Cuban baseball players want to play in the big leagues. LA Times:

Medina’s contraband on that summer night represented the latest thing in Caribbean region smuggling — five Cuban baseball players.

Today, top pitchers and shortstops have surpassed dope, rum and tobacco as the commodities of choice for traffickers working the old Spanish Main.

Each of the smuggled ballplayers — former stars of domestic Cuban teams — arrived in the U.S. hoping to follow in the cleat marks of previous defectors such as pitcher Orlando “El Duque” Hernandez of the New York Mets.

Their crossing that night was financed, according to court documents and testimony, with payments totaling $225,000 by an Encino sports agent who would become the first agent ever convicted on federal charges of smuggling athletes.

People fleeing tyranny are contraband?

A rash of defections by prominent ballplayers during the 1990s prompted Castro’s government to impose restrictions on Cuban players and teams engaged in international competition. Those restrictions became most severe after the 2002 defection of pitcher Jose Contreras, now with the Chicago White Sox.

Cuban authorities ordered widespread suspensions of players seen as defection risks. Since then, only one is known to have defected at an international event — while smuggling has soared.

“It’s like somebody threw a switch,” Kehoskie said. “They stopped defecting at tournaments and they all started taking speedboats to Miami.”

Which demonstrates the stupidity of tyrants. Forbid your star athletes from playing, so then they have no money and no satisfaction from doing what they do best.

Yeah, that’s the ticket.