Canada a reward for those who stayed
Players who resisted temptation to defect allowed to play semi-pro here
KITCHENER— When Noelvis Entenza took the mound for Cienfuegos of Cuba’s National Series in 2010, some of the world’s best players had his back: future White Sox all-star Jose Abreu manned first base and a teenage Yasiel Puig roamed the outfield.
Back then Entenza struggled with control, but had the kind of mid-90s heater you can’t teach. He wasn’t a superelite prospect like Abreu and Puig, who each paid steep fees to human traffickers to flee Cuba, but experts figured arm strength alone could position him to make millions if he reined in his fastball and defected. Instead Entenza stayed. Now 31, he’s is one of three Cubans spending the summer with the Kitchener Panthers of the Intercounty Baseball League, where salaries top out at $1,500 a month.
The trio will appear in Toronto on Wednesday, when the Panthers play the Maple Leafs. They’re part of a growing number of Cubans playing semi-pro baseball under agreements between Canadian teams and the Cuban Baseball Federation. In return for players, the Cuban federation receives sorely needed equipment and small cash payments.
For players, the deals represent a low-reward, low-risk opportunity to play professionally. Salaries are a pittance next to major league riches but, unlike Puig and Abreu’s contracts, they come without a seven-figure debt to a criminal organization.
For Cuban baseball players, chasing a major-league dream means breaking the law, while following the law means missing a chance to make millions. Entenza has faced that same difficult decision. He doesn’t begrudge friends who left Cuba, but
doesn’t regret staying.
“I’m really proud of all my teammates who have gone to the big leagues,” says Entenza, who struck out eight batters over six innings to win his Canadian debut last Sunday. “But it’s a decision each person has to make. We’re not all the same.”
When high-profile Cuban players reach the majors, legal entanglements often follow.
In December 2014, Miami resident Gilberto Suarez pleaded guilty to helping smuggle Puig out of Cuba in exchange for a large percentage of future earnings. Court documents showed Suarez had received $2.5 million (U.S.) from the Dodgers star.
Mariners outfielder Leonys Martin was sued in 2013 when he stopped paying the group that brought him out of Cuba. He had already paid $1.2 million. A subsequent investigation ended with ringleader Eliezer Lazo pleading guilty to extortion and receiving a 14-year prison term.
Court records in the April indictment of agent Bart Hernandez revealed that Abreu paid a total of $5.8 million to various people involved in his departure for Cuba. Hernandez has pleaded not guilty to human trafficking.
“They’re victims because they don’t know how the legal process is,” says Damian Blen, a Cuban expatriate and veteran baseball coach who now lives in Hamilton. “Because they want to leave Cuba and make millions, they say yes to anything and don’t know the consequences.”
The wave of defections also leads to legal problems for players who stay in Cuba.
According to published reports, Entenza testified in the Cuban trial of three men involved in a separate plot to facilitate Puig’s defection. The Havana Times reports Entenza testified that Puig tried to lure him to the U.S. both directly and through intermediaries. But Entenza says those reports are false and that nobody, least of all Puig, ever tried to entice
“I love him for life, and not because he’s famous.” NOELVIS ENTENZA ON FORMER TEAMMATE YASIEL PUIG
him to defect.
“We’re still friends,” Entenza says of his former roommate Puig. “More than friends, brothers. I love him for life, and not because he’s famous. ”
The U.S. trade embargo of Cuba bars companies, including MLB teams, from doing business with Cuban outfits, lest their money fund a government hostile to the U.S. That rule, coupled with Cuba’s ban on pro sports, criminalizes Cuban major league hopefuls by default and, experts say, invites criminal cartels into the baseball industry.
In 2008, shortstop Jose Iglesias, now with Detroit, left Cuba’s national team during a tournament in Edmonton. The following year, Aroldis Chapman defected during an event in the Netherlands. But since then
several high-profile Cuban prospects have needed help from human traffickers to defect.
“Somehow these traffickers managed to infiltrate the Cuban baseball scene and get a stranglehold on the market,” says agent Joe Kehoskie, who represented a handful of Cuban defectors in the late 1990s.
Experts acknowledge the current setup is untenable. Forcing players to skirt the law means major league teams indirectly subsidize criminal organizations. Meanwhile, the Cuban federation has received no compensation for the roughly 125 players who left Cuba seeking major league contracts over the last year.
Panthers director Mike Boehmer spent seven months negotiating his team’s deal with Industriales de Habana of the Cuban series, and says officials within both Cuba and MLB are eager to reach an accord on players. Cuba’s arrangements with Canadian teams function as a preview to a major league deal.
The Quebec Capitales of the inde-
pendent Can-Am League have employed Cuban players since 2014 and have three on this season’s roster. Two more Cuban players signed with the Ottawa Champions.
While the Panthers deal exclusively with Industriales, other Canadian teams draw players from across Cuba. Canadian clubs send Cuban officials a list of prospects; the Cuban federation replies with a list of players they’ll release for the summer. When the names match, the two sides draft a contract.
Boehmer says Cuban officials give preference to the players least likely to defect or be swayed by agents, so the six-foot-six, 19-year-old pitcher he hoped to sign was off limits. Industriales instead approved Entenza, left-handed pitcher Ian Rendon and national team backstop Frank Camilo Morejon, regarded as Cuba’s best defensive catcher.
“They add a lot of polish and professionalism and experience,” Boehmer says. “They’re really serious athletes.”