Baseball players returned to Cuba face uncertain future

Their dreams may be over

May 20, 1998
Web posted at: 9:07 p.m. EDT (0107 GMT)

From Havana Bureau Chief Lucia Newman

HAVANA, Cuba (CNN) -- There were no happy faces among the 45 Cuban refugees sent home by the Bahamian government this week. And for the three baseball players and pitching coach among them, their attempt to flee Cuba may mark the end of their careers at the top rank of Cuban baseball.

"Maybe [the Cuban government will] let me work in something unimportant, but we will never have the opportunity to be in our league again, at least not in Cuba," said the coach, Enrique Chinea. "That's why we wanted to go to another country."

"The truth is we've turned into political dissidents of sport, even without wanting to," Chinea said. He explained that authorities confiscated his money, a personal phone book and some religious literature when he arrived back in Cuba.

At home in Santa Clara province, junior player Michael Jova, 17, still dreams of playing in the major leagues in the United States. But he knows he may never get the chance.

Cuban officials "have not told me yet what I will be able to do," Jova said. "My mother is dead and my father cannot support me. I don't know if I will be able to work."

"They'll never let me out of this country."

Once a star shortstop who played internationally for Cuba, Jova, if he's allowed to play at all, will likely be delegated to amateur provincial leagues, a big step down.

The passion of Cubans for baseball starts early, and the government trains and subsidizes outstanding players. In return, it expects them to play for Cuba, and it considers those who leave for major league contracts in the United States to be traitors.

The baseball players and Chinea fled Cuba by boat in March, expecting a one-day trip to Florida. But they got lost, sparking a 10-day odyssey that ended when they were rescued by a Bahamian fishing crew.

After reaching the Bahamas, they were courted by two U.S.-based sports agencies, but neither was able to find a country willing to take in the baseball players. Requests for political asylum also were denied after the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees determined that they had not been persecuted in Cuba.

On Monday, the group was repatriated to Cuba by the Bahamian government, which said it could no longer afford to house them. Increasingly, the United States and other countries near Cuba are cooperating with the Cuban government in returning boat people, rather than automatically granting them political asylum as has been done in the past.

Related stories:

• Bahamas says it will return defecting players to Cuba - March 23, 1998
• 'Safe and Sound' - March 22, 1998

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