[ti:Young Cuban Players Dream of US Major Leagues]
[by:www.21voa.com]
[00:00.00]更多听力请访问21VOA.COM
[00:00.04]Eight-year-old Kevin Kindelan and 7-year-old Leoni Venego
[00:05.08]play baseball for a Central Havana junior league team in Cuba.
[00:09.32]They both have big dreams.
[00:12.28]Kindelan says he wants to play for Cuba's national baseball club.
[00:17.44]Venego says he is aiming higher.
[00:19.96]"I want to get to the Major Leagues and be like Yuli Gurriel," he said.
[00:25.28]Gurriel, who was born in Cuba,
[00:27.80]plays the first base position for the Houston Astros.
[00:32.64]The team is part of Major League Baseball in the United States.
[00:37.76]Baseball is a national pastime in Cuba,
[00:40.84]just as it is in the United States.
[00:44.12]It is a sport that many Cubans enjoy and follow.
[00:47.92]But Cuba's worsening economic situation
[00:51.48]has led to more baseball players leaving the country
[00:55.12]-- and the national league.
[00:57.92]Cuba's economy shrank 11 percent in 2020.
[01:02.64]Cubans must wait in long lines for food, medicine and fuel.
[01:08.76]Since October, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency said
[01:13.24]more than 157,000 Cubans have fled to the U.S.
[01:19.12]Francis Romero is a Cuban baseball expert
[01:22.16]and writer who lives in Florida.
[01:25.12]He said, in the past six years, the number of baseball players
[01:29.60]who have left Cuba for the U.S. is three times higher
[01:33.40]than the number of players who left between 2000 and 2010.
[01:39.04]"No baseball league...could survive that," Romero said.
[01:43.84]Romero told Reuters that young Cuban baseball players
[01:47.60]no longer want to prove themselves
[01:50.20]by winning Olympic medals for the country.
[01:54.04]The Cuban national teams won gold medals in baseball
[01:57.68]in Barcelona in 1992, Atlanta in 1996 and Athens in 2004.
[02:07.00]"Players once waited a long time to emigrate,
[02:10.00]to prove themselves," Romero said.
[02:13.68]"Now they leave at 16 or 17 years of age."
[02:18.76]At the "Ponton" ballfield in central Havana,
[02:21.96]some of Cuba's youngest players are practicing on the muddy infield.
[02:27.84]Their coach is Irakly Chirino,
[02:30.64]a former player in Cuba's national league
[02:33.72]who began his career at Ponton.
[02:37.20]"Here, we don't have gloves, bats, shoes,
[02:41.48]or even balls to play with...and when we do,
[02:44.84]they are too expensive," Chirino said.
[02:48.52]A lack of supplies has led some baseball players
[02:51.92]to leave the country or play soccer instead.
[02:56.48]Soccer is another favorite sport
[02:58.64]that does not require much equipment.
[03:02.12]"Let's not fool ourselves...we're losing our best ballplayers
[03:06.64]before they even make it to the national series," Chirino said.
[03:12.12]Coach Nicolas Reyes is 73 years old.
[03:16.56]More than 10 of his players have left Cuba.
[03:20.80]"They started with me and now they're in the U.S. Major Leagues.
[03:26.04]It makes me proud," he said.
[03:28.56]But he recognizes that money and fame
[03:31.84]have increasingly pulled players away from Cuba.
[03:35.88]"When I played, it wasn't like that.
[03:38.40]You would never betray your country," he added.
[03:42.92]Juan Reinaldo Perez is president of the Cuban Baseball Federation.
[03:48.80]He said because of the growing number of promising baseball players,
[03:53.08]there is still hope for the future of Cuban baseball.
[03:57.48]"We are a country with a baseball tradition
[03:59.92]and that continues to grow," he said.
[04:03.40]Cuba is now centering its efforts on keeping
[04:06.04]promising ballplayers from leaving.
[04:08.48]In May, the Cuban federation signed a deal
[04:12.28]with the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC)
[04:17.44]that permits Cuban players to play professionally in other countries
[04:21.96]while keeping their nationality.
[04:25.28]A similar deal, signed with the Major League Baseball (MLB)
[04:29.52]in the United States in 2018, would have given Cubans the same right.
[04:36.08]But the U.S. president at the time, Donald Trump,
[04:39.20]ended the deal before it became official.
[04:43.28]That lack of such a deal with MLB continues to be a major barrier
[04:48.36]to keeping promising Cuban ballplayers at home, says Guillermo Carmona.
[04:54.96]He is the manager of Cuba's well-known Industriales team.
[05:00.24]"Without a doubt, [that deal]was a great motivation
[05:03.64]for our player," said Carmona. "Now, many have left us."
[05:09.44]I'm Jill Robbins. 更多听力请访问21VOA.COM
END OF TRACK. "END OF TRACK." The two men bowed. "Whoever was that person you were talking to?" she enquired, as soon as they stood together. The took of triumph faded from her eyes, she had grown worn and weary. The roses were wilting on the walls, the lights were mostly down now. Hetty, looking in to see if anything was wanted, found herself driven away almost fiercely. I only saw Master Jervie once when he called at tea time, The year 1747 was opened by measures of restriction. The House of Lords, offended at the publication of the proceedings of the trial of Lord Lovat, summoned the parties to their bar, committed them to prison, and refused to liberate them till they had pledged themselves not to repeat the offence, and had paid very heavy fees. The consequence of this was that the transactions of the Peers were almost entirely suppressed for nearly thirty years from this time, and we draw our knowledge of them chiefly from notes taken by Horace Walpole and Lord Chancellor Hardwicke. What is still more remarkable, the reports of the House of Commons, being taken by stealth, and on the merest sufferance, are of the most meagre kind, sometimes altogether wanting, and the speeches are given uniformly under fictitious names; for to have attributed to Pitt or Pelham their[112] speeches by name would have brought down on the printers the summary vengeance of the House. Many of the members complained bitterly of this breach of the privileges of Parliament, and of "being put into print by low fellows"; but Pelham had the sense to tolerate them, saying, "Let them alone; they make better speeches for us than we can make for ourselves." Altogether, the House of Commons exhibited the most deplorable aspect that can be conceived. The Ministry had pursued Walpole's system of buying up opponents by place, or pension, or secret service money, till there was no life left in the House. Ministers passed their measures without troubling themselves to say much in their behalf; and the opposition dwindled to Sir John Hinde Cotton, now dismissed from office, and a feeble remnant of Jacobites raised but miserable resistance. In vain the Prince of Wales and the secret instigations of Bolingbroke and Doddington stimulated the spirit of discontent; both Houses had degenerated into most silent and insignificant arenas of very commonplace business. "It certainly will be. Miss Widgeon," answered Maria, with strictly "company manners." "One who has never had a brother exposed to the constant dangers of army life can hardly understand how glad we all feel to have Si snatched from the very jaws of death and brung back to us." "Just plug at 'em as you would at a crow, and then go on your way whistlin'?" persisted Harry. "Hurroo!" echoed Hennessey; "that's the ticket." "Come forward, keeper," continued the baron, "and state how these arrows came into your hands!" "Yes." HoMEJULIA京香2018下载
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