Posted by
Billy on Monday, May 03, 2010 10:35:09 AM
Juan Ignacio Hernández Nodar flew to Havana, Cuba, in August 1996 with hopes of
making the biggest score yet in the shadowy trade of helping elite Cuban
baseball players defect to the U.S. major leagues.
The former truck driver, then 38 years old and an American citizen, already
had helped four Cuban pitchers escape and net big-league contracts worth almost
$11 million combined. One of them, Liván Hernández, would win the World Series
Most Valuable Player award the following year.
But Mr. Hernández Nodar, whose family fled Cuba when he was two, was after
even bigger game: Cuba's winningest pitcher, Liván's older half-brother, Orlando
"El Duque" Hernández.
Cuba's world-class players are barred from the U.S. by Cuba's supreme leader
Fidel Castro, who treasures them as symbols of Communist superiority. That Aug.
12, Mr. Hernández Nodar was arrested while attending a game in central Cuba. A
Havana court sentenced him to 15 years in prison, calling him a "parasite
benefitting from the huge efforts of our working people."
He was held for 13 years, two months and 27 days, nearly all of it in Cuba's
notorious Combinado del Este prison. Last November, he was finally allowed to
leave Cuba.
"I was the forgotten man," said Mr. Hernández Nodar, now 51, as he drove
through the dusty streets of Boca Chica, the Dominican seaside town where he now
lives. He shared for the first time the full story of his arrest and years
behind bars. His odyssey is rooted in the two nations' mutual passion for
baseball, an integral part of both their shared history and their hostile
relations of recent decades.
(Do read more of the above article by Christopher
Rhoads' which talks about baseball, and life in a Cuba prison. )
