2 players thrown off Cuba baseball team for `indiscipline'
Associated Press
HAVANA -- Cuba said Friday that right-hander Yadel Martí, who was named
top pitcher at the inaugural World Baseball Classic, and hard-hitting
outfielder Yasser Gómez had been thrown off the island's top team,
Havana's Industriales, for committing ``a grave act of indiscipline.''
The one-sentence announcement in the Communist Party newspaper Granma
offered no further details, but two people close to the team said the
action came after the pair was caught trying to defect to the United
States. They did not elaborate or wish to be quoted by name, fearing it
could lead to problems with Industriales.
Martí was 1-0 with a perfect 0.00 ERA in four games during the 2006 WBC,
when Cuba finished second, losing in the finals to Japan. The team was
welcomed home as heroes, climbing aboard a convoy of green military
jeeps and parading through Havana's streets.
Martí talked publicly about how Cuba would seek revenge during the 2009
WBC and he was expected to again be one of the national team's stars.
But Friday's announcement virtually guarantees neither he nor Gomez will
play baseball for Cuba again in any capacity.
Marti, 29, began his career with the island's top baseball league in
1999 with the Metropolitanos of Havana, the capital's second-tier squad.
He was a short, thin prospect who scouts thought did not have the
physical stature to become a star, but his excellent control and
craftiness on the mound helped him win a spot on Industriales in 2002.
The 28-year-old Gómez is a left-hander who batted in the key third slot
in the Industriales lineup and posted a .394 average in 2007. He began
playing in Cuba's top league as a teenager and was part of the Olympic
team at the Sydney Games in 2000, which took the silver medal. He was
left off Cuba's 2006 WBC squad.
Both Gómez and Martí failed to secure spots on the Cuban team that
finished second at the Olympic Games in Beijing, absences that surprised
many in baseball circles.
Gómez had lived in a Havana apartment building adjacent to the aging
stadium where the Industriales play. The building is full of players and
their families and painted in the colors of Industriales, blue and
white, with a script 'I' logo. He moved to a new apartment in the
capital's Vedado district sometime ago, however.
Martí has a home in another part of the city, but did not answer his
home or cellphones Friday. The Industriales refused to comment.
Like many elite Cuban athletes, baseball players draw small salaries and
often travel by bus, but have some perks the general population does
not, including the use of a state-owned car or the right to purchase
their own vehicle. The government does not consider its baseball players
professionals, but the island's National Baseball League is far-and-away
the most-followed in this baseball-mad country.
Industriales is the class of the league and the closest thing Cuba has
to the New York Yankees. The team wears pinstripes, has first choice of
the top baseball talent born in and around Havana and vies with
Santiago, the island's second-largest city, for possessing the largest
and most-devoted fan base.
It was the team of Orlando ''El Duque'' Hernández, who was the
most-famous player on Industriales and in Cuba when he defected to the
United States, eventually winning a World Series with the New York
Yankees in 1998. Livan Hernández, World Series MVP for the Florida
Marlins, was also a star of the team before fleeing the island. Rey
Ordonez was an Industriales backup shortstop before becoming a
three-time gold-glover with the New York Mets.
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/cuba/story/782171.html
No comments:
Post a Comment