10 Degrees: Cuban trafficking grows into MLB's ugly secret

Story by Yahoo Sports
Written by Jeff Passan
Video by CBS4

Baseball's ugliest secret is now out in the open, and it is even worse than imagined. Not only does the sport find itself in the middle of a human-trafficking scheme in which men and women have allegedly been kidnapped, held hostage, forced to sign binding documents at gun- and knifepoint, threatened with mutilation and terrorized by those from some of the world's most murderous gangs, top officials from Major League Baseball and the players' union have shown little inclination to remedy even the smallest of problems in the web of chaos involving Cuban defectors.

More than two decades of misguided policy have left the league in an untenable situation, surrounded by sociopolitical mines. While the past is irreversible, MLB and the union's present misplacement of priorities – of not spending time, energy and resources to better understand what it can do to untie the knot it cinched – is egregious and must soon be remedied. Just because no clear solutions exist does not excuse the sport from shoving the Cuban paradox under the carpet as it has for years, particularly considering the latest news that a gang might want to kill one of its biggest stars.

Los Angeles Magazine and ESPN this past week recounted the story of Yasiel Puig's tortuous path to the United States, which included the bullet-riddled corpse of a smuggler, the involvement of the dangerous Mexican crime syndicate Los Zetas and a knock on Puig's door at Dodgers spring training from a heavy who wanted money – or else. Take that threat, and the alleged kidnapping of Rangers center fielder Leonys Martin and his family, and smugglers warning they would break Yuniesky Betancourt's legs in 2005 when he defected, and story after story of out-and-out mistreatment of Cuban players trying to leave their country and play baseball, and the silence from the league and the union, the two parties charged with protecting the sport's sanctity and the players' health, is deafening.

Baseball's version of human trafficking doesn't resemble the typical atrocities across the world, in which people, particularly women, are sold and traded, often into sexual slavery. Hundreds of thousands of Cubans have left the country to escape Fidel Castro's regime, traversing perilous waters in search of freedom. The price for a typical escape today: $10,000 per person. Baseball players are different, prized by smugglers as diamonds to be sold on the secondary market. Simply because the sport's victims often leave of their own volition and ultimately come into millions of dollars does not lessen the crimes committed by those looking to leverage themselves into a cut of the riches.

The problem is very real and very difficult, and the United States' embargo on Cuba only complicates the situation. Still, in no way does it justify baseball spending man-hours fining players for wearing untucked jerseys or the union launching an investigation into which executives might have talked publicly about Kendrys Morales' and Stephen Drew's depressed free-agent values when a system the league endorses invites criminals to play middleman.

Read more: http://sports.yahoo.com/news/10-degrees--cuban-trafficking-grows-into-mlb-s-ugly-secret-034704407.html