Stories of Cuban athletes leaving the communist isle for the capitalist pastures of the United States read like a movie script. World-class Cuban baseball players, in pursuit of a better life, have allegedly been “kidnapped, held hostage, forced to sign binding documents at gun- and knifepoint, threatened with mutilation and terrorized by those from some of the world’s most murderous gangs.”1 But this is no movie; every day, Cuban baseball players are sacrificing their lives by traveling to the United States in order to achieve their dream of securing a contract from one of thirty Major League Baseball (“MLB”) organizations.
Eric Beinhorn