WASHINGTON (AFP) – Cuba’s impressive baseball talent will no longer have to risk defection and human trafficking to play for American clubs under a deal announced Wednesday that culminated more than three years of negotiations.
Major League Baseball, its players’ union and the Cuban Baseball Federation made a groundbreaking agreement that will allow players from the Communist island nation to sign with North American teams despite political strains between the US and Cuban governments.
The MLB-Cuba deal, which lasts through October 2021 unless extended by mutual agreement, installs a posting system similar to those used by MLB with Japanese, South Korean and Taiwan leagues when players want to jump to the richer deals of the major leagues.
For decades, Cuban officials have sought to keep players on homeland sides and their powerhouse national amateur squad. Players have been forced to defect, often making deals with shady characters and forced into human trafficking to escape Cuba, forced to go to other nations before being able to sign major league free agent deals.
”Words cannot fully express my heartfelt joy and excitement,” said Cuban-born Chicago White Sox first baseman Jose Abreu, who defected in 2013. ”Knowing that the next generation of Cuban baseball players will not endure the unimaginable fate of past Cuban players is the realization of an impossible dream for all of us.
“Dealing with the exploitation of smugglers and unscrupulous agencies will finally come to an end for the Cuban baseball player. To this date, I am still harassed.”
An example of the lengths Cuban players will go to reach MLB is Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder Yasiel Puig, who after multiple failed defection attempts arranged to be taken to Mexico by a drug cartel that kept him hostage until paid $250,000 for his release.
”To know future Cuban players will not have to go through what we went through makes me so happy,” Puig said. ”I want to thank everyone who was involved in making this happen.”
