The latest is Misael Silverio, a pitcher who will have no trouble finding a place in an MLB roster. He abandoned the team during an exhibition game.
You can add Silverio to a nice little group of Cuban
"defectors", from Cespedes of Home Run Derby fame, to Chapman throwing 100-mph
fastballs out of the Reds' bullpen, to Martin playing center field with the
Rangers to Jose Fernandez pitching with the Marlins.
They are not just baseball players. They are men who've taken a risk and left the Cuban National Team to have freedom.
They are also men born in the late 1980s and 1990s. They are the grandsons of the revolution who opted to leave everything behind for a taste of freedom. They were supposed to be "the new men" of the revolution.
We can safely say that the revolution is really striking out with these young men!
They also remind us of what Jose Azel just wrote of the so called Cuban reforms:
"The extraordinary degree to which Communist Cuba has failed to provide for the citizens’ economic well-being is well documented by an avalanche of statistics and data that have defined the country’s stagnation and regression since the 1959 revolution. A most disturbing illustration of this economic condition is Cubans’ purchasing power compared to that of other countries. A study by the University of Miami’s Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies shows, for example, that to purchase fourteen ounces of powdered milk, the average Cuban worker has to work 57.5 hours. To make the same purchase, the average worker in Costa Rica has to work only 1.7 hours. Comparable disparities hold for the other items analyzed in the study’s consumer basket."
Mr Azel is correct. Cuba's reforms are a joke. Just ask the ball players who would rather play here than there!
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