Cuba talks team and not defection

Cuba talks team and not defection
Jack Curry The New York Times
MONDAY, MARCH 6, 2006

HAVANA The most fascinating and mysterious team participating in the
World Baseball Classic sometimes practices at a field hockey stadium on
a worn artificial surface while using a dozen smudged baseballs. No one
removes the hockey nets at each end of the field. They work around them.

The players are outfitted in a collage of red, blue and white pants,
jerseys and caps. None of the 30 players preparing for what they feel is
a historic tournament are dressed identically. Naturally, these
resilient players do not measure themselves on sartorial style.

This is Cuba's national baseball team, and the no-frills approach
defines them. A three-hour workout Saturday morning was spirited,
intense and resourceful. This is how we do it and how we are taught to
do it, the players said, while never mentioning President Fidel Castro's
omnipresence and barely addressing the tender topic of defection.

"The Cuban team plays for the love of baseball," said Eduardo Paret, a
33-year- old shortstop and the team's captain. "On this team, we don't
have stars. The team is the star."

A tightly controlled glimpse into the usually closed world of the Cubans
during two workouts showed them to be a disciplined group that was
extremely serious about competing but that also flashed a playful side.
The Cubans worked so hard and relentlessly that some of their frenetic
drills looked as if they were being performed by slick- moving robots.
Hit, run, throw, game over, repeat.

During the sessions, not a cup of water was visible for the players to
consume. Yet the players teased one another as if they were frisky
teenagers and wrestled on the damp turf afterward, conditioned to a way
of life that stresses the whole, not the parts.

"Our players, when they play, don't think, I'm going to break my hand,"
said Higinio Vélez, the manager. "Because the player that has money
sometimes thinks, What happens if I break my hand?"

The inference was obvious. The references to playing for the love of the
game, not for the money, to playing for the team, not for the
individual, flowed freely from the typically cautious Cubans. Cuba won
the gold medal at the Athens Olympics in 2004 and also won baseball's
World Cup in 2005. They are eager to prove themselves in the 16- team
World Baseball Classic when they begin play Wednesday against Panama in
San Juan, Puerto Rico.

From Nelson Rivas, a taxi driver who bet his friend a case of beer that
Cuba would win it all, to Felipe Pérez Roque, the foreign minister, who
predicted that "people in Cuba will not work" for the next two weeks,
the Cubans want to declare, once and for all, that they play baseball
better than anyone else in the world.

"We want to play the United States, and we want to win," Pedro Luis
Lazo, a 32-year-old pitcher, said. "Because we are big like the United
States."

Lazo's voice rose as he used "grande" to describe Cuba in comparison
with the United States. He has a bubbly personality and strolled into
the Havana Club restaurant in San Antonio de los Baños, southwest of
Havana, with a cigar that was as almost as long as a windshield wiper.

After Lazo hugged Olga López and shook hands with Tony Diaz, officials
from the National Institute of Sports, Physical Education and Recreation
who coordinated the interviews, he squeezed his 242-pound, or
110-kilogram, frame behind a small table. The institute governs athletic
competition in Cuba and selects players for national and international
teams.

With Diaz translating for all of the Cubans, Lazo called the U.S.
players professionals and the Cubans amateurs. He said that the United
States had solid players, but he quickly added that the Cubans were
good, too.

In Cuba, most players make an average of $20 a month, receive better
housing than the typical worker and perhaps receive a car from the
government. Still, when Lazo was asked about the United States, where a
player like Alex Rodriguez makes $25.2 million a year, he compared
himself with Rodriguez in only one way: They both want to play in the
countries where they live now.

"I would prefer to stay in Cuba," Lazo said. "I would prefer to be with
my people."

Yulieski Gourriel, a 21-year-old infielder who carries himself with the
swagger of Derek Jeter and who could be the next Rodriguez, also
parlayed a question about that big salary to express his devotion to Cuba.

"We are different," Gourriel said. "Here, we play for the love of the
game. There, they play for the money."

But showing that he had a sense of humor and a better sense of baseball
knowledge, Gourriel added a final thought on Rodriguez and the Yankees:
"They pay him good because he's a good player."

Lazo was bold to address questions about defection directly. No Cuban
has defected from an international tournament since José Contreras did
so in 2002.

But Joe Kehoskie, an agent who has represented Cuban defectors since
1998, said he knew of several players who would like to defect. He
estimated that more than 40 players, none as renowned as Contreras, have
defected in the past three years.

Of the 30 players on Cuba's roster, 21 were on the 24-man roster for the
World

'Nobody thinks, "I'm a star",' he said. "The star is the team. The star
is the victory."

Cup less than a year ago. Kehoskie speculated that the young pitchers
Danny Betancourt, who was dazzling in the Athens Olympics, and Frank
Montieth were excluded from the Classic because they were viewed as
threats to defect.

Like Lazo, Michel Enríquez dismissed the defection question by saying
home was sweet to him.

"I respect Alex Rodriguez, and I like his play," said Enriquez, 27, a
third baseman who is batting .448 in Cuba's current National Series
season. "But we love our people. We help 11 million people because
baseball is the first sport here."

Paret sidestepped a question about the possibility of defection by
saying the United States would "have a party" if Cuba were to win the
tournament because Americans like Cubans. Gourriel seemed to scratch his
ear nervously as soon as he heard the names Contreras and Orlando
Hernandez, who both defected. Players here are not supposed to discuss
that delicate subject.

"In the Classic final, if it's the United States and Cuba, then the
winner is the best," Gourriel ultimately said.

Vélez discussed his team, which is considered the fourth or fifth
strongest in the tournament, for 10 minutes and did not mention one
player. Not Paret, who is hitting .365 this season. Not Gourriel, who
has 17 homers in 66 games. Not Osmani Urrutia, who is batting .447 and
might hit over .400 for the fifth time in six years.

"Nobody thinks, 'I'm a star,'" he said. "The star is the team. Everyone
plays. The star is the victory."

After practice, the Cubans trekked to their headquarters at the Las
Yagrundas hotel, which is about an hour south of Havana and about an
hour from activities that could tempt the players. Vélez said he liked
it that way. He instructed a reporter to interview players there, not at
the stadium, because it would be more "tranquilo" for them.

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