Cuba

ST. LOUIS — Growing up on the western tip of Cuba, Andy Pages excelled at every sport he played.

He was good at soccer and volleyball, arguably better at basketball. But he loved baseball for reasons that weren’t necessarily limited to the game.

Pages’ father, Liban, a carpenter who had a job repairing wooden boats, helped make his son’s first bats by hand, using leftover lumber given to him by friends. Soon baseball became the boy’s favorite pastime.

“When I was starting to play baseball in Cuba, when things were really bad, there were no bats. There weren’t things like that,” Pages said in Spanish. “So he always tried to make me a bat so I could play.

“I became more motivated, and from that point on, we’ve been playing baseball.”

The sport eventually proved to be a way off the island for Pages, who has emerged as one of the Dodgers’ brightest stars in just his second season with the team.

He entered the start of a three-game series Monday in San Diego hitting .288 with 12 home runs and 39 RBIs, trailing only Shohei Ohtani in homers and matching Ohtani for third on the team in RBIs. He’s also tied for second in stolen bases with six and has yet to be thrown out.

If he can stay consistent, he has a chance to become the first Dodger center fielder to hit better than .250 with 25 homers since Matt Kemp in 2011.

Although Pages never played in Cuba’s elite Serie Nacional, the proving ground for stars such as Yuli Gurriel, Yunel Escobar and Orlando “El Duque” Hernández, he became one of the country’s top prospects after hitting .364/.484/.581 in a under-15 league.

Dodgers outfielder Andy Pages rifles the ball to second base to prevent Arizona’s Ketel Marte from advancing on a single at Dodger Stadium on May 20.

(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)

That convinced Pages (pronounced PAH-hays) he had a chance to be a big leaguer some day. So at 16, the Athletic reported, he arranged to be spirited off the island alongside Jairo Pomares, another young Cuban star, traveling through Guyana, Curacao and Haiti before crossing in the Dominican Republic. He then waited eight months before the Dodgers signed him as an international free agent in March 2018, giving him a $300,000 bonus, more than 1,500 times the average annual wage in Cuba, according to CiberCuba.

Pomares signed with the San Francisco Giants at about the same time, but while he remains in the minors, Pages’ climb to the majors was steady. He reached triple A by the start the 2024 season. He didn’t stay at Oklahoma City long, however, hitting .371/.452/.694 with 15 RBIs in 15 games to earn a call-up to the Dodgers.

Before his rookie season was over, Pages was a World Series champion. He paid a heavy price for that though, going seven years without seeing his family in person.

“It was emotional since I hadn’t seen them for a long time,” said Pages, 24, who returned to Cuba for the first time the winter before his big-league debut.

His sister, Elaine, a child when he left “was already a full-grown woman.”

“So those memories came back to me, and they were quite — how should I say it? — quite strong for me,” said Pages, who brought his father a few of the machine-made bats he used in the minor leagues.

But if his father provided the spark that made his son a baseball player, teammate Teoscar Hernández provided the help, guidance and mentoring that made Pages an everyday major leaguer.

“He’s played in the major leagues for a long time now,” Pages said of Hernández, a 10-year veteran who signed with the Dodgers months before Pages made his big-league debut. “He’s been through a lot of bad times. I went through that at the beginning of the season, for example, and last year too. And he’s given me advice that’s helped me a lot to get through that time.”

With Pages’ family still in Cuba, Hernández has become a big brother as well as a teammate, taking him out for dinner on off days or just getting together to play video games.

Andy Pages runs the bases after hitting a solo home run against the Athletics at Dodger Stadium on May 14.

(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)

“Getting through bad times is sometimes a little difficult when you’re alone, when you don’t have anyone to help you, to give you good advice, and to make you understand that sometimes things don’t happen when you want them to,” Pages said.

And that’s worked out well for Pages. Three games after Hernández returned from a rehab assignment last month, Pages started a streak that would see him hit in 13 of his next 14 starts, including 11 in a row, raising his average 24 points to .293. He’s batting .379 with a team-high 11 hits in seven games this month.

“We try to go out to my house. We go out to a restaurant with my wife, his wife. Just so we can get together, have time to enjoy and not think about baseball,” Hernández said.

Pages isn’t the first player to benefit from Hernández’s mentorship. During his six seasons in Toronto, Hernández took another talented rookie, fellow Dominican Vladimir Guerrero Jr., under his wing. Guerrero is now a four-time All-Star.

Hernández is still so respected in Toronto when the Dodgers played there last season, some Blue Jays players wore his old uniform number during batting practice. Earlier this year Guerrero offered to buy him a $300,000 Richard Mille watch; Hernández joked he’d rather have money instead.

As the quiet Pages has grown more confident and comfortable with the Dodgers, his play has improved. A speedy outfielder with a plus arm, he also can play all three positions.

