A Cuban umpire escaped to the United States:
The Spanish-language newspaper El Nuevo Herald reports that Nelson Diaz arrived in Miami on Sunday with his wife and two daughters.
Diaz worked in the Olympics and the 2006 World Baseball Classic. His 26-year career supposedly ended after he was picked to work the 2009 WBC in Japan but was told by Cuban baseball officials he couldn’t go because they didn’t trust him.
I’m glad he got out anyway and hope he gets to ply his trade in the professional leagues here. Maybe it’s not such a good idea to send a major league team to play there again.
Posted by David Pinto at 7:37 pm | Umpires | Permalink | 3 Comments
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December 1st, 2009 @ 12:21 pm
If MLB is still around when the embargo finally goes, they should look into expanding or relocating a team to Havana.
December 1st, 2009 @ 12:29 pm
@Ed: Peter Gammons once told me that during the Carter administration an idea was floated to promise Cuba a major league team if they overthrew Castro. I don’t know why that was never actually tried.
December 8th, 2009 @ 3:17 am
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