Yoelkis Cespedes, brother of Yoenis, defects from Cuban national baseball team

Another Cuban athlete has defected from the Castro dictatorship. This time, it is Yoelkis Cespedes, brother of Major League Baseball superstar Yoenis Cepsedes.

Via 12up:

Yoelkis Cespedes, the brother of Mets outfielder Yoenis, has officially defected from Cuban and is pursuing a path to professional baseball in America.

Yoelkis, 21, has quite a different physical profile compared to that of his 33-year-old brother. While Yoenis checks in at 5-10 and 220 pounds, Yoelkis stands a shade over 5-9 and 187 pounds.

Even with his smaller frame, Yoelkis has the same masterful bat control, flat-out speed, and ungodly strong throwing arm from the outfield that Yoenis has. Given his age and production in the Cuban league, it shouldn’t take long for Yoelkis to earn himself a professional contract.

The last time we saw him, he was showing off his power against China in the World Baseball Classic in 2017.

Yoelkis has escaped a life of enslavement to the Castro dictatorship where his talents would never be his own and were owned by the state. Nevertheless, there are some who are scratching their heads and wondering why anyone would want to leave the wonderful socialist workers’ paradise of Cuba.

Read more about Cespedes’ defection at Call to the Pen.

2 thoughts on “Yoelkis Cespedes, brother of Yoenis, defects from Cuban national baseball team”

  1. Quite honestly, I’m not impressed by any of the Cuban baseball player defectors with the ghetto fabulous names (and make no mistake of it, “Yoelkis” is a Cuban version of the ghetto fabulous names you hear in Watts or Harlem) you know something like Shaquanda or Quanishe. Its the same mindset. Doesn’t matter that the sets of people giving those names to their children are separated by thousands of miles and that they speak different languages. In any case, none of these Cubanoids ever use their fame to speak up for Cuba and in fact a number of them have returned to Cuba to show off y para la “gozadera.”

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