What Happens to the Cuban Baseball Players Who Never Make It?

On August 13 of last year, Major League Baseball sent out a memo to executives from all 30 teams announcing that Cuban born players Yuniesky Lagar, Osbeidy Perez , Julio Rivera, and Erian Rojas had been granted free agency.

The memo was nothing out of the ordinary. More Cuban players than ever are being granted free agency. But most don't ever sniff the majors. Many don't even sign contracts. Nicole Banks, the listed representative for these players, did not get inundated with calls or emails from teams after filing their paperwork. Banks, who has handled paperwork for 20 Cuban free agents since 2010, says contracts are hard to come by. "If three or four signed that was a lot. Most guys don't sign."

This particular batch of players arrived legally in Guatemala in early January 2013. An intermediary for a Dominican trainer who lived in Guatemala had approached each of them individually in Cuba about the possibility of obtaining a tourist visa as a way to get out of the country. All the players needed was an invite from someone off the island, which the trainer would provide.

Once outside of Cuba, the players could then refuse to return, and seek residency status in a country outside of the U.S., which would allow them to bypass MLB's amateur draft. In exchange for getting them out, the trainer would receive a significant portion of the player's bonus once they signed. At the time, all the players believed this was a fair trade-off.

"One sees all the problems that you have on the island and you see this as an opportunity to leave," Rojas, an outfielder, says in Spanish. "You feel you have to take advantage of this type of opportunity because it doesn't come often."

Lagar, a lefthanded pitcher, felt he had no choice but to leave. He had pitched briefly in Cuba's Serie Nacional, but spent the previous three years serving a suspension for a previous attempt to defect off the coast of Cienfuegos. He was working as a security guard for a medical school and playing pick-up baseball on the weekends. He was 26. This might have been his only opportunity.

Early in their stay in Guatemala, the players began to grow weary of their living situation. The trainer, trying to protect his investment, kept a close eye on them. He would often remind them of how much they owed him, a number that seemed to change daily. The players did not believe they had the liberty to move freely about town.

"We were practically held hostage," Rojas says.

The players did not believe the trainer had done a good job of marketing them to teams. In those early months, Lagar says only scouts from the Toronto Blue Jays and the Baltimore Orioles saw the foursome tryout.

In September 2013, only a month after the group had been declared free agents, Lagar and Rivera, a catcher, clandestinely left their house in Guatemala and took an airplane to the Dominican Republic where they hoped to find better representation. Rojas and Perez, an outfielder, were staying in another house. They were left behind.

Lagar truly believed his fortunes would change when he arrived in the Dominican Republic. Once there, he inquired about representation and he was directed to a trainer who had been working with other Cubans.

The Cuban player market has exploded recently. Four of the five biggest contracts ever signed by Cuban born players have come since 2012. Trainers—who can get a significant percentage of a player's bonus, sometimes as much as 50 percent—see this as an opportunity for a huge pay day.

But Lagar says he was aghast at what he saw at the trainer's facilities. He stayed in a house with three other Cuban players. The house did not have electricity. But because he was not a high profile free agent, he didn't have many options. So he stayed for two months. At night, he sat and wondered how his dream had taken him so far off course.

"I didn't leave Cuba to be in that type of situation," he says.

In that time, Lagar says he worked out for only four teams: The Chicago Cubs, Miami Marlins, Arizona Diamondbacks, and San Francisco Giants. He was clocked throwing 88-89 mph. He says scouts told him he had to throw in the 90s to be seriously considered for a contract.

Louie Eljaua, international scouting director for the Cubs, and Ray Montgomery, director of amateur scouting for the Diamondbacks, say they have no record of Lagar having worked out for their scouts. At best, Lagar had only participated in halfhearted tryouts. Or he had made such a small impression on the scouts that they had not even bothered to send in a report to their bosses.

Lagar grew discouraged. He had befriended several church going non-baseball playing Cuban refugees, who encouraged him to start thinking of a post-career life outside of the Dominican Republic. Finally, after much prodding, Lagar relented.

"I guess destiny didn't mean for me to play baseball," he says.

On February 25, Lagar and a group of fellow Cubans boarded a plane headed for Puerto Rico. They arrived at Isla de Mona, Puerto Rico's third largest island. Authorities provided food and water. Shortly afterward, Lagar says the group was transferred to the Department of Homeland Security's Aguadilla port of entry, a processing center for immigrants. They were detained in a federal cell while authorities investigated them. The group was seeking asylum in the United States.

Finally, on February 28, Lagar says he and his friends landed in Miami at 9:30 p.m., having obtained temporary residency in the U.S. He was picked up from the airport by one of his father's friends.

He immediately linked up with a church in Miami that aids Cuban exiles. The church provided Lagar with clothes and within days they offered to set him up in a new city. Lagar was asked if he would be interested in living in either Las Vegas or Houston. He knew nothing about either city, but he knew he did not want to stay in Miami. Randomly, Lagar picked Houston. On his fourth day in the U.S., Lagar boarded a plane for Houston.

Upon his arrival in Houston, he was taken to an apartment that the church had rented for him. They gave him a $200 stipend for the first month to help him start a new life. Within a couple months, Lagar found a job as a roofer making $15.25 per hour.

He plays pick-up baseball on the weekends with a group of Mexicans and Cubans. The league is competitive, but not at the same level as any professional league or the Cuban league.

Recently, Lagar went to an independent league game in Houston to watch a friend from Cuba, who was playing for the visiting team. After the game, the two spoke and Lagar's hope to play professionally was rekindled. If he could somehow get in shape to try out for an independent league team in the U.S., then perhaps he could be offered a contract to play in Mexico or Puerto Rico during the winter. But the odds of that happening are low. Lagar has other obligations.

