A Cuban baseball coach sought asylum in the United States today, skipping the flight that returned players home to Havana after their victory over the Baltimore Orioles, a congressman said.<\/p>\n
Two other Cubans also may have asked for political asylum, said Rep. Bob Menendez, D-N.J.<\/p>\n
Menendez identified the defector as Rigoberto Herrera Betancourt, 54, and said he was a pitching coach. Police identified him as Rigoberto Herrera.<\/p>\n
The official brochure handed out by the Cuban team before Monday’s game had no listing for a Herrera or a Betancourt.<\/p>\n
Police said Herrera walked into a police station this morning and requested asylum.<\/p>\n
Police contacted the Immigration Naturalization Service, and the agency took custody of Herrera late this morning, police spokesman Robert Weinhold said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Earlier, Luis Fernandez, a spokesman for Cuba’s diplomatic mission in Washington, said six Cubans missed their flight because they overslept. He said he had no information on any defections.<\/p>\n
Fernandez said the six former baseball players were planning to catch another flight home either today or Wednesday.<\/p>\n
“Unfortunately, they, overslept and missed their plane,” he said, adding that they “were very upset when they found out they missed their flight.”<\/p>\n
He said the six men, whom he would not name, had attended the game and then went to an early morning reception before returning to their hotel rooms.<\/p>\n
More than 300 Cubans were part of the delegation that attended Monday night’s game, which the Cubans won 12-6. Besides players, the delegation included journalists, retired baseball players, ordinary citizens, members of youth groups and outstanding students.<\/p>\n
The INS would not comment on possible defections.<\/p>\n
“Asylum is a very confidential process and I cannot confirm or deny that we are processing any members of the Cuban group,” said Ben Ferro, regional director for the INS in Baltimore.<\/p>\n
During a lengthy speech welcoming the players at Havana University, Cuban President Fidel Castro mentioned and criticized defections in general, but there was no indication that anyone had stayed behind.<\/p>\n
The game, a rematch after the Orioles defeated the Cuban players in Havana 3-2 on March 28, was surrounded by controversy. Hundreds of protesters gathered outside Camden Yards to speak out against Castro, while a smaller group supporting the lifting of sanctions against Cuba protested nearby.<\/p>\n
Three men from Miami who ran onto the field in the fourth inning were given citations for misdemeanor trespassing. A 13-year-old boy also was detained but not charged.<\/p>\n
At one point, one of three Cubans umpiring, Cesar Valdez, struck and body-slammed a demonstrator who had run onto the field carrying a sign that said “Freedom – Strike Out Against Castro.”<\/p>\n
“Above all, I am Cuban,” Valdez explained later. “I just thought it was the right way to do it.” Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A Cuban baseball coach sought asylum in the United States today, skipping the flight that returned players home to Havana after their victory over the Baltimore Orioles, a congressman said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46446\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}