There were five Cuban born baseball players out on the field in Minneapolis participating in the Major League Baseball’s annual All-Star Game. It’s hard to imagine what that must have felt like for them. All the years of dreaming and wanting. All the heartbreak and pain of leaving family and friends behind.
But there they were. Out there on the field with Derek Jeter and Miggy Cabrera. It must have been like finally playing Carnegie Hall, once you have been there, nobody can ever take that away from you, ever.
Dodger’s second year left fielder Yasiel Puig didn’t have a great showing up in Minneapolis at either the Home Run Derby or the All Star Game. He didn’t hit a single home run and then he struck out both times at bat on Tuesday evening. But it certainly appeared like he was having a great time down on the field.
Puig remembers watching parts of the 2011 Home Run Derby on a little black and white TV back in Cuba when Robinson Cano, with his Dad doing the pitching, hit 12 homeruns in the final round to beat out Adrian Gonzales, now Puig’s teammate. What a huge change for him in just three years.
Here was young Yasiel, actually out on the field with Cano in a real MLB All-Star Game and who pitched to Puig… Cano’s father once again, who else?
One of the great things for young baseball players who make it to the All-Star Game is getting to meet and play with some of the great legendary players of our time. In the case of Puig and the others it was mostly being out there with Derek Jeter that got to them.
Yasiel told reporters through his interpreter, “It was an honor for me to meet him last year, and now for me to be in my first All-Star Game when he is in his final All-Star Game makes me very humbled. Derek Jeter has been the face of baseball since I can remember.”
Now Puig is part of what some sports writers are calling ‘the Cuban Power Trio”… which includes the King of the Home Run Derby for two years running, Yoenis Cespedes of the Oakland Athletics, and of course young Jose Abreu of the White Sox in Chicago who is currently leading all of Major League Baseball with 29 home runs.
Puig summed it up for all three saying, “It is an honor for us to be there among so many great players. We are all trying hard to make Cuba look good.”
