Yahoo Autos Cuban catcher defects in Miami after World Baseball Classic game at loanDepot park
Just hours after playing in the World Baseball Classic in Miami, Cuba’s national baseball team took an early-morning flight back to the island on Monday — a quick return home in line with the Cuban government’s desire to prevent defections by its athletes.
It didn’t totally work: The official Cuban baseball delegation returned to the island one player short.
Iván Prieto González, the catcher in the Cuban team bullpen helping pitchers warm up, didn’t show up at Miami International Airport for the team’s flight to Havana, defecting to the U.S. instead.
Prieto, a catcher for the Alazanes de Granma team in Cuba’s National Series, had been chosen by the Cuban Baseball Federation for the bullpen catcher role. He played eight seasons on the island with teams from the provinces of Holguín and Granma.
He was picked up by his brother at the Miami-area hotel where the Cuban delegation was staying hours after Sunday’s game, according to MLB reporter Francys Romero, who was among the first to report the defection.
Prieto was not immediately available for comment. His decision might mean he won’t be able to reenter Cuba for five years, as the Cuban government punishes those who abandon official delegations.
His defection, however, did not prevent a carefully choreographed political display of support for the team when it returned to the island, adding to criticism that Cuban authorities had used the team featuring athletes playing in Cuba and other foreign leagues, including Major League Baseball, for propaganda purposes.
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Ever since Fidel Castro abolished professional sports in the early 1960s, the Cuban government has used baseball, in particular, as a reflection of the so-called achievements of the revolution. More recently, the Cuban government rebranded the Cuba national team as “Team Asere,” a slang term akin to dude in Cuban Spanish, and made it a pillar of a propaganda campaign to appeal to national unity and encourage voters’ participation in the elections for the National Assembly on Sunday.
Read more: Cuba’s national baseball team’s game in Miami revives old political battles
The team members were first greeted at Havana’s international airport Monday by leader Miguel Díaz-Canel. Also attending a welcoming ceremony at the airport were Primer Minister Miguel Marrero and National Assembly President Esteban Lazo. State workers, students and members of political organizations were told to stand on the streets to greet the bus caravan taking the players from the airport to the Latinoamericano baseball stadium in Havana for another welcome ceremony.
