For decades, every Cuban-born player in Major League Baseball arrived in the United States only at the end of a long and dangerous extralegal process. That process was, by its nature, run exclusively by and mostly for the benefit of an international collection of creeps, from violent criminal gangs to lawyers who …
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Major League Baseball and the Cuban Baseball Federation reached an agreement Wednesday on a deal that would allow Cuban baseball players to play in America without having to defect and be smuggled into the United States. From MLB.com:
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MONTREAL, Canada—Tonight a new men’s gymnastics world champion will be crowned for the first time since 2009. With six-time defending world champion Kohei Uchimura forced to withdraw from the competition with an ankle injury, the men’s field—like the Simone Biles-less women’s field—is wide open. The question: Who will…
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Back in 2003, when the U.S. hosted the world championships in gymnastics, three Cuban gymnasts used the competition as an opportunity to defect. Among them was Charles “Charlie” Tamayo, the first Cuban male gymnast to win a medal at the world championships. Now, more than a decade later, Tamayo, who was just hired as…
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After six grueling weeks of testimony, both sides delivered their closing arguments today in the criminal trial of two men charged with conspiracy and human smuggling for their part in getting Cuban baseball players into the United States. Federal prosecutors in Miami reiterated today their point that the two men…
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The federal trial of sports agent Bartolo Hernandez and baseball trainer Julio Estrada is hitting the home stretch. On Tuesday, their defense attorneys called five witnesses, including two executives from the Texas Rangers and one from the Miami Marlins, hoping their testimony would help punch holes in the federal…
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The federal trial is underway in Miami for agent Bartolo Hernandez and trainer Julio Estrada, who are accused of participating in smuggling operations that brought Cuban baseball players to America.
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When the world first got a look at Yoenis Cespedes in his insane showcase video in 2011, Kevin Goldstein—then of Baseball Prospectus and now Director of Pro Scouting for the Astros—declared him “arguably the best all-around player to come out of Cuba in a generation.” Now, a second Cespedes will try to reach that hype.
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I know that it’s the very end of the work day at the very end of the work week, and there are only so many options available to distract you during these final interminable minutes before the weekend’s sweet release from responsibility, but I cannot in good faith advise you to spend even a minute of it watching this…
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The shortest distance from Cuba to the United States is about 90 miles across the Florida Strait. By the standards of human-powered sea travel, it’s extremely doable, and it has been done for decades by refugees aboard the most makeshift of watercraft, driven by desperation. In the peak years, tens of thousand of…
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The Tampa Bay Rays got back from their historic trip to Cuba on Wednesday morning, and after a bit of a travel delay, returned to baseball as usual that evening. Last night, during the seventh inning of their game against the Pirates, an older fan reportedly ran onto the field in Bradenton, cursed at them in Spanish,…
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The 6 p.m. SportsCenter, featuring an extended live hit from Cuba by Bob Ley, was interrupted when a pamphlet-clad protester jumped up onto the set, threw his pamphlets and yelled something. The producer quickly threw to Karl Ravech, Doug Glanville, and Eduardo Perez, who were clearly dumbfounded at what was going on.
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The Treasury Department announced new amendments to the sanctions on Cuba Tuesday, opening the door to Major League teams directly signing Cuban baseball players as soon as the regulations go into effect, tomorrow. Among other travel, banking, and commerce amendments, the new regulations allow U.S. companies to…
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The 2016 “Legends Of Pittsburgh” cruise disembarked from Miami on Thursday, charting a course through the Keys, then eventually to Cozumel, Mexico. The Legends cruise promises, among other things, that guests can, “Hang at the pool, take selfies, and get autographs with your favorite Pittsburgh athletes!” These…
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Yahoo’s Jeff Passan is reporting that MLB agent Bart Hernandez was arrested this morning after a federal grand jury indicted him on human-trafficking charges.
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Clint Dempsey put the U.S. up 1-0 on a defection-ravaged Cuban team in the fourth minute of today’s Gold Cup quarterfinal in Baltimore.
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The following is excerpted from The Domino Diaries: My Decade with Olympic Champions and Chasing Hemingway’s Ghost in the Last Days of Castro’s Cuba, by Brin-Jonathan Butler.
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MLB.com’s Jesse Sanchez is reporting that the Boston Red Sox have reached a deal to sign Cuban outfielder Rusney Castillo to a six-year, $72 million deal. Baseball is officially in the golden age of Cuban defectors.
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Excerpted from Brin-Jonathan Butler’s new Kindle Single, A Cuban Boxer’s Journey: Guillermo Rigondeaux, from Castro’s Traitor to American Champion, which is available now on Amazon. Annotations from the author appear throughout. This story originally appeared at Sports on Earth.
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Los Angeles Magazine’s Jesse Katz, who wrote that great story on Yasiel Puig’s defection from Cuba—you can get a refresher here—is in the comments below, ready to take your questions. Follow Jesse on Twitter @byjessekatz, stop by his website, and/or check out his book The Opposite Field, a memoir on parenting and…
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Over at Los Angeles Magazine, Jesse Katz has a story in which he attempts to reconstruct Yasiel Puig’s journey from Cuba to the major leagues, which you should absolutely make some time to read in full. It’s a great story full of scenes that feel ripped straight from a screenplay, but above all it reveals that Puig’s…
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Last night, there was a ballgame in Cuba, between Matanzas and Villa Clara. Mantazas took a 3-0 lead after a solo home run in the 7th inning, and then shit got ridiculous.
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Proving once again that no significant achievement becomes official until it’s picked apart by people on the internet, Diana Nyad’s historic swim from Havana to Key West is now coming under fire.
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Diana Nyad became the first person ever to complete the swim from Cuba to Florida without a shark cage on Monday, because she is not human.
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