Young Cuban Players Dream of US Major Leagues

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Young Cuban Players Dream of US Major Leagues

Eight-year-old Kevin Kindelan and 7-year-old Leoni Venego play baseball for a Central Havana junior league team in Cuba. They both have big dreams.

Kindelan says he wants to play for Cuba's national baseball club.

Venego says he is aiming higher. "I want to get to the Major Leagues and be like Yuli Gurriel," he said.

Gurriel, who was born in Cuba, plays the first base position for the Houston Astros. The team is part of Major League Baseball in the United States.

Baseball is a national pastime¹ in Cuba, just as it is in the United States. It is a sport that many Cubans enjoy and follow.

But Cuba's worsening economic situation has led to more baseball players leaving the country -- and the national league.

Cuba's economy shrank² 11 percent in 2020. Cubans must wait in long lines for food, medicine and fuel. Since October, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency³ said more than 157,000 Cubans have fled to the U.S.

Francis Romero is a Cuban baseball expert and writer who lives in Florida. He said, in the past six years, the number of baseball players who have left Cuba for the U.S. is three times higher than the number of players who left between 2000 and 2010.

"No baseball league...could survive that," Romero said.

Romero told Reuters that young Cuban baseball players no longer want to prove themselves by winning Olympic medals for the country. The Cuban national teams won gold medals in baseball in Barcelona in 1992, Atlanta in 1996 and Athens in 2004.

"Players once waited a long time to emigrate⁴, to prove themselves," Romero said. "Now they leave at 16 or 17 years of age."

Major Leagues dream

At the "Ponton" ballfield in central Havana, some of Cuba's youngest players are practicing on the muddy infield.

Their coach is Irakly Chirino, a former player in Cuba's national league who began his career at Ponton. "Here, we don't have gloves, bats, shoes, or even balls to play with...and when we do, they are too expensive," Chirino said.

A lack of supplies has led some baseball players to leave the country or play soccer instead. Soccer is another favorite sport that does not require much equipment.

"Let's not fool ourselves...we're losing our best ballplayers before they even make it to the national series," Chirino said.

Coach Nicolas Reyes is 73 years old. More than 10 of his players have left Cuba. "They started with me and now they're in the [U.S.] Major Leagues. It makes me proud," he said.

But he recognizes that money and fame have increasingly⁵ pulled players away from Cuba. "When I played, it wasn't like that. You would never betray⁶ your country," he added.

Keep them home

Juan Reinaldo Perez is president of the Cuban Baseball Federation⁷. He said because of the growing number of promising⁸ baseball players, there is still hope for the future of Cuban baseball. "We are a country with a baseball tradition and that continues to grow," he said.

Cuba is now centering its efforts on keeping promising ballplayers from leaving.

In May, the Cuban federation signed a deal with the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) that permits Cuban players to play professionally in other countries while keeping their nationality.

A similar deal, signed with the Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States in 2018, would have given Cubans the same right. But the U.S. president at the time, Donald Trump⁹, ended the deal before it became official.

That lack of such a deal with MLB continues to be a major barrier to keeping promising Cuban ballplayers at home, says Guillermo Carmona. He is the manager of Cuba's well-known Industriales team.

"Without a doubt, [that deal] was a great motivation [for our players]," said Carmona. "Now, many have left us."

Words in This Story

pastime - n. an activity that you enjoy doing during your free time

emigrate - v. to leave a country to live somewhere else

practice - v. to do something again and again in order to get better

coach - n. a person who trains and teaches athletes

expensive - adj. costly¹⁰

manager - n. someone who directs or who is in charge

1 pastime   

n.消遣，娱乐

参考例句：

• Playing chess is his favourite pastime.下棋是他最喜爱的消遣。
• Baseball is the national pastime.棒球是全民性的休闲运动。

2 shrank   

动词shrink的过去式

参考例句：

• My sweater shrank in the wash. 我的毛衣缩水了。
• The blackman shrank from any direct participation in politics. 这位黑人回避直接插足政治。

3 agency   

n.经办；代理；代理处

参考例句：

• This disease is spread through the agency of insects.这种疾病是通过昆虫媒介传播的。
• He spoke in the person of Xinhua News Agency.他代表新华社讲话。

4 emigrate   

vi.移居国外（或外地）

参考例句：

• They planned to emigrate.他们打算移民。
• The family decided to shake the dust off their feet and emigrate to Australia.这一家人愤然离开，移居澳洲。

5 increasingly   

adv.逐渐地，日益地，逐渐增加地

参考例句：

• Rivers are being increasingly made use of by man. 河流正在日益为人类所利用。
• I find it increasingly difficult to live within my income.我发现靠收入过日子越来越难了。

6 betray   

vt.背叛，失信于，泄露，暴露

参考例句：

• He promised never to betray the organization.他发誓永不背叛组织。
• Keep calm.Don't betray your identity.沉住气，别可露馅儿。

7 federation   

n.同盟，联邦，联合，联盟，联合会

参考例句：

• It is a federation of 10 regional unions.它是由十个地方工会结合成的联合会。
• Mr.Putin was inaugurated as the President of the Russian Federation.普京正式就任俄罗斯联邦总统。

8 promising   

adj.有希望的，有前途的

参考例句：

• The results of the experiments are very promising.实验的结果充满了希望。
• We're trying to bring along one or two promising young swimmers.我们正设法培养出一两名有前途的年轻游泳选手。

9 trump   

n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭

参考例句：

• He was never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown.他始终鼓不起勇气摊牌。
• The coach saved his star player for a trump card.教练保留他的明星选手，作为他的王牌。

10 costly   

adj.昂贵的，价值高的，豪华的

参考例句：

• It must be very costly to keep up a house like this.维修这么一幢房子一定很昂贵。
• This dictionary is very useful,only it is a bit costly.这本词典很有用，左不过贵了些。