9 players from a Cuban national baseball team have defected

HAVANA — Nine of the 24 players on Cuba’s national team at baseball’s U-23 World Cup defected during the tournament in Mexico, the Cuban government confirmed Sunday.

Cuban officials called the players’ actions “vile abandonments” in a note published by the web portal JIT, which is the official organ of the island’s National Sports Institute.

The institute did not identify the players who stayed in Mexico.