In U.S.-Cuba baseball talks, ‘money is the complicating factor’

When and how Major League Baseball might begin hiring players in Cuba is an issue raised this week by the Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail. The following excerpt from an article published Friday (Dec. 18) quotes highly placed representatives from both sides.
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With the reopening of diplomatic relations between the United States and Cuba, MLB and the Cuban Baseball Federation have also started talking.

“I would characterize them as very early-stage meetings,” says Dan Halem, chief legal officer of Major League Baseball, who is involved in the talks.

One of MLB’s concerns is how to open the doors for Cubans to play without causing a rush of talent off the island that would set the country back in terms of developing new players.

“There has to be an agreement with the Cuban government regarding which players would come and how they would come,” Halem says. “Certainly we’ve got no desire to disrupt baseball in Cuba, so there would have to be some orderly system.”

The players picked to go first would be of national importance in Cuba. Baseball is a matter of deep pride on the island, closely tied to the self-image of its populace.

The first player — or group of players — would be about more than just baseball. They would be ambassadors for a country that has always felt like it has something to prove against the U.S. — both in baseball and outside of it.

Higinio Vélez, a former manager of the national team who is now president of the Cuban Baseball Federation, says choosing which players to send will be delicate.

The Cubans want to avoid a sudden free-for-all that would deplete their league of top talent just to stock the minor leagues of MLB. But they also know the best four or five players, or possibly more, could be in demand almost immediately, if and when the time comes.

“They will want the best,” Vélez says, sitting in a hotel in central Havana where he and Heriberto Suárez, Cuba’s national baseball commissioner, agreed to an interview.

Cuba’s top baseball officials say the country is willing to let players go as free agents, but they want to negotiate with MLB about how it happens.

“We have to be very careful there,” Suárez says. “Everything is a process.”

Asked if Yulieski Gourriel (shown in photo at top) will be the first player, Suárez suggests it’s possible: “He’s our best player.”

A key sticking point, though, is a U.S. requirement that forces players to sever ties with the island, which the Cubans resent. They must either defect in the U.S. or venture to a third country and obtain residency. Most players choose the latter, since that route allows them to enter MLB as international free agents, signing highly lucrative contracts, instead of having to go through the draft.

Finding a country that can offer residency papers quickly isn’t difficult, particularly when money is exchanged under the table. There were 18 Cubans on MLB opening day rosters last season. Most of them entered through countries such as Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

“We want our players to have the same opportunities as all players in the world… with the same rights as any other player,” Vélez says. “To play in MLB, you have to become a citizen of a third country. You can’t play as a Cuban. That’s a form of discrimination only for Cubans.”

If the U.S. is willing to work with the federation on such matters, Vélez suggests a deal with MLB can get done quickly.

“We’re not the ones with restrictions,” he says. “Movement is possible when our dignity is respected.”

Negotiations such as these are a learning process, Suárez says.

“For us this is something new. But not for you guys, because you have been contracting players all your lives,” Suárez says. “The difference for us is that there’s money involved. We’ve never sat down at a table where we could contract someone. I’m happy it has changed. We have to talk about money.”

However, money is the complicating factor. If any of it flows back to Cuba, the MLB has a problem. If Cuba wants to be paid for its players — either by selling the rights to negotiate with an athlete, as Japanese teams do, or by collecting taxes on their salaries — it would put MLB in violation of the U.S. embargo.

The two sides either need the embargo to be lifted or changed by Congress, something that Obama is pushing for, or to find a workaround that doesn’t involve financial compensation going to Cuba.

“I think it will happen,” MLB’s Halem says. “But it’s going to take a while to work this out.”

Obama’s decision to seek “a new chapter” with Cuba has changed what’s possible. “Before the president’s announcement, we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” Halem says. “There would be no path to have this conversation.”

[For a Yahoo News interview with Yulieski Gourriel, click here.]