Sports agent 'smuggled' Cuban baseball players

The Times ^ | November 2, 2006 | Tim Reid

[MadIvan]

A sports agent has been charged with smuggling Cuban baseball players into the US, with the aim of getting them signed by America’s top teams.

Gustavo “Gus” Dominguez is accused of hiring four men to use a speedboat to carry 19 Cubans to Florida in 2004, five of whom were talented baseball players.

Experts say that the case, the first time a baseball agent has been charged with smuggling, reveals the dark side of businessmen who represent defectors from Cuba, where baseball is the national sport.

For years agents have helped Cubans to get signed by baseball teams once they were outside the communist island, and when they had already defected to the US.

Now sports agents are recruiting smugglers to get the players off the island, which usually involves a dangerous journey transporting them across the 90-mile Florida Straits.

At least 100 Cuban players have defected to the US since 1991. One agent, Joe Kehoskie, said that the smuggling rackets had been an open secret for a long time. “I don’t want to gloat about someone being arrested, but it seems like the [business of representing] Cuban defectors has turned into a smuggling business,” Mr Kehoskie told the Miami Herald.

According to Mr Dominguez’s indictment, he deposited $50,000 (£26,000) into a Californian bank account to fund the operation.

In July, 2004, he rented a flat in Woodland Hills, California. Four days later the four alleged accomplices loaded 22 Cubans on to a 28-foot speedboat in Cuba, but they were intercepted at sea by US border agents.

A month later the men went back to Cuba to pick up another 19 Cubans, many from the first aborted trip, and got them to the Florida Keys. From there the five players were taken to Los Angeles in vans.

Once there, the defendants then allegedly provided the players with food and clothing and began to train them. One player has since signed with a minor league affiliate to the Atlanta Braves; another with the Arizona Diamondbacks’ minor league team; and a third with the Saltdogs baseball team in Lincoln, Nebraska.

In court Mr Dominguez, who says that he represents 38 Cuban defectors, pleaded not guilty. If convicted he and his alleged accomplices face up to 10 years in prison. Under US law, if Cuban immigrants make it to dry land they cannot be deported back to Cuba, but are treated as asylum seekers.

Julie Myers, assistant secretary of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said: “Although this case involves a Beverly Hills sports agent and talented baseball players, it is remarkably similar to the human smuggling operations.”

THE BILLION DOLLAR GAME

Baseball is Cuba’s national sport and Fidel Castro is a fan

Rolando Arrojo led the Cuban national baseball team to victory against the US in 1996. He was later signed to a US team for $7 million (£3.6 milion)

Castro criticised him, but in Cuba Arrojo had earned the equivalent of $11 a month, lived in a three-bedroom home with eight relatives and rode a bicycle to the stadium

Other Cuban-born players signed by US teams are Rey Ordonez, paid $6.5 million in 2003 by the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, and Rafael Palmeiro, paid $3 million by the Baltimore Orioles

There have been more than 150 Cuban US major-league players

Top players can earn $25 million a year

In 1992 the baseball industry made $1.2 billion. The estimated revenue for 2006 is $5.2 billion

[MadIvan]

Can't blame the fellow for being enterprising.

Regards, Ivan

[MadIvan]

Ping!

[pipecorp]

chico escuela says" baseball been bery bery good to me"

[AmeriBrit]

The article is missing the most important piece of information Ivan, but because he was charged, I guess we can assume he was a RAT. ;)

[AmeriBrit]

RAT should be Republican.

[sittnick]

Experts say that the case, the first time a baseball agent has been charged with smuggling, reveals the dark side of businessmen who represent defectors from Cuba, where baseball is the national sport.

What "dark side"? I cannot explain our schizophrenic policy (except in terms of the Mriel boatlift, maybe), but by law once they hit land, they are not "smuggled". These agents are only helping innocent men flee Marxist tyranny. If being great at baseball helps them, more power to them!

[AuH2ORepublican]

"Other Cuban-born players signed by US teams are Rey Ordonez, paid $6.5 million in 2003 by the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, and Rafael Palmeiro, paid $3 million by the Baltimore Orioles"

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This is why British newspapers should not be allowed to write about baseball. In a discussion of Cuban ballplayers who have defected and signed big salaries, they include the case of Rafael Palmeiro, who came to the U.S. from Cuba with his parents as a small child in the 1960s, was raised in Florida, became a U.S. citizen, played college ball at Mississippi State University, was drafted by the Chicago Cubs, amassed over 3,000 hits and 500 home runs over his 20-year career, and was left unsigned last year after testing positive for steroids. The reporter clearly had no idea who Palmeiro was, and the $3 million-a-year contract he mentioned was probably one he signed as a 40-year-old, over 35 years after he left Cuba.

[Ode To Ted Kennedys Liver]

So what? America gets millions of illegals each year. At least some of them can pitch.

[AuH2ORepublican]

"These agents are only helping innocent men flee Marxist tyranny."

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I agree. I guess the prosecutors believe we should revoke Raoul Wallenberg's honorary U.S. citizenship, since he "illegally smuggled" all those Jews out of Nazi-occupied territory.

[AuH2ORepublican]

"America gets millions of illegals each year. At least some of them can pitch."

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And the Cuban ones aren't illegal.

[mickey blue eyes]

MUST HAVE BEEN REALLY CROWED ON THAT INTER TUBE