handled himself on and off the field. He played at a level known only to himself."

       To this day Cubans on the island call Omar Linares {above} "El Nino," The Kid. He was born on Oct. 23-1967 in Pinar del Rio Province. By age 14 he was starring in Cuba's strongest league. For twenty years, as a star third baseman, he was the best player Fidel Castro, Bryan Pena, and other Cubans ever saw.

Omar Linares at age 14 on his way to becoming a baseball legend in Cuba.

The 15-year-old Omar Linares with his father Fidel Linares admiring a baseball trophy.

Omar Linares was a brilliant base-runner with "perfect baseball instincts" according to Pena.

Omar Linares preparing to bat for his Pinar del Rio team.

Omar Linares in his final at bat for the Cuban National Team in the World Baseball Classic.

He never played in the U. S. Major Leagues but he is still considered Cuba's best all-time player.

And by the way............

        Sarah Rainsford {above} is your best bet if you seek insightful, unbiased news from Cuba. Her report for England's BBC this week, for example, revealed the magical hold baseball has on the island. She also deftly encapsulated how Cubans are reacting to losing one superstar baseball player after another to lucrative U. S. contracts. No other journalist is close to Sarah Rainsford when it comes to capturing the moods and feelings of Cubans on the island. Politically correct, biased or intimidated U. S. journalists regularly paint distorted portraits of an island that, both positively and negatively, impacts American values daily. Thus, when you do Google searches you should dial up "BBC" and then "Sarah Rainsford."

        Sarah Rainsford's BBC report on Cuban baseball this week included this photo/video image of awestruck Cuban boys dreaming of being future multi-millionaire baseball players in the United States. 

And it seems those dreams are realistic!

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Screwing Cuba Screws the U.S. in Latin America

Updated: Friday, August 23, 2013

        ABC News {abcnews.go.com} on August 7th, 2013 used the above photo of Cuban right-hander Vladimir Garcia to illustrate an investigative report entitled: "U. S. Screws Cuba's International Baseball Plans." It is one of the almost-daily major headlines that demonstrates to the world America's unending self-inflicted wound for doggedly, since 1959, following a cruel and asinine policy that greatly harms millions of innocent Cubans on the island, ALL IN THE GUISE OF HURTING THE NOW 87-YEAR-OLD FIDEL CASTRO WHOM THE U. S. HAS SIMPLY BEEN UNABLE TO ASSASSINATE OR OVERTHREW DESPITE NUMEROUS ATTEMPTS FOR GOING ON SIX DECADES NOW. Programmed, propagandized Americans are supposed to accept this, and largely they have. But the rest of the world, especially the Caribbean and Latin America, is not so gullible, ignorant, or intimidated. Thus the rest of the world views the U. S. vendetta against Castro in this light: The U.S. BULLYING CUBA TO APPEASE REVENGEFUL CUBAN EXILES. 

The ABC News report is an illustration:

        ABC News reported that Kim Ng {above} is among the latest to join the mammoth cottage industry nefariously benefiting from America's bullying Cuban policy. She graduated from the University of Chicago and joined the front office of the Chicago White Sox. In 1997 the Yankees hired her as their Assistant General Manager. In 2001 she became the Assistant General Manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers. The ambitious Ng interviewed for vacant General Manager positions with the Dodgers, Mariners, and Padres but failed to be hired for the jobs. She thus left Los Angeles for New York in 2010 to take her current position as Major Leauge Baseball's Vice President for Operations.

         Although Major League baseball has a myriad of problems, such as illegal drugs, VP Kim Ng seems more concerned with using her position to safely and conveniently hurt Cuba. Thus she was the focus of the ABC News report about "screwing Cuba's international baseball plans." You see, back in 1949 baseball-mad Cuba founded the Caribbean Series, an annual competition between the league champions in Cuba, Mexico, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and Venezuela. Cuba won 7 of the first 12 events but in 1961 Cuba ceased participation because Fidel Castro despised Rafael Trujillo, the murderous U. S. - backed dictator of the Dominican Republic. However, the other members in the Caribbean Series recently persuaded Cuba to resume its participation and then exuberantly announced that Cuba's acceptance was "a truly historic moment!" That's when Kim Ng stepped in. She fired off a callous letter to Juan Puello, the head of "La Serie del Caribe" as it is known in Spanish, warning him to remove Cuba from the 2014 Caribbean Series. She said if he did not do so the U. S. would prevent its multitude of Latin players from participating, thus negating fan interest in the event. In 2013 Major League baseball has under lucrative contracts more Latin superstars than American superstars, so Kim Ng holds a strong, if cowardly, hand.

