Acknowledgments
Prologue
Chapter 1: The Essence of “Puigmania”
Chapter 2: Cuba’s Hidden “Béisbol Paradiso”
Chapter 3: Sugar Cane Curtain Fiascos
Chapter 4: Ninety Miles of Sea, One Hundred Miles of “Heater”
Chapter 5: Brothers in Exile
Chapter 6: “The Best There Ever Was”
Chapter 7: No Reservations for Cuba
Chapter 8: Go East, Young Men, Go East
Chapter 9: The Unsustainable Dream
Epilogue
Appendix 1: 193 Cuban-Born Major Leaguers
Appendix 2: Cuban Baseball Defectors
Notes
References and Sources
Index
About the Author
Peter C. Bjarkman is the senior writer for www.BaseballdeCuba.com, the leading source in Spanish and English for current Cuban League and Cuban national team coverage. He is the author of A History of Cuban Baseball, 1864-2006 (2007) and coauthor of Smoke, the Romance and Lore of Cuban Baseball (1999, with Mark Rucker). Bjarkman has made numerous media appearances as an expert on Cuban baseball, including a featured role as Anthony Bourdain’s guide to island baseball on the 2011 Travel Channel episode “No Reservations Cuba.” He appears as a featured head on ESPN’s “30 for 30” documentary, “Brothers in Exile” and has appeared several times on the popular ESPN feature “Outside the Lines.” Bjarkman was a recipient of the Society for American Baseball Research's 2017 Henry Chadwick Award, established to honor the game's great researchers.
Bjarkman, the senior writer of the Baseball de Cuba website,
engagingly probes the sensational influx of Cuban baseball
defectors who brave everything to get those mega-buck paydays in
American major-league baseball, causing a talent drain on the
island. The real-life stories behind Cuban refugees’ stellar
appearances in American ballparks often involve greedy big-league
scouts, speedy cigarette boats, and illegal smuggling and
kidnapping financed by Miami crime syndicates and operated by
deadly Mexican drug cartels. Stories of baseball dynamos Aroldis
Chapman, Leonys Martin, Yasiel Puig, and others are cautionary
tales of betrayal, peril, desperation, and corruption as racketeers
and agents shake down the naive, talented, poor youths for a share
of their multimillion-dollar salaries. The writer moves the reader
through a summary of Cuba’s baseball history from the first game in
1874 to the excellence in the Cuban League under Castro’s regime, a
prime distraction from El Jefe’s grand social experiment. Bjarkman
writes expertly of the raiding of local talent and the rapid
thawing of political wills of America and Cuba, and he proclaims
that the proud island 'will steadfastly remain the jealous owner of
its domestic baseball destiny.'
*Publishers Weekly*
After the integration of major league baseball in 1947, Cuban
ballplayers such as Minnie Miñoso, Pedro Ramos, and Sandy Amorós
dotted rosters throughout the National and American Leagues. Later,
legends including Tony Pérez, Tony Olivia, and the incomparable
Luis Tiant left Cuba before the start of the country’s revolution
in 1953 prevented future stars from entering American baseball.
Since that time, several players defected to the United States. The
numbers increased as Cuba’s economy declined; from 23 in 2009 to 36
in 2013, including Yasiel Puig and Aroldis Chapman. Cuban baseball,
with a proud and fascinating history of its own, has suffered from
these losses. Now that U.S.-Cuba relations have warmed, prospects
for the game’s future in the latter have seriously declined. In
clear prose, Bjarkman details the shift of Cuban stars to the major
leagues at the expense of Cuban baseball. His latest book is a
revelation, specifically its documentation of the often shady U.S.
role in recruiting top talent. VERDICT Bjarkman presents an
original social history for sports enthusiasts and readers
interested in past and future Cuba-U.S. ties.
*Library Journal*
Bjarkman is senior writer for BaseballdeCuba and the author of many
books, including A History of Cuban Baseball, 1864-2006. In great
depth, this volume examines the story of the 59 Cuban defectors who
played in Major League Baseball through 2015—comprising 31 percent
of all ‘Cuban big leaguers.’ Based on primary research and 20 years
of travel to Cuba, Bjarkman describes how the Cuban baseball system
achieved great international success, and discusses the impact of
the historic relations between the US and Cuba on recent limited
athletic contacts. He analyzes how and why star players illegally
left their country to play baseball overseas, for reasons such as
mistreatment by coaches, the lure of millions, and a desire to test
themselves against the best at the price of leaving families
behind. Some defected while on overseas tours, but others left on
dangerous boat trips, leaving these individuals beholden to
gangsters who helped finance trips. Bjarkman is very critical of
the entire process and fears for the future of Cuban baseball. The
book is thorough… [and] does contain illustrations and
endnotes.
Summing Up: Recommended. . . .Lower- and upper-division
undergraduates; general readers.
*CHOICE*
Peter Bjarkman is scrutinizing exceptional athletes such as
Gourriel and the forces that push and pull them, allowing readers
to draw conclusions about the future of Cuban baseball. Bjarkman —
probably the foremost expert of Cuban baseball in the United States
who is close to many of the players he writes about — doesn’t spare
the corporate machine that is U.S. Major League Baseball either. He
points out how the official MLB policy of forcing Cuban players to
cut all ties to their homeland not only triggered the stream of
talent, but also produced tales of human trafficking and violations
of Cuban law. And it contributes to the destruction of the Cuban
model. Bjarkman draws an unusual conclusion for the future of U.S.
baseball: 'Baseball’s salvation as a twenty-first century sport
depends on the continued health of alternative baseball worlds' —
such as the Cuban one. A big-league book!
