Better Than Moneyball?

It may not be as long (about 10,000 words covering 15 pages in Vanity Fair) but it is just as good, if not better than Moneyball. Michael Lewis’s latest effort, Commie Ball, centers around the lives of Cuban ballplayers and refugees who find their way to the states to pursue the major league dream.

The story centers mainly around Gus Dominguez, who was an LA area sports agent until he was convicted of trying to smuggle five Cuban defectors into the United States. Dominguez was charged with paying smugglers $225,000 to sneak them into Florida and then auction off their services to Major League Baseball teams. While Dominguez still sits inside a California prison, there are many great points in this article. If you don’t want to read the full article, allow me to give you the Cliff Notes version.

-Lewis quotes Phil Dale, a scout for the Braves, as saying “I compare Cuba to the Dominican Republic, but the Cubans are better. Their island has bigger and stronger athletes.” That is an amazing quote. Picture double the amount of David Ortizes, Albert Pujolses, etc.

-Chuck McMichael, another scout for the Braves, mentiones “There’s not one Cuban national team player you wouldn’t at least sign.”

-There is a popular myth that Fidel Castro was at once a legit baseball prospect. “Total bullshit,” says Ralph Avila, who is in charge of scouting in the Dominican Republic for the Los Angeles Dodgers and played ball in Havana during what was meant to have been Fidel’s prime. “Fidel never played any sport at university. He didn’t have time. In Havana there was a pitcher named Felix Castro. Fidel used his name to say that he played baseball.”

The market for Cuban baseball players has changed drastically since Fidel Castro took over. For the first 30 years of his rule, no Cuban defected. Then in 1991 Rene Arocha left a Miami airport hotel and went to a relative’s house, never to go back. But the funny thing was, he didn’t leave to play baseball. He didn’t think he could play. Not until, surprise surprise, Gus Domminguez took him to a major league game and showed him that he in fact could play with them. Of course, the Cubans had a tough adjustment to American life. Picture having no freedoms whatsoever, and suddenly having more money than your entire family put together and more freedom than everyone on the island put together. A prospect named Alex Prieto took his $1.4 million signing bonus check and ran it through the washing machine.

Later Castro adjusted who made the Cuban national team, because it became apparent the easiest way to defect was become good enough to make the national team, and then leave once you went abroad. Cuban national teams became older because it was correctly assumed that an older player with a wife and family wouldn’t risk their lives to defect. After El Duque Hernandez left to stardom in the US, the Cuban national team suspended a pitcher named Adrian Hernandez (no relation) whose only link to El Duque was, get this, a high leg kick that Cuban officials took to mean that he admired the defector.

Getting into Cuba these days is almost as tough as getting out. One of Lewis’s best line in the book is that “The governments of the United States and Cuba now agree on at least one thing: Americans with a commercial interest in springing Cuban ballplayers should be jailed for pursuing it.” If anyone catches wind a visitor is from MLB, they are immediately sent back on a plane. Scouts have been known to take radar guns out and been on a plane in less than a half an hour.

Not only are baseball players affected by this, all Cubans are. In Cuba, the US Dollar bill has gone from being illegal to legal to banned all in a span of 15 years. Rene Archoa had his Uncle thrown in jail because he was caught in possession with a 5 dollar bill. One year after he was released, 5 dollar bills were legal again. Cuba also has two different types of Pesos. One that is for tourists, and one used by locals. The tricky thing is that all prices are listed in Pesos and even locals are unsure as to what price to charge. What most people go by is that if it is a product anyone would remotely be interested in, it is in tourist Pesos. And prices can be a little out of control. For example, a memoir from Che Guevara sells for 20 pesos, which is the monthly salary for a doctor in Cuba.

Also, Cuban players aren’t paid for playing. They are paid for being a “coach” or some other phony job. For this they are given 250 Pesos a month. This means the entire league earns roughly $60,000 American per year. A rookie making the bare minimum could pay the salaries of every player in the league using just over 14% of his salary.

Lewis is taken to a baseball game by a Cuban local. While there Lewis seens a line of people grouped around baseball caps. But the people aren’t there to buy the hats, just to stare at them, seeing as they can’t afford them. His companion takes Lewis down to field level, yet without seeing their jerseys, can’t identify his favorite players. That’s because games aren’t shown on TV, pictures aren’t posted in the paper, and there are no products for players to endorse.

When people see Cuba playing in the Olympics or in the World Cup, they see a baseball powerhouse. But what they don’t see is what is behind the scenes. Michael Lewis paints an amazing landscape of what it is like for those players and for everyday citizens, and it really makes you feel lucky to be an American.