Smuggling Cuban Baseball Players

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Major League Baseball (MLB) in America has an influx of players from across the world and many come from Latin American countries. The country of Cuba has numerous players playing in the MLB even though Cuban citizens are not allowed to leave Cuba without a permit that is very difficult to get. Most young Cuban baseball players are forced to flea the country in order to enter the MLB. These young men have to risk jail time and their lives in hopes of getting a payday in America. They are smuggled out of their country by way of boat and often with help of the drug cartels. Hopefully one day Cuban ballplayers will have the same opportunities as those from other Latin American countries and will not be forced to flea their country in order to have those opportunities presented to them.
Cubans use to be allowed free travel to wherever they pleased like anyone else until Fidel Castro’s revolution in 1959. Cuban ballplayers would frequently come to the U.S. to play but once Castro seized control nobody left the Island. Castro made Cuba a communist state and became allies with the Soviet Union helping them with their goals. The United States and Cuba’s relationship deteriorated and tensions between the two countries peaked during the 1962 missile crisis. Cuban ballplayers were no longer scouted, as it was not believed that communism and baseball could mix. In 1977 the MLB commissioner at the time put in place the Kuhn Directive that stated that U.S. teams could recruit or negotiate with players from Cuba. In 1991 Rene Arocha became the first Cuban player defected from Cuba when he ran away from the rest of his Cuban baseball team during an international tournament. The MLB set up a special lottery for him that allowed ...

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...CHEVARRIA, ROBERTO. “The Pride of Havana: A History of Cuban Baseball” Oxford University Press 1999 Print

FRANKEL, MATTHEW “Major League Problems: Baseball’s Broken System of Cuban Defection” Third World 2005 Web 6 May 2014

GREENAWALT, TYLER “With An assist From Smugglers, Cuban Players Make It To U.S.” NPR 23 July 2013 Web 5 May 2014
GROSSFELD, STAN “Pedro Martinez building hope in the Dominican” The Boston Globe 9 Aug 2013 web 6 may 2014
KLEIN, ALAN “Growing the Game” Yale University Press 2006 Print

SOLOMON, RICHARD “Cuban Baseball Players, the Unlucky Ones: United States-Cuban Professional Baseball Relations Should Be an Integral Part of the United States-Cuba Relationship” Hofstra University School of Law 2011 Web 5 May 2014

TORRES, ADRY “Cuban Ballplayers Often Risk Their Lives for a Shot at the Big Leagues” Fox News Latino 8 July 2011 Web 5 May 2014

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