It meant three separate stints in prison, one longer than the next, but he finally reached heaven on his fourth attempt, diving one time into the treacherous churning waters of the Atlantic Ocean in the wee hours of the morning to save his mother, who had fallen out of the boat in which they were escaping.

“I didn’t realize it was my mother that fell off the boat; I just reacted when I saw someone fall overboard,” Jose recalled. “I don’t remember too much about it, other than just diving into the water and swimming towards this woman. As I was getting close, I could see it was my mother. The boat stopped for us to get back in. That was the closest anyone ever came to dying.

Well. All I can say is thank goodness he isn't a libertarian.

Ex-ACT-ly. Wait, what?

I’m sure Joe Kehoskie will want to chime in here…

Ha ha. Actually, I don't know much about this guy. He seems to be a good prospect, but as far as I'm aware, he was never on any of Cuba's junior national teams, etc. Perhaps he made big strides after he arrived in the U.S. three years ago.

Under general "fool me once, fool me twice" principles, I'm skeptical of some aspects of Fernandez's story. That said, since Fernandez left Cuba as a young, unheralded player and apparently didn't have an agent involved, his story is a little more credible than some of those told by more well-known Cuban baseball defectors. As discussed in that Brayan Pena thread a week or two ago, it's probably been a decade since an actual Cuban baseball defector hopped a boat on his own in the blind hope of washing ashore in Florida or Mexico. The business of Cuban baseball defectors has been completely dominated by smugglers since around 2002. The days of flimsy rafts and inner tubes are long over for Cubans with athletic ability, whether it's baseball players, boxers, etc.

Well. All I can say is thank goodness he isn't a libertarian.

This site doesn't need more threads about the pros and cons of libertarianism. Please take it to the moron thread.

Shouldn't there be a general thread about the draft? I tried to post one but it seems to have been filed to /dev/null.

REE-lax.

If you're not into politics, don't post on the politics thread. And if you can't take a joke,.... Jeez. What are you, site police?

I'm tired of libertarians like Albert Belle and Chris Truby wanting to appeal the Patriot Act and legalize marijuana and everything.

This never would have happened if baseball had a salary cap

REE-lax.

If you're not into politics, don't post on the politics thread. And if you can't take a joke,.... Jeez. What are you, site police?

Maybe he is upset by what he perceives as too many threads becoming political threads. Telling somebody not to post in those threads is missing the point.

That I'd have some sympathy for, but SC also takes the trouble to go to the political threads to tell everyone how stupid they are. That's mere crankery.

If only the real Swedish Chef would come into political threads and tell people how stupid they are, that would make those threads pay-site worthy.