Three more Cuban baseball players missing from Edmonton competition after earlier defection

Three more Cuban baseball players missing from Edmonton competition
after earlier defection
By Marty Klinkenberg, Edmonton Journal August 21, 2012

Team Cuba's Yurismaris Baez runs to first base during IBAF Women's
Baseball World Cup game action against Team USA at John Fry Park in
Edmonton on Wednesday August 15, 2012.

Team Cuba's Yurismaris Baez runs to first base during IBAF Women's
Baseball World Cup game action against Team USA at John Fry Park in
Edmonton on Wednesday August 15, 2012.
Photograph by: Larry Wong , Edmonton Journal

EDMONTON - Three more Cuban players have disappeared from the World Cup
of Women's Baseball in Edmonton.

Ron Hayter, executive director of the Edmonton Baseball Federation,
confirmed Tuesday the players were missing when the Cuban delegation
showed up for closing ceremonies at Telus Field on Sunday evening.

Last week, the team lost another player, Odreisleisis Pequero Del Sol,
who disappeared overnight from her quarters at the University of
Alberta. The 21-year-old outfielder was later discovered to have
defected with a boyfriend to the United States.

After disappearing from Lister Hall in the middle of the night, Pequero
made her way to the border and was able to legally cross into the U.S.
because she possessed a valid visa, obtained when the team landed in
Chicago for a connecting flight to Edmonton.

The identities of the three additional players have not been released.
Hayter was unsure if the Cuban delegation ever located them, and it is
suspected that they, too, were defecting.

Hayter, who has overseen international baseball tournaments for three
decades, said the four players constitute the largest number to have
gone missing from a Cuban team in Edmonton. Three players defected in
this city at the World Junior Tournament in 2008, one of whom later
signed a multimillion-dollar contract with the Kansas City Royals.

Until this year, no female players have ever defected, Hayter said, and
now there may be four.

"We have always tried to encourage people not to take off, but we can't
control them," Hayter said. "We make it clear to all teams that we
provide lodging and everything else, but we can't control individual people.

"As organizers we would prefer that nobody leave. You can't blame us."

In 2008, Hayter got a phone call at Telus Field from Cuban President
Fidel Castro after the three junior players went missing. Castro was so
angry that he shouted at Hayter, calling him the "scum of the earth."

As of Tuesday morning, he had not heard from the 86-year-old Castro, who
stepped down as Cuban leader four years ago.

The players are not considered missing officially by police because they
were in the country legally and could leave the team of their own accord.

The city hosted the World Cup of Women's Baseball from Aug. 10-19.

More to come …

mklinkenberg@edmontonjournal.com

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