Ruling leaves Chapman hurt

HOUSTON — Aroldis Chapman is living the dream of hundreds of young Cuban baseball players. The Yankees’ closer is playing the game he loves and making more than a healthy living doing it at the highest level. It came at a cost though, having to defect from his native Cuba and leave behind his family.

Chapman said Monday he is sad and feels bad for the young players that were hoping to pursue that dream through the deal that had been worked out between Major League Baseball and the Cuban Baseball Federation late last year. The Trump administration declared the agreement illegal.

“It is definitely a sensitive topic, so many things behind it. Anytime you are talking about baseball and politics, it’s a very sensitive subject. But, I just feel bad for those young ball players, who are probably not going to have the same chance to play here,” Chapman said through Yankees’ interpreter Marlin Abreu. “It’s definitely difficult for a lot of Cuban players playing at this level here in the States. The way we got here was, it was tough, to say the least.”

Chapman’s actual defection seemed fairly straightforward in 2009. Playing with the Cuban National team in Rotterdam in 2009, he walked out the team hotel with his passport and into the car of a man who had agreed to help him, as he described it.

But that came almost two years after he initially tried to defect and was caught. Little is known about the 15 weeks in between, but he was obviously suspended from the national team for a while.