Cubans’ love for baseball brings hope for future

HAVANA | For years, Geovani Lopez has worked in a maintenance role at Estadio Latinoamericano, the aging blue behemoth in central Havana that, like the baseball team that it houses, has required a Sisyphean level of upkeep.

In some ways, it’s a labor of love for Lopez, who was raised in the city and makes the short trek round-trip from his home in the Marianao suburb each day. He has been smitten with baseball since he was young and raised his 9-year-old son, Diego, the same way, hoping that the sport may be a way for him to one day avoid a difficult future.

Thus, on Monday, when Lopez went to the stadium, Diego was in tow. He knew that tickets to the game between the Tampa Bay Rays and the Cuban national team the following day were to be distributed by invitation only, meaning that those without government connections are likely to be shut out.

Lopez was almost out of luck on Monday, too. Overcast skies and high winds led to the Rays to cancel their scheduled on-field workouts, with only a handful of players stopping by the stadium that morning to gauge playing conditions. Among them were pitcher Chris Archer, who, having surveyed the field and was preparing to leave, saw Diego, standing mesmerized in his gray Philadelphia Phillies cap and navy Rays T-shirt.

It didn’t take long for Archer to grab a baseball, and it didn’t take Diego long to grab his dad’s glove. For a few moments, the two played catch along the warning track on the first-base line, a major-leaguer and a dreamer, a shared appreciation for baseball uniting nations and generations.

“I’m honored to come to this and to come to a land where there’s been so many great stars that have impacted Major League Baseball,” Archer said. “Just to give [people] a hands-on version of it and to interact with the people that have produced such great talent at the major-league level is going to be such a great experience.”

If anything, it’s that vision and hope for the future that has already underscored this trip, the first featuring a major-league team in Cuba in nearly two decades. Relations between the island nation and the United States have begun to thaw over the last two years, continuing with President Obama’s face-to-face meeting with Cuban President Raul Castro, the fourth such meeting between the two leaders, on Monday.

The nations’ shared love for the sport — “It’s part of the fabric of American culture and I’m absolutely convinced that baseball is also a part of the fabric of the Cuban culture,” MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said — has helped bring the two sides slightly closer together on a number of issues.

Paramount, though, is the trade embargo, which, in terms of baseball, has complicated the matter of Cuban players freely signing major-league contracts. More than 100 players defected from their country in the past 15 months — a process that involves each of them establishing residency in a third country before being able to pursue a professional career. Industriales, the once-strong team based in Havana, has lost nearly 20 players to defections in the past three years.

That restriction has led to the trafficking of players, with a licensed player agent arrested last month after he was indicted by a federal grand jury on human trafficking charges for his role in helping Seattle Mariners outfielder Leonys Martin enter the U.S. in 2010.

Higinio Velez, the president of the Cuban Baseball Federation, insisted repeatedly on Monday that the organization is receptive to having its players seek major-league careers. It has long been believed that in exchange for sending talent to the United States, the government wants to place a tax on a player’s future earnings — an arrangement that it has with Japan’s professional leagues and one that is forbidden by the trade embargo.

“Cuba wants its players to participate in the major leagues with the same rights and with the same conditions as in other countries,” Velez, clearly irritated, said through a translator. “We currently have players who have participated in other leagues in other countries without restrictions, and that’s actually what we would like in the case of the American major leagues — that our players are able to represent our country, our federation, without any conditions or any difficulties.”

Manfred, in response, said little more than noting that negotiations are “ongoing,” but he pointed to the end of the current collective bargaining agreement, which expires on Dec. 1, as something that could help lead to changes in the system.

“I would echo what the commissioner offered — it is a very complicated issue, and I think we are all on the side of discussing the safest way for players to realize their dream, perhaps, of playing in Major League Baseball,” said Tony Clark, the head of the players’ union. “But again, it is a four-way negotiation and communication that is very complicated and likely to take some time.”

One player who left Cuba under similar duress is Dayron Varona, who boarded a boat with his mother and four others in 2013 and embarked upon a 12-hour voyage to Haiti. Varona subsequently signed with the Rays, and his return to his homeland late Sunday night included an emotional reunion with a number of family members in the lobby of the team’s hotel.

“I’m thankful for that, as well as for the Rays, who have allowed me to come home,” said Varona, who will be the Rays’ leadoff hitter on Tuesday and start in right field. “This is really special for me.”

Archer, an all-star last season, had expressed a desire in recent weeks to see just how deeply Cubans connect with baseball. He suggested he’d wander off into the neighborhoods during his downtime to find children playing a game and joked he would even join in, hoping to recapture some measure of the excitement of his youth.

He did that, in some regards, with Diego. Before leaving the field on Monday morning, Archer borrowed a pen, recovered the ball and began scribbling away, writing a brief note to the youngster before signing his name.

“Diego,” the message read, “follow your dreams.”

Lopez smiled. He recalled watching the Rays in the final game of the 2011 season, when they were down seven runs in the eighth inning and rallied to beat the New York Yankees, 8-7, to clinch a playoff berth. He also remembered watching them in 2008, when they defeated the Boston Red Sox in Game 7 of the American League Championship Series to advance to the World Series for the first time.

He even remembered watching Archer pitch against the Cuban national team nearly five years ago, when he struck out 10 batters in six innings in the Pan-American Games.

Asked if his son would likely now be a Rays fan for life, Lopez couldn’t find any reason to disagree.

“Seguro,” Lopez said. “For sure.”