And while he left Cuba, he never fully left it behind, having expressed interest in representing the country in next year’s World Baseball Classic. The decision to go to the Dominican Republic as a teenager, after all, was a business one, not a personal one.

Pages would also like to bring his family to U.S. some day, though that dream was dealt a setback last week when President Trump signed an executive order restricting access to Cubans hoping to come to the U.S.

“Hope is always there,” said Pages, who has beaten impossibly long odds once. “But you have to follow the rules, get the papers, do whatever it takes to make sure everything’s OK. And then get here and stay here.

“I’m just trying, trying until they can leave.”

Cuba’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has issued a statement of protest against the head of the United States mission to the island, Michael Hammer.

In a news release published on Friday, the Foreign Ministry accused Hammer, a career diplomat, of “unfriendly and meddling behaviour” since his arrival in Cuba in late 2024.

“By inciting Cuban citizens to commit extremely serious criminal acts, attacking the constitutional order, or encouraging them to act against the authorities or demonstrate in support of the interests and objectives of a hostile foreign power, the diplomat is engaging in provocative and irresponsible conduct,” the Foreign Ministry wrote.

“The immunity he enjoys as a representative of his country cannot be used as cover for acts contrary to the sovereignty and internal order of the country to which he is assigned, in this case, Cuba.”

The Foreign Ministry said the message was delivered by its director of bilateral affairs with the US, Alejandro Garcia del Toro.

Friday’s statement is the latest indication of increasingly rocky relations between Cuba and the US, particularly since President Donald Trump began his second term in January.

A history of tensions

Diplomatic ties between the two countries, however, have been icy for decades, stretching back to the Cold War in the 1960s. After the Cuban Revolution of 1959, the US government imposed strict trade restrictions on the island and backed efforts to topple the newly established Communist government.

But there have been efforts to ease the tensions, notably during the administrations of Democratic presidents like Barack Obama and Joe Biden in the US.

In 2016, for instance, Obama sought to normalise relations with Cuba, only to see those efforts rolled back during the first Trump administration, starting in 2017.

Likewise, President Biden – who formerly served as Obama’s vice president – removed Cuba from the US’s list of “state sponsors of terrorism” in the waning days of his term in January.

But upon taking office for his second time on January 20, Trump reversed course once more, putting Cuba back on the list that very same day.

Trump also included in his presidential cabinet several officials who have taken a hardline stance towards Cuba, most notably former Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Born to Cuban immigrants, Rubio is an outspoken supporter of continuing the trade embargo against the island.

The Cuban government, meanwhile, has continued to accuse the US of attempting to destabilise its leadership.

In Friday’s statement, the Cuban Foreign Ministry accused Hammer of “public and insulting manipulation” for his recent visit to the tomb of a 19th-century national hero, Jose Marti.

The US Embassy to Cuba posted a video of the visit with a voiceover of Marti’s words, “Respect for the freedom and thoughts of others, even of the most unhappy kind, is my passion: If I die or am killed, it will be for that.” Critics have interpreted that citation as an implied endorsement of dissent on the island.

Ramping up pressure

In recent months, there have also been signs that Trump plans to once again tighten the screws on the Cuban government, in a return to the “maximum pressure” campaigns that typified foreign policy during his first term.

In February, for instance, the Trump administration announced it would yank visas from anyone who works with Cuba’s medical system, which sends thousands of healthcare workers abroad each year, particularly in the Caribbean region.

Critics have criticised the healthcare programme for its low pay and hefty restrictions on its employees. Trump and Rubio, meanwhile, have claimed the medical system amounts to a form of “forced labour” that enriches the Cuban government. But leaders in Havana have denied that allegation.

Then, in April, the US government condemned Cuba for re-arresting a group of dissidents, among them prominent figures like Jose Daniel Ferrer and Felix Navarro.

Cuba had initially agreed to release Ferrer and Navarro as part of a bargain brokered by the Vatican earlier this year.

Cuba was expected to release 553 prisoners, many of whom were swept up in antigovernment protests, and in exchange, the US was supposed to ease its sanctions against the island. The sanctions relief, however, never came.

An additional measure was taken against Cuba just this month. The Department of State, under Rubio’s direction, determined that “Cuba did not fully cooperate with US counterterrorism efforts in 2024”. It accused Cuba of harbouring 11 fugitives, some of whom faced terrorism-related charges in the US.

“The Cuban regime made clear it was not willing to discuss their return to face justice in our nation,” the State Department wrote in a news release. “The United States will continue to promote international cooperation on counterterrorism issues. We also continue to promote accountability for countries that do not stand against terrorism.”

As punishment, Cuba was labelled as a “not fully cooperating country” under the Arms Export Control Act, a designation that limits its ability to buy weaponry and other defence tools from the US.

Furthermore, Hammer had recently signalled that new sanctions were on the way for the island.

But in the face of Friday’s reprimand, the State Department indicated it was undeterred and would continue to support dissidents against Cuba’s “malign influence”.