Cuba has apparently lost another major baseball to the United States.
The Cuban Baseball Association confirmed on Wednesday evening that one of the national team defected hours after arriving in Florida to take part in a qualifying tournament for the Tokyo Summer Olympics.
The organization has identified the player as second baseman César Prieto, 22, who is considered “Cuba’s best young hit” by some baseball media.
“His decision, contrary to the obligation to the people and the team, has aroused the contempt of his colleagues and other delegation members,” said the association.
Get out of the bus and into a waiting car
The team arrived in Florida after months of struggling to obtain US visas, which players in three other countries applied for due to US sanctions preventing the US embassy in Havana from issuing the documents. The permits were finally issued on Tuesday, the day before departure, thanks to special efforts by the embassy and the US State Department.
The Cuban team will take part in an Olympic qualification in Florida.
The team flew to Miami on a special charter flight. One report said that when Prieto arrived on the team bus at a hotel, he “got off and got into a car”. He has not been seen since.
Eight nations – Cuba, the United States, Venezuela, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Colombia and Canada – will compete for a seat in the six-team baseball tournament at the Tokyo Olympics. The tournament runs from May 31 to June 5 in South Florida, but exhibition games are scheduled before the main event.
Walled-in and baseball-mad nation
Cuba dominated Olympic baseball with three golds and two silvers. In contrast, the United States won gold once and bronze twice.
Cuba is a country where a visitor plays baseball anywhere there is room to hit a ball. While US news is hard to come by, every baseball player knows that a neighboring country 150 kilometers north of Havana is where great players get big and rich.
Defect in the United States
Since the communist revolution of 1959 in Cuba, at least 90 players have managed to overflow the Straits of Florida and then play for major league baseball clubs that are considered the best teams in the game in the United States or elsewhere, others using makeshift boats . Many more Cuban defectors have played in lower division baseball, and some never apply their skills in Cuba to high-profile baseball in the United States.
The most recent success story is Jose Abreu of the Chicago White Sox, who won the 2020 American League Most Valuable Player award (30 top clubs are split into two leagues, the other is called League National). A more typical story is that of Andy Ibáñez, 28, who was called up from the minor leagues seven years after leaving to play for the Texas Rangers Club. He was fired from the American baseball world two weeks ago.
Baseball is a national obsession in Cuba and the game is watched and played frequently
Relaxation, in short
During President Barack Obama’s tenure, the United States sought to normalize long-strained relations with Cuba. Obama agreed to a historic relaxation with then Cuban President Raul Castro and attended a show between the Cuban national team and the Rays of MLB Tampa Bay during a trip to Havana with Castro in 2016.
Major League Baseball has made an agreement to welcome Cuban baseball players without them having to overflow. But former President Donald Trump backed off these changes and forced the cancellation of these deals. Despite declaring that Trump “harmed the Cuban people,” President Biden has not made changing Cuban politics one of his foreign policy priorities.
This means that some of the world’s best baseball players, like the young César Prieto, must break free of Cuban law and challenge US visa requirements in order to play professionally in the United States.
