Written by Tim Marcin at Business Insider
Tampa Bay Rays outfielder Dayron Varona exited Cuba with his mother to travel on a boat 12 fearsome hours to Haiti, leaving behind the rest of his family on a trip he’d call “a memory that you don’t want to remember.” Varona defected from his homeland out of despair, facing incredible danger while chasing down his dream of playing in Major League Baseball (MLB).
But amid easing relations between Havana and Washington, baseball players like Varona may soon no longer have to risk their lives to play big-league ball. MLB has begun working with the Cuban government to create a way for players to get to the U.S. under newly eased work rules. Should that happen, the country of about 11 million could become a prime source of ballplayers for the majors, rivaling just about any other nation, including the Dominican Republic, long a deep pool of talent for MLB.
“I think some day, whether it’s five years, 15 years, 20 years, Cuba will look like the Dominican Republic or Venezuela,” said Joe Kehoskie, a former baseball agent who worked extensively with Cuban defectors, referring to the two foreign countries that feed the most players into MLB.
About three years after his harrowing boat trip, Varona is set to make an improbable return to Cuban baseball Tuesday, playing with the Rays against the island country’s national team in a historic exhibition game in Havana. In 1999, the Baltimore Orioles played in a similar game that didn’t effectively change much between the nations. The trip for the Rays is different. Top MLB officials are coming along, including the commissioner, and the game coincides with a pickup in talks between the countries that has culminated in President Barack Obama’s visit to Cuba, the first such trip by a U.S. president in almost 90 years.
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