Yoenis Cespedes Explains Why He left Cuba
HAVANA TIMES, Mar 15 — Cuban baseball player Yoenis Cespedes said recently that he didn’t leave Cuba out of any hatred of Marxism or love for the United States, reported the Cubaencuentro website.
The center fielder for the Oakland A’s said that rather than for political reasons, he left the island due to the malaise that prevails throughout Cuban baseball, the national sport.
“Athletes (in Cuba) don’t receive the treatment they deserve; they don’t receive the salaries that they actually earn,” he explained.
“On the national team, they have A, B and C teams. I was a league leader in home runs, but they put me on the C team – the worst one,” said Cespedes. “That’s when I decided to leave (Cuba), though it took me fifteen days to decide,” he added.
Cespedes is currently the highest paid player with the Oakland Athletics (US $36 million for a four-year contract), where in his first Spring Training game he debuted with a home run, walk, single and 2 RBIs. However in the following two games he went hitless, as he learns to adapt to Major League pitching.
Nancy, you need a wake up call or a lesson on history.
Grady, well said.
Yours is an arrogant, nasty comment, Nancy. You make a personal attack on this man, as though the problem at hand were his personal character, perhaps his personal avarice. If you can’t appreciate him, and the problems confronting other athletes living under the state monopoly, bureaucratic form of socialism, then it would be better perhaps to hold your tongue.
What you do with the money you earn is your business. What Yoenis Cespedes does with what he earns is his. To me, he sounds like a hellava good guy. We should all wish him and his the very best.
I wonder how much of this obscene salary he will send to INDER for all his training? Or how much of it he will share with the other “underpaid” Cuban baseball players? Now that he has many times more money than INDER does, and therefore more capacity to pay them, will he put this boat load of money where his mouth is….or will he just put it in his pocket? Anyone wanna make a wager…?