Why do Cuban athletes emigrate?

HAVANA –The question of why our sportsmen continue to leave — let’s just restrict this topic to the athletes, so as to avert depression — has too many answers and almost all of them involve personal aspirations and economics, the two main motivations that have bled Cuba’s youngest generations in the past two decades.

Having said that, let’s focus on sports for now.

For a while already, sports news in Cuba had tired of the topic. Those who emigrated in droves were not renowned players but teenagers with a future as stars or medium-caliber athletes of the kind that fill our National Series and any other world tournament.

For months, the headlines dealt most with possible hirings, with the negotiations and visits of Major League representatives to the island, on the decline in quality of our local tournament, on the consecutive defeats suffered by Team Cuba in international contests. The emigration of athletes had a low profile. The interminable parade had been naturalized.

Then, on Feb. 8, we were surprised by the Gourriel flight. Suddenly, as if waking up from our sleep, shocked by the undeniableness of the news and the statements of the newspaper Granma, we understood that emigration continued. At that moment, we put a face on the huge figure of 150 ballplayers who had left Cuba in 2015.

What’s interesting is that, until then, we weren’t too worried, maybe because 150 is not an alarming number within Cuban emigration for last year. On the other hand, it does represent a lot for a nation’s baseball. To understand what it means, let’s realize that a National Series team comes to every game with a roster of 23-25 men. On that basis, Cuba in 2015 lost the equivalent of six of the 14 teams that play in our ailing Series.

In reality, baseball is not the only discipline that continues to lose players, but it’s the most visible. Especially because every Cuban player who leaves the country has the same intention: to get to the Major Leagues (MLB). Getting there is a gamble, but it’s always a better bet than not leaving at all.

Playing under the Big Tent is a shared dream. Everyone acknowledges this, even those who decided to stay in Cuba, even legends like Pedro Luis Lazo. The Big Tent is, as everyone knows, Mecca, the destination of a pilgrimage, the world’s baseball cathedral. And in Cuba, as everyone also knows, baseball is religion.

When, in September 2013, the New Policy of Remuneration for Athletes was announced by INDER [National Institute of Sports, Physical Education and Recreation], many hoped that the contracts would slow down the desertion of Cuban athletes. In a way, that’s what happened, despite delays and setbacks. However, there was one sport where expectations changed little: baseball.

Just as demanding as the MLB, Japan was not a horizon defined in the imagination of Cuban ballplayers. But it was the Japanese who first came to the Cuban market, invested and hired. Yulieski Gourriel was the second Cuban player to join Professional Baseball in Japan (NPB) under the new rules. But the NPB cannot compete with the U.S. league in terms of salaries and recognition — no sports body can.

The next step seemed to be the definitive rapprochement with the Major Leagues. First, the announcements on Dec. 17, 2014; later, the high-level talks between sports institutions, Robert Manfred’s statements, the good-will visits, the reunions on Cuban soil. However, the truth is that, one year later, the positions haven’t changed: the Cubans who live in Cuba cannot play in the MLB because of the U.S. laws.

For the past year, the terms of the Cuban Baseball Federation have been clear. They are quite willing to negotiate with the MLB. The ball has been in the northern court ever since, but no noteworthy changes have occurred.

In addition to the legal obstacles — well known in the case of baseball — practice indicates that the hirings don’t fully exploit the potential of the Cuban athletes. Moreover, it could be assumed that the process moves at the pace of the federation’s interests, not in line with the athletes’ aspirations.

It is true that 2015 saw a significant increase in the number of contracts signed through the INDER but, when comparing that increase with the sustained migratory flow, it becomes evident that the increase is not sufficient to encourage those who are losing patience and time.

Why do our athletes emigrate? For the same reasons that entire generations emigrate. To find their own future, to try to build a life, to exercise their right to live wherever they wish, to experiment with a new way of living, to carve a future different from their parents’.

Because, basically, to leave or remain in Cuba should not be an irreconcilable position. Because athletes have only one life, dialectically and materialistically speaking. Because their “useful time” is more limited than in other professions, and the difference between 31 and 33 years of age can be the difference between playing and not playing. Because dreaming of a good salary, even a million-dollar salary, is a perfectly valid aspiration.

LIST OF THE 150 PLAYERS WHO HAVE EMIGRATED

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