June 17, 1999
MIAMI, June 16 (Reuters) - Six Cuban baseball players who defected from the communist-ruled island recently have been granted political asylum in Costa Rica, a California sports agent said on Wednesday.
Beverly Hills, California-based Total Sports International Inc. identified the players as catcher Brayan Pena, 17, catcher Alexis Hernandez, 25, pitcher Miguel Perez, 23, pitcher Julio Cesar Villalon, 21, outfielder Nataniel Reinoso, 24, and outfielder Juan Carlos Bruzon, 28.
Pena left the Cuban National Junior Team in Venezuela in April, while the others left the island in May, Total Sports International spokesman Gus Dominguez said.
"The only thing we can tell you is that they left Cuba in early May and found their way over to Costa Rica," he said. "They've been living together in a place we rented for them."
Cuba, where national sport is amateur but state-backed and financed, has been stung in recent years by defections from its baseball program by players who have gone on to star in the U.S. major leagues.
Cuban President Fidel Castro, a keen baseball fan, has condemned organized attempts from abroad to "rob" the island of its top baseball players by offering lucrative contracts.
Perhaps the best known of Cuba's baseball defectors are pitchers Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez and his half-brother Livan.
Livan Hernandez defected in 1995 while with the Cuban team in Mexico and signed a $4.5 million contract with the Florida Marlins, then won the Most Valuable Player award in the 1997 World Series.
Orlando Hernandez, suspended from baseball in Cuba after his brother defected, left the island on a raft in December 1997 and landed in the Bahamas. He later signed a $6.6 million contract with the New York Yankees and was a member of their 1998 World Series-winning team.
In May, Rigoberto Betancourt Herrera, a former pitcher, defected from the 300-member Cuban delegation that traveled to Baltimore for a game between the Major League's Orioles and a Cuban team.
20:25 06-16-99
Copyright 1999 Reuters Limited
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