Cuba to let athletes sign with overseas teams

HAVANA — Could a new wave of Cuban baseball players be headed for the majors in America without having to defect from the communist island?

Cuba announced Friday that athletes from all sports will soon be able to sign contracts with foreign leagues, a break with a decades-old policy that held pro sports to be anathema to socialist ideals.

It's a step toward the day when the road from Havana to Yankee Stadium might mean simply hopping on a plane rather than attempting a perilous sea crossing or sneaking out of a hotel at midnight in a strange land.

But American baseball fans shouldn't throw their Dodgers or Rockies caps in the air in celebration just yet. The Cold War-era embargo against Cuba means it may not happen anytime soon.

If it does come to pass, it could increase — astronomically, in some cases — the amount of money Cuban baseball players can earn.

Athletes' wages are not made public in Cuba but are believed to be somewhere around the $20 a month that most other state employees earn — a tiny fraction of the millions many U.S. big-leaguers make.

"It's the dream of many athletes to test themselves in other leagues — the big leagues, if at some point my country would allow it," said Yasmani Tomas, who is one of Cuba's top talents, batting .345 last season with the powerhouse Havana Industriales.

Under the new policy, athletes will be eligible to play abroad as long as they fulfill their commitments at home, the Communist Party newspaper Granma reported. For baseball players, that means being available for international competitions as well as Cuba's November-to-April league.

President Raul Castro's government clearly hopes the move will stem defections by athletes who are lured abroad by the possibility of lucrative contracts, a practice that saps talent from Cuba's teams.

"I think this could help stop the desertions a little bit," said Yulieski Gourriel, a talented 29-year-old third baseman who batted .314 last year for Sancti Spiritus.

"I don't even want to talk about how much I've been offered, because every time we leave the country, there are these offers. I've never paid attention because I've always said I'm not interested."

A number of his countrymen, however, are interested.

Cuban defectors now in the majors include Yasiel Puig, who signed a seven-year, $42 million contract with the Dodgers and had a sensational rookie season, helping Los Angeles win its division. Aroldis Chapman, the hard-throwing reliever, is making just over $5 million a year with the Cincinnati Reds.

If the policy change comes to pass, "it's good for Cuba, for everybody, for the players — more people in the big leagues, more experience for international tournaments," said Milwaukee Brewers infielder Yuniesky Betancourt, a Cuban defector who left his homeland aboard a speedboat in 2003.

Professional sports were essentially done away with under Fidel Castro in 1961, two years after the Cuban revolution, and athletes became state employees just like factory workers and farmhands.

Sport as private enterprise was deemed incompatible with the Marxist society Castro intended to create. In 2005, he railed against the "parasites that feed off the athlete's hard work" in professional sports.

Friday's announcement is part of a trend toward relaxing that stance under Castro's brother, who became president in 2006.

Earlier this year, Cuba ended a five-decade ban on professional boxing, joining an international semipro league where fighters compete for sponsored teams and earn $1,000 to $3,000 a month.

Still, the biggest obstacle to, say, Tomas' likeness showing up on a bobblehead doll in a major league park someday may lie not in Cuba, but in the U.S.

Granma reported that Cuban athletes will have to pay taxes on any earnings from foreign clubs, an apparent conflict with the 51-year-old American embargo that outlaws nearly all U.S. transactions with Cuba unless they are specifically licensed by Washington.

The economic restrictions were imposed after Cuba nationalized American businesses and aligned itself with the Soviet Union. They have been kept in place to try to pressure the authoritarian country to allow its people more freedom.

"Our policy has not changed. Cuban players need to be unblocked by a license from the Office of Foreign Assets Control in order to play for the MLB," said John Sullivan, spokesman for the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control. "In order to qualify, the players must prove that they have permanent residency outside of Cuba."

Another complication: Major League Baseball and its players union would have to decide whether Cuban ballplayers would be able to sign as free agents or would have to go through the international draft that baseball hopes to start in 2017.

Even if Cubans have trouble playing in the U.S., they might still be able to take the field in Mexico, Japan, Venezuela or other countries during their offseason, something that has happened before in a few instances.

Also Friday, Granma announced raises for island athletes, including bonuses for individual and team achievement. For example, in baseball, league leaders in hitting and other categories will get an extra $41. The team that wins the title will split $2,700.

That's small change by big-league standards, but sizeable in Cuba.

"The pay raise is going to be a big help. It was time," Tomas said. "I think if we'd done it even earlier, some athletes would not have left."

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