He sends money back to Cuba to help care for his four-year daughter and his longtime girlfriend. He hopes to be able to get permanent residency soon so that he can bring both to the U.S. Focusing on his playing career would mean giving up his job, which would leave his family in a bind. Lagar, now 28, is realistic about the fact that has likely played his last high-level competitive game.

"I can't complain," Lagar says. "I still believe that life has smiled upon me. I love playing baseball. But what can I do? I'm happy, content, calm. Hopefully God will keep looking out for me. But I'll always have the dream to play baseball."

On the morning he awoke to find that Lagar had left his house in Guatemala, Rojas immediately knew his life would change. He was neither involved nor aware of Lagar's plan to travel to the Dominican, but the trainer in Guatemala blamed him anyway. Rojas says he was told that he would be responsible for paying the other players' debts.

Rojas knew that he had to leave.

"I didn't have any option," Rojas says. "It was a dangerous place. If I didn't sign then they would have held me responsible for all that money they said I owed."

With the help of his girlfriend, a Colombian woman he had met in Guatemala, Rojas devised a harrowing plan that would get him to the U.S. Baseball became secondary to getting out of Guatemala.

Shortly after Lagar's departure, a car pulled up outside Rojas' house at midnight. It was a friend of his girlfriend's, there to take him to the nearest bus terminal. At 1:25 AM, Rojas boarded a bus that took him to the Guatemala-Mexico border. He arrived at 6 AM.

When Lagar and Rojas recount their stories, it becomes clear that specific times have become stamped in their minds as important landmarks of their respective long journeys. And yet, things around them were happening at a pace they could hardly keep up with.

At the border, with no immigration papers, Rojas says that he jumped into a nearby river and illegally crossed into Mexico. He spent the next four days traveling north, winding up at a hotel where he met a woman who helped him prepare for the rest of his trip. Before he left Guatemala, his girlfriend had given him the last bit of money she had. He would need all of it.

After five days on the road, Rojas was detained by federal officers in Chiapas and taken to an immigration detention center where he was held with 48 other prisoners. With so much time on his hands while being held captive, Rojas says he counted 36 Guatemalans, 10 El Salvadorans, and two Hondurans in the cell with him. Six of the prisoners were women.

"We were treated horribly," Rojas says. "We were treated like animals. They don't respect you."

After a few days, Rojas was transferred to the Tapachula Estacion Migratoria, Mexico's largest migrant detention center. He says he spent 35 days in Tapachula under horrible living conditions. Guards would yell regularly at prisoners, who were often fed raw or undercooked food. At one point, he remembers several of the prisoners went on a hunger strike, something that apparently happens often.

Eventually, Rojas was granted temporary residency status in Mexico and was released. He boarded a bus headed for Matamoros where he planned to cross into the U.S. After two days of travel, Rojas' bus crossed El Puente Los Tomatos into Brownsville, Texas. When the bus arrived at the border, a federal officer came on board and asked if there were any Cubans. Rojas raised his hand.

He was taken to an interrogation center. Officials asked him what he was doing in the U.S. He answered that he was looking for political asylum. He was held for a few hours. Eventually the officials gave him a temporary ID card and he was released. Rojas was now a legal—albeit still temporary—U.S. resident.

Upon his release, he walked to a McDonalds and asked a woman at the counter if she could help him get a taxi. When the taxi arrived, Rojas asked to go to the bus terminal. With the last bit of money that his girlfriend gave him, Rojas purchased a one-way ticket to Miami. He arrived on October 14.

In Miami, Rojas stayed with a family friend until he could find a job. Finally, after weeks of searching, he was hired to work the deli counter at a grocery store, a job that pays him $900 a month.

Rojas says he saved up and recently moved into his own living space, a studio-like apartment recently added to a larger house. He has no kitchen. He doesn't own a car so he walks almost a half hour every day to work. He has no family in the area. Mostly, he just stays at home and tries to save up as much money as he can so he can bring his girlfriend and her two kids up to live with him.

"She was left with nothing so that I could get here safely," Rojas says. "She's a wonderful woman. I have to fight for her and for her children. Because she has nothing left."

Rojas has mostly given up his baseball dreams. He doesn't have time to play. If he works, then he can't practice. If he practices, then he can't work. He now dreams of one day being able to go to school to learn English and then perhaps going to college to study for a career, although he doesn't know what career he'd pursue.

"I'm frustrated, who wouldn't be?" Rojas says. "I left with a dream and I haven't been able to fulfill it. Destiny has pretty much crushed all my dreams. It's not easy having gone through what I've been through. What hurts the most is that I haven't been able to keep playing. Baseball is something that I have in my heart. I dream about baseball in my sleep. It's something that I've done all my life and it's in my blood. And I have hope that I'll play again. But life doesn't always pan out."

Neither Rojas nor Lagar regret their decision to leave Cuba. Regardless of the difficulties and the hardships they have endured, both believe they are now in a better place to advance their lives, even if they aren't living their baseball dreams.

But both also say they would change their particular path.

"I would tell them to really think about what kind of people you align yourself with," Rojas says when asked what advice he'd give a fellow Cuban trying to defect. "It's a dirty business. You have to take care of your life because these are dangerous people."

Ultimately, the lure of a better life, the attraction of a possible pay day, and the dream of fame will inspire many more Cubans to seek a major league contract, even if they are only marginal players in their homeland. Most won't make it.

Rojas and Lagar have not crossed paths since Lagar left that house in Guatemala. But both still believe it was bad luck, not lack of talent, that derailed their own careers. In their hearts, they will always believe they were good enough to play in the majors. It was this belief that pushed them out of Cuba in the first place.

Rojas heard that two of the Guatemalans and a Dominican with whom he trained recently signed professional contracts.

"That's what frustrates me more," he says, "that they signed and we didn't, and we were better in every single tryout."