*Cuba Standard*
When Peter Bjarkman writes about Cuban baseball it is always a
'must read.' One may agree or disagree with his premises, but his
decades of study and presence in the stadiums of Cuba confer on him
a knowledge about this subject that cannot be denied, one born from
his first-hand knowledge and closeness to his subject. (translated
from the original Spanish)
*el Nuevo Herald*
Some readers might assume a book about Cuban baseball defectors
would take the Hollywood approach, shining a light on Puig and
other stars who’ve risked life and limb for political freedom and
major league glory. But Peter C. Bjarkman’s new book, Cuba’s
Baseball Defectors: The Inside Story, offers a more skeptical view
of that narrative, as well as a scathing critique of the agents who
turn a blind eye to the human trafficking that’s behind many
defections. He’s focused less on the star players and their
sensational escapes and more on the sum total of those defections,
and the impact they have on a community left behind. . . .The
'inside story' promised by the book’s title is essentially one of a
special vantage point, of an isolated institution looking outward.
Bjarkman, an American, gives the impression that he’s adopted this
'alternate baseball universe' as his own, in the process renouncing
his former allegiances, not in political terms but simply as a fan
who’s grown in love with a certain brand of baseball. Maybe it’s
the natural result of someone attending hundreds of Cuban games as
the author has, both those on the island and abroad in
international competition. It’s clear that after visiting the
island more than 50 times since 1997 and reporting extensively on
Cuban baseball, he brings expertise to the subject.
*Baseball America*
If you have an interest in Cuban baseball, then this is the book
you need. Bjarkman is the end all, be all authority on Cuban
baseball. He knows every inside story on every player in the
country and understands the Cuban culture, which allows him to
understand the mindset of the players. He is the man ahead of the
headlines and shares with his readers the back stories of the
players that have come into the U.S over the past few years, how
Cuban baseball factors into the lives of those who live in the
country and how baseball has aided in helping the relations between
Cuba and the U.S. This is a very comprehensive work and Bjarkman is
second to none on his knowledge of the Cuban game, their players
and the proud society of Cuba. If you want to learn about Cuban
baseball, I will say it again, you need not look any farther than
here. Bjarkman has spent 20 plus years on this subject and it shows
through in this body of work.
*Gregg's Baseball Bookcase*
From a baseball standpoint, Bjarkman convincingly illustrates the
one-sided nature through which MLB executives imagine total US
control over Cuban labor and consumer markets in the development of
academies, exhibitions, memorabilia, and television broadcast
rights.... [T]here is much to appreciate in Bjarkman’s thorough
treatment of the current plight of Cuban baseball.
*Sport in American History*
Cuban baseball is largely unknown to most American baseball fans.
What most do know are the current crop of players from that island,
like Yasiel Puig, Aroldis Chapman and Jose Abreu. They all have
fascinating backstories, and author Peter Bjarkman, one of Cuban
baseball's foremost authorities in the US, has put together a
fascinating look at the island's baseball history in Cuba's
Baseball Defectors: The Inside Story.... If you enjoy Cuban
baseball, Cuba's Baseball Defectors is a book you must read.
Bjarkman goes into some minute details about it, and at the end of
the book lists not only the Cubans who have played in MLB since
1871, but has a comprehensive list of all players who have defected
from the island since 1980. There are plenty of stats, but there's
even more intrigue and cloak-and-dagger stuff behind those men who
left the country for various reasons to play ball in America.
*The Mighty Quinn Media Machine*
As usual, Peter Bjarkman is the go-to guy for the best information
about all things baseball cubano. He has seen these players long
before most of us ever heard their names. This is a fabulous
read!
*Eric Nadel, award-winning radio announcer for the Texas
Rangers*
This is the book we fans of Cuban baseball have been waiting for!
Insightful, intriguing, and filled with invigorating stories.
Author Peter Bjarkman bats 1000 with this one!
*Byron Motley, author and photographer of Embracing Cuba*
Cuba’s Baseball Defectors is a detailed account of the hundreds of
players that have left the island over the past quarter century and
decimated the country’s powerhouse national teams. But more
important, it is an up-to-date narrative of the role baseball plays
in the new political dynamics between the United States and Cuba.
This is a must-read book for anyone interested in contemporary
Cuba.
*Milton Jamail, author of Full Count: Inside Cuban Baseball*
Nobody knows more about the intertwining of politics and baseball
in Cuba than Peter Bjarkman—he is the dean of information on this
topic. Bjarkman has traveled to Cuba for many years and has formed
relationships with officials in both these areas.
*Omar Minaya, Senior VP of Baseball Operations, San Diego
Padres*
Peter Bjarkman is the ultimate chronicler of Cuban baseball. His
latest book takes an inside look into the wave of player departures
that has rocked the game both in Cuba and the U.S., while providing
historical perspective on the complicated relationship between the
countries.
*Jorge Ortiz, USA Today*
Peter Bjarkman is the only authoritative commentator on baseball in
post-revolution Cuba. Cuba’s Baseball Defectors combines
scholarship and the author’s insights gained from his close
personal ties to Cuban players, officials, and ordinary Cubans.
Defectors is not only a great book about Cuban baseball, but an
important book about contemporary Cuba.
*Kit Krieger, Cubaball Tours*
No American understands baseball’s role in Cuba better than Peter
Bjarkman, and in Cuba’s Baseball Defectors he is our
guide behind the headlines. With a historian’s eye, he both charts
the game’s past and explains why baseball matters to anyone seeking
a deeper understanding of Cuba today.
*Ben Strauss, coauthor of Indentured: The Inside Story of the
Rebellion Against the NCAA*
Daring, honest, exceptional… Peter C. Bjarkman has written a
must-read primer for anyone considering the truth behind Cuban
baseball’s impact on Major League Baseball. Read this book and
learn from one of the best.
*Ray Otero-Alonso, director of BaseballdeCuba.com*
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