Agent, trainer deny smuggling

MIAMI — A Floridabased sports agent and a trainer ran legitimate businesses aimed at getting Cuban baseball players to sign U.S. major league contracts but were not involved with smuggling players from the communist island or falsifying travel documents, their lawyers told a federal jury Wednesday.

Opening statements were held Wednesday in the case against agent Bartolo Hernandez and trainer Julio Estrada, both of whom have been charged with conspiracy and alien smuggling. Both face lengthy prison sentences if convicted.

Prosecutors said the pair used shady boat captains, document forgers and phony paperwork to get 20 players to the U.S. quickly so they could sign lucrative free-agent contracts totaling some $150 million. Both stood to make millions of dollars from those contracts.

Hernandez attorney Jeffrey Marcus said the agent’s only involvement with the players was to negotiate their contracts with professional teams through his company, Global Sports Management, and that his percentage was relatively small at less than 5 percent.

“His business is baseball. It’s not smuggling,” Marcus told jurors. TRADE: The Chicago Cubs have acquired former Isotope Eddie Butler from the Colorado Rockies for James Farris in a swap of right-handed pitchers. As part of Wednesday’s trade, the teams exchanged international bonus money slots for the signing period that starts July 2, with the Cubs getting No. 74 and the Rockies No. 28.