Commie Ball (Michael Lewis, Yuniesky Betancourt, and Cuban baseball)

nfreakct — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 04:29:51 -0000

Michael Lewis (the author of Moneyball and The Blind Side) has written a fantastic piece about the many sides and contradictions of modern Cuban baseball. It centers around the federal government's prosecution of Gus Dominguez and smuggling of Cuban baseball players, but also talks a lot about the current personalities that populate the Cuban teams and the general culture of baseball there.

Commie Ball: A Journey to the End of a Revolution

It's fantastic in general, but if nothing else it's a must read because our starting shortstop Yuniesky Betancourt plays a major role as a key player in the Cuban defections.

Mesa’s Villa Clara team vies for the lead in an important stat: player defections. Live through a season with Víctor Mesa and a few days on a raft surrounded by sharks doesn’t seem so terrifying. Mesa’s shortstop and catcher were banned from baseball for speaking on the phone with Cuban defectors. His shortstop Yuniesky Betancourt hopped a boat to Florida one night in 2003. Established as Seattle’s starting shortstop two seasons ago, Betancourt was asked if he had problems adjusting to big-league managers. “We have a manager in Cuba, and that manager is worse than anything you have in the major leagues,” Betancourt replied. “His name is Víctor Mesa.”

An invisible line runs from Víctor Mesa, yelling from his dugout, to Gus Dominguez, in his cell inside a California prison. For the one thing that the U.S. attorney general and the jailed sports agent agree upon is that all the trouble began when Yuniesky Betancourt fled Víctor Mesa’s ball club.

SB Nation User Blog: nfreakct

Commie Ball (Michael Lewis, Yuniesky Betancourt, and Cuban baseball)