The Caribbean Baseball Series currently consists of four strong teams from the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Mexico, and Puerto Rico. The addition of Cuba, of course, would broaden and improve the competition. However, the U. S., to punish Cuba, also routinely bullies and punishes other nations that interact positively with Cuba. The Caribbean Series is an example of hurting everyone else to appease a few self-serving, tendentious Cuban exiles. It's been America's policy since 1959!

        Thus Juan Puello {above} joins a long list of innocent people indulging in innocent pursuits who are forced to suffer because of a U. S. Cuban policy designed solely to sate the profitable and revengeful appetites of a handful of Cuban exiles. Juan was told by Kim Ng of MLB that his invitation for Cuba to return to the Caribbean Series that Cuba founded must be rescinded or else the U. S. will not permit its many American-contracted players to participate. Americans, unconcerned with how this makes the U. S. appear to the world and unmindful of how many innocent people suffer, also profess to be unaware of how the world, especially Latin America, views its self-inflicted wound also known as the U. S. Cuban policy.

       Speaking of baseball, this photo circled around the globe multiple times on August 20th, 2013. Chris Lane -- from Melbourne, Australia -- received a baseball scholarship to attend East Central University in Ada, Oklahoma. He and his American girlfriend recently returned from visiting his parents in Melbourne. Yesterday he was with his girlfriend in Duncan, Oklahoma -- 85 miles from Ada. Then he went jogging. 

Now the world knows that Chris Lane didn't survive that jog. He was shot in the back and died.

      Two Duncan teenagers were arrested and charged with the murder of Chris Lane. The police say one of the teens said they were "bored" and shot Chris Lane in the back "for the fun of it." A Facebook video is going viral around the world; it depicts one of the teens flashing gang signs and curse words as well as, most poignantly, a telescopic rifle. The murder is an image of America that is all too common.

Chris Lane and his girlfriend Sarah Harper had just returned to Oklahoma after visiting Australia.

Sarah told London's The Guardian, "Chris's loss is unbearable."

Chris Lane's parents, and the Australian continent, will forever mourn their baseball star.

      This is one of the remembrances of Chris Lane. A leading Australian politician as well as at least two Australian newspapers are asking for a boycott of U. S. tourism because "of rampant crime in gun-happy America." Perhaps America should address that problem, using some of the time and resources it devotes to, as ABC News referenced, "screwing" Cuba, which happens to have a reputation as a safe country.

Chris Lane. R.I.P. 

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Innocent Cubans Suffer from Miami's Hypocrisy and Crime

{Updated for Sunday, August 11th, 2013}

     The above AP/Ramon Espinosa photo was taken Friday, August 9th, 2013. It shows 43-year-old New Yorker Conner Gorry, a U. S. citizen, in Havana enjoying a cigar as she promotes Cuba Libro, an English-language bookstore-cafe that she co-owns. Ms. Gorry is a journalist who has lived in Cuba since 2002 and, uh, she sorta likes the island and its people. This photo, I believe, reveals an image of Cuba that Americans are not supposed to see, partly illustrating why a few Cuban-exile extremists continually mandate that Cuba is the one place in the world that Americans cannot freely visit. That makes it easier for them to self-servingly dictate Cuba's image to Americans. This has been going on since 1959 for sordid economic, political, and revengeful reasons. 

      Thursday night {August 8-2013} CNN {photo: image.com} had an in-depth report on two Miami families mourning the police-induced deaths of two young men. A tazed, subdued skate-boarding teenager was killed as police officers reportedly indulged in celebratory dancing. Another young man died in his car after Miami police fired more than 100 shots at it as it was apparently stopped harmlessly in a busy Miami street.

       If anything remotely resembling what CNN said happened in Miami ever happened in Havana, the anti-Castro Cuban-American zealots in the U. S. Congress probably would have flown Cuban dissident Yoani Sanchez back to Washington so she could enlighten Americans about what a terrible place CUBA is! Meanwhile, don't expect them to comment on problems in places like Miami (Florida) or Union City (NJ)!

        Of course, Senator Rubio from Miami and Senator Menendez from Union City appear to be a lot more concerned with fomenting Cuban-exile problems in Cuba than in trying to solve the myriad of problems in their American cities or in America as a whole. That's just one tangible aftermath of the Cuban Revolution.

       The Cuban Revolution that overthrew the U.S.-backed Batista/Mafia dictatorship in Cuba in January of 1959 changed Cuba forever. It changed America even more. In particular it reshaped the U. S. democracy.

