Jose Abreu of the Chicago White Sox greets a fan during an MLB goodwill tour on Dec. 17, 2015 in Matanzas, Cuba. Rob Tringali/MLB Photos via Getty Images

Sports & Politics Intersect: MLB goes to bat for Cuban players

By Jeff Mezydlo, Jason Clinkscales, Maggie Hendricks | Last updated 12/21/18

“Knowing that the next generation of Cuban baseball players will not endure the unimaginable fate of past Cuban players is the realization of an impossible dream for all of us. Dealing with the exploitation of smugglers and unscrupulous agencies will finally come to an end for the Cuban baseball player.” - Chicago White Sox and Cuban-born slugger Jose Abreu

For years, Cuban-born athletes with dreams of playing Major League Baseball have literally put their lives in danger trying to reach the United States to make that a reality. That should no longer be the case.

On Wednesday, MLB, the Players Association and the Cuban Baseball Federation agreed that players from Cuba can now sign major league contracts without having to defect. While the decision can potentially benefit all parties involved, in theory, a major reason for the agreement is the hope that the days of dealing with smugglers and human trafficking of all the promising talent will end.

“Establishing a safe, legal process for entry to our system is the most important step we can take to ending the exploitation and endangerment of Cuban players who pursue careers in Major League Baseball,” Players Association executive director Tony Clark said in a release. “The safety and wellbeing of these young men remains our primary concern.”

According to Cuban journalist Francys Romero, as reported by Reuters, more than 350 players have defected from Cuba since the beginning of 2014. For years, MLB has been looking for a solution to improve players’ journeys from the island to the big leagues. Common practice in the past was for defectors to land in a third-party country, such as Mexico, via smugglers, who, in turn, would demand money for their entry to the U.S and continue to collect well into a player’s career.

It’s an often dangerous trek the likes of current MLB stars Yasiel Puig and Jose Abreu take to the majors. Now, a player can sign a contract in Cuba and receive a work visa for the U.S. However, he’ll likely still need to visit another country to apply for the latter, though via a safer route. As reported by the Miami Herald, Puig stated, “To know future Cuban players will not have to go through what we went through makes me so happy. I want to thank everyone who was involved in making this happen and thank them personally for allowing an opportunity for Cuban baseball players to have the ability to come and show how talented they are.”

The agreement allows Cuban players 25 or older and with six years of service in their native league to sign with major league clubs. Those MLB teams will then pay the CBF a fee, reported between 15-25 percent of the player’s guaranteed money. Players younger than 25 may also leave but will need permission from their Cuban teams and must serve out a waiting period. The CBF would receive 25 percent of said player’s signing bonus in this case.

While those fees would allow Cuban baseball to potentially flourish and likely give MLB teams a bigger talent pool from Cuba to work with, the United States government is not completely on board and plans to keep a close eye on the development. The Trump administration reportedly is not a big fan of the Cuban government profiting from an American business, in this case MLB. One senior member of the Trump administration told The Washington Post that this agreement “would institutionalize a system by which a Cuban body garnishes the wages of hard-working athletes who simply seek to live and compete in a free society. … Parties seeking to benefit from business opportunities in Cuba are on notice that the administration will continue to take actions to support human rights and restrict the Cuban regime’s ability to profit from U.S. business.”

Republican Sen. Marco Rubio (FL), whose parents emigrated from Cuba in the 1950s, tweeted that Cuba essentially is sponsoring “trafficking of baseball players.”

While it will be interesting to see how this all plays out, for the moment, a theoretically safer path to making dreams realities for Cuban ballplayers is in place.

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This week in sports and politics history: Jack Johnson becomes the heavyweight champion of the world

Open air Heavyweight World Championship fight between the reigning world champion Tommy Burns (Canada, left) and challenger Jack Johnson (USA, right) at Rushcutters Bay near Sydney, Australia on Dec. 26, 1908. Philipp Kester/ullstein bild via Getty Images

“I knew it even before the contest. We had a message from him Christmas Eve and he said it was all over but collecting the money; that he was in fine trim, and it was merely a matter in how long Burns would hold out.” - Tina Johnson, mother of Jack Jackson, speaking to the Chicago Tribune on Dec. 26, 1908

For two years, Jack Johnson followed Canadian fighter Tommy Burns around the world, begging for a fight. Johnson, who had won the World Colored Heavyweight Championship in 1903, wanted a crack at Burns, the world heavyweight champion. On Dec. 26, 1908, Johnson got his shot.

In front of 50,000 spectators outside Sydney, Australia, Burns and Johnson finally faced off. It wasn’t the first time a black fighter was vying for a championship, as Joe Gans won the lightweight title six years earlier. While white fighters could face black fighters, they were not allowed to fight for the world heavyweight championship. That title was not for the son of former slaves from Galveston, Texas.

Johnson knew exactly what he was facing in Burns. In chasing him around the globe, he often sat ringside for his matches, taunting Burns; studying him. All of the bouts he took in meant Johnson could tailor his game to not just defeat Burns but also to dominate him.

Long before Muhammad Ali danced around the ring to exhaust opponents, Johnson used his reach — 74 inches — to keep opponents at bay. He moved around the ring, letting their arms tire out as they lunged in on him. Against Burns, Johnson even let the champion land a punch as Johnson stood with his arms wide open.

The fight went on for 14 rounds before it was stopped, not by a referee or Burns’ corner, but by the police. Johnson had defeated Burns but also had upset the racists who had not conceived that a black man could beat a white man. Race riots broke out in the United States.

Meanwhile, there was a group of Johnson’s biggest fans in Australia. Chinese-Australians thought the “unequal classification of people by skin color” was against God’s will, and they held up Johnson as a hero. The headline of the Chinese Australian Herald the day after Johnson’s win read:

In Recent Decades, the Most Famous White Boxers Called Themselves Invincible. Now Tommy Burns Fought with Jack Johnson for Fourteen Rounds and was Defeated and Injured. Twenty Thousand People Watched the Match. The Whole of Australia is Shocked and the White People Are Disappointed.

While Burns was humiliated in the ring, he still came away from the fight a winner. He earned $30,000, compared to Johnson’s $5,000. Burns went on to serve for the Canadian Army and lose his fortune in the Great Depression, dying in 1948 of a heart attack at age 73. Johnson held onto the title until 1915 when he was knocked out by Jess Willard in Havana, Cuba.

But he had made news outside of the ring as well. He was arrested for violating the Mann Act in 1912 after he transported Lucille Cameron, a white woman, across state lines. The Mann Act, also known as the White Slave Traffic Act of 1910, was often used as a tool against black men who entered mixed race relationships under the guise of “moral panic” over the changing status quo of white superiority. President Donald Trump pardoned Johnson earlier this year.

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