Minor leaguer has long career after leaving Cuba
PAWTUCKET, R.I.—Michael Tejera figures if restrictions are eased for Cubans wishing to leave their country, there will be an influx of talented baseball players to the United States.
He's already made the move.
The lefty reliever for the Boston Red Sox Triple-A team at Pawtucket defected in 1994 and was part of the Florida Marlins team that won the 2003 World Series.
"If one day they open the country, you're going to see a lot of Cubans playing major league baseball just like you see guys from the Dominican and Venezuela," Tejera said. "It's their goal. In Cuba, baseball is the No. 1 sport."
Tejera, 31, signed a minor-league free agent contract with Boston on Jan. 4. He hasn't pitched in the majors since 2005, but the mere fact that he made it that far is an accomplishment. He arrived in Miami at the age of 17 with other members of the Cuban Junior National team in 1994. He was reunited with an aunt and uncle who had lived there for 10 years and decided to defect, even though he had many relatives in Cuba.
"I saw them but I didn't know anything about this country because in Cuba I didn't have any information," Tejera said. "They started talking to me about all the good things that this country has, like all the freedom and opportunities.
"I listened to them, took their advice and made my decision to stay. What they told me made my decision easier."
He said he was in the airport with his uncle and got permission from his coach to go shopping there. He and his uncle then met with immigration officials, he said, and they told him he was a free man.
"I didn't know what those words meant because I never had that," he said. "I never had the opportunity to be a free man, to express myself and do anything I wanted."
Fidel Castro's regime in Cuba "tells you what to do and what to say and you have pressure on you all the time. Just to get the opportunity to leave the country to play baseball, was tremendous," Tejera said.
But he left behind his mother, father, brother, sister, grandmother, grandfather, uncles, "my life," he said. "Fortunately, (the government) didn't do anything to my family" and two years later his mother, father, sister and brother boarded a boat and arrived in Miami.
He attended Miami Southwest High School, was drafted in the sixth round by Florida in 1995 and pitched three games for the Marlins in 1999. He didn't make it back to the majors until 1992, when he was 8-8 with a 4.45 ERA in 47 games, 18 of them starts, with the Marlins.
And the next year he went 3-4 with a 4.67 ERA in 50 outings, just six starts. He also pitched in two NL championship series games against the Chicago Cubs but didn't play in Florida's World Series victory over the New York Yankees. In 2004, he pitched in two games for Florida and six for Texas then appeared in three games for Texas in 2005.
Other Cubans have made it to the majors and Tejera thinks that number would increase if players are allowed to leave Cuba.
"A lot of players that played with me in Cuba have the same talent as guys here who were first- or second-round picks," he said. "Some of those guys had a lot of talent, but they chose to make a living out(side) of baseball because they had to support their families."