Yet, since January of 1959 Havana has steadfastly remained the capital of Cuba.

      But in the 1950s incredible amounts of ill-gotten money left the Batista-Mafia dictatorship. No less than three Latin American magazines in the mid-1950s reported that the top 21 people in Batista's Cuba had EACH stashed in excess of $1 million in Swiss banks. The leading Mafia thugs in Cuba maintained residences and business connections in Miami, Tampa, and Union City, NJ. Thus, it is presumed more loot was sent from Cuba to banks in those cities than to banks in Switzerland. Life Magazine in 1958 said in the above photo Mafia kingpin Meyer Lansky was leaving one of his giddy gambling casino/hotels in Havana with a satchel containing one night's take from one casino -- approximately $200,000 in 1950s dollars!

For decades such loot has overwhelmed Miami and Washington!

 So...since 1959...welcome to the capital of Miami:

It's officially known as Little Havana, USA, in Miami.

       In addition to the two police-induced killings highlighted this week by CNN, the FBI this week arrested two Miami area mayors; Major League Baseball was forced to suspend 14 players this week because all 14 were tied to illegal drugs obtained from an infamous clinic in Miami; the University of Miami is reeling from a scandal involving alleged payments to athletes; USA Today has used countless pages explaining how Miami is at the "epi-center" for the illegal distribution of prescription drugs; USA Today has used many other pages to detail how Miami leads the world in Medicare fraud; the Miami Herald and other newspapers in Miami had to fire some of its journalists when it was revealed that the George W. Bush administration was paying them tax-dollars to write anti-Castro articles; the most respected man on the Miami-Dade County School Board voted to ban a little children's book about Cuba and just before he died revealed he had shamefully done so only because he feared he or his family would have been bombed if he had not done so; one of the Miami area's most respected business-women had her business recently bombed out of existence apparently because she very legally booked flights to Cuba and she is still waiting for someone to seriously investigate the crime; today the most infamous anti-Castro zealot who admitted bombing hotels in Havana and is allegedly the catalyst in the bombing of a Cuban civilian plane killing 73 on board is a heralded citizen of Little Havana; the Cuban-American who was the top newsman in Miami criticized terrorist acts against innocent Cubans and then he was car-bombed; the Cuban-American who was a threat to lead the exiles in Miami died in a car-bomb blast at his home; etc., etc., etc. And this has been going on since 1959 almost unabated with amazingly little criticism in a democracy. Once Vice President George H. W. Bush -- closely tied throughout the years to Miami's most infamous anti-Castro extremists -- was dispatched to Miami by President Reagan to try to lessen the outrageous impact of Miami's rampant cocaine wars, a gruesome episode depicted in the documentary "Cocaine Cowboys."

President Reagan reportedly told VP Bush, "My wife keeps me awake at night raging about Miami!"

      Carl Hiassen was born in Florida in 1953. He attended the University of Florida. He became a journalist for the Miami Herald at age 23. Today he is a very popular columnist at the Herald and one of America's top authors with myriad best-sellers under his belt. Renowned for his humor, Hiassen has also made a nice living -- via his columns and books -- writing about Miami's uniqueness when it comes to corruption.

        Edna Buchanan is in her 70s now and still perhaps America's best crime novelist. Her book "Miami, It's Murder" won the Edgar Award in 1995 and back in 1986 she won the Puliltzer Prize because of her continuous coverage of Miami's crime and corruption. Ms. Buchanan initially gained national acclaim with her Miami Herald and Associated Press articles about Miami's seemingly endless string of murders and terrorist activities, many featuring bomb attacks by Cuban exiles trained in such tactics at the infamous School of the Americas located at Fort Benning, Georgia, where the U. S. for decades had secretly trained and then armed selected militants who then returned to their native countries, like Batista's Cuba, to support U.-S.-backed dictatorships. Ms. Buchanan in the "Cocaine Cowboys" documentary pointed back at the Miami skyline and explained that much of it resulted from drug money. The documentary "DECLASSIFIED: The Godfathers of Havana" showed black-and-white video of (1) huge ships docked in Havana and loaded with drugs in Batista's Cuba destined for Miami; and (2) leaders of the Batista dictatorship heading to their getaway airplanes and ships in the wee hours of January 1, 1959, to escape the victorious Cuban Revolution. As Carl Hiassen and Edna Buchanan, along with many others, have documented, the leaders and loot from 1950s Cuba found a home in Miami first and Washington later, changing and overwhelming the nearby island, Florida, and the United States forever and ever. Amen.

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