Scouts to watch pitcher Marquetti

There has been an exodus of Cuban players, denounced in Havana as traitors.

PAUL BRINKLEY-ROGERS

 The baseball-playing son of famed Cuban slugger Agustín Marquetti has defected,
 hoping that a major-league team will make use of the pitching skills he honed with
 Havana's Industriales.

 Miami agent Joe Cubas said he is representing the younger Marquetti, whose first
 name also is Agustín, and that the 23-year-old right-hander will show off his
 talents to major-league scouts in the Dominican Republic this weekend.

 Cubas, who has made an art of engineering such defections and who once
 represented New York Yankees pitching ace Orlando ``El Duque'' Hernández,
 said he was not involved in the defection that took place about one month ago
 when Marquetti was in Venezuela on a private visit.

 ``He did that with the help of someone else,'' Cubas said. ``But in Venezuela we
 were able to obtain status and a visa so that he could go to the Dominican
 Republic.''

 Cubas said the baseball commissioner's office has ruled that Marquetti is eligible
 as a free agent.

 Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria, who authored last year's The Pride of Havana: A
 History of Cuban Baseball  and who has watched the younger Marquetti pitch for
 the Industriales team in Havana, said the young six-foot six-inch pitcher ``looks
 good.''

 But Gonzalez, who teaches Hispanic literature at Yale University, said a Cuban
 fan grumbled to him when the right-hander was knocked out of a game in the
 seventh inning that he was only pitching for the Industriales because his father
 played for that team.

 Marquetti's father retired in 1987 after 22 seasons and 207 home runs in his
 career. A perennial batting champ, he had a .288 batting average and was known
 for his left-handed, split-grip batting style and his warm-hearted leadership
 qualities.

 Two of the younger Marquetti's teammates on the Industriales, right-hander
 Mayque Quintero and shortstop Evel Bastida, both 22, also recently defected and
 are in Costa Rica.

 Their agent, Joe Kehoskie, said they will probably try out for the major leagues in
 February ``somewhere in Florida.'' Quintero, who also pitched for Cuba's national
 junior team, is seeking a signing bonus of about $14.5 million.

 Recent months have seen an exodus of Cuban players, who have mostly been
 denounced by Havana as traitors to Cuban sports.

 Third baseman Andy Morales, who came ashore near Key West in July 2000 and
 who hit a home run for the Cuban national team against the Baltimore Orioles in
 1999, is being courted by several major-league teams.

 Cuban national junior team catcher William Plaza, 17, and pitcher Yolexandry
 Reina, 18, defected after a game in Canada last August and fled to Mexico with
 the help of Kehoskie.

 Mario Miguel Chaoui, a player with the college team Equipo Caribe, left last May
 and is in South Florida.

 Gonzalez said he expects talented players will continue to try to leave.

 ``People seek freedom, and players want to test themselves against the best and
 have a chance at earning a living,'' he said.

 ``A lot of Cubans want to leave Cuba because of repression. But baseball players
 are special cases. The time clock of an athlete ticks very fast, and unless you
 make it out of Cuba by the time you are 25 it may be very difficult to get into the
 majors, although some players like El Duque are different, of course.''

 Gonzalez said Marquetti's father, who won Cuba's home run championship in
 1972 and gave ``stellar performances in international competition,'' is ``probably
 happy for his son.''