Lingering air of mystery surrounding Dodgers’ Puig makes for compelling story

Dawn was breaking as Yandrys Leon guided the cigarette boat towards a barrier island at the mouth of The Bay of Pigs. There, ready and waiting, was his cargo of four desperate Cubans. He ferried them nearly 400 miles across the Caribbean Sea to Isla Mujeres, off the Mexican resort of Cancun, their first stop en route to new lives in America.

Within months, Leon's body was found riddled with bullets and obituaries described him as a Cuban-American mafioso. On Tuesday night next, Yasiel Puig, the most prized of his passengers on that trip, will man right field for the National League in American baseball's All-Star game.

The diverging fortunes of these men who sailed together that day in 2012 (accounts differ about whether it was April or June) go some way to explaining exactly why Puig may be the most fascinating character in American sport right now.

Just over a year after his Major League debut for the Los Angeles Dodgers, his unorthodox, thrilling and, occasionally, infuriating play has captivated fans and marked him for future greatness. But it's the lingering air of mystery surrounding how he got from a small town in southern Cuba to southern California that makes him an even more compelling tale.

Like so many of his compatriots who have made the controversial switch to the major leagues, the 23-year-old refuses to discuss the circumstances of his escape from Cuba, his silence perhaps inevitable given the involvement of Los Zetas, a Mexican crime cartel, in the drama. Although ESPN and Los Angeles magazines have both published lengthy investigations of Puig's journey, he remains unwilling to fill in gaps in the narrative. Still, we know enough to understand why a Hollywood movie of the episode is in the works.

Ranson or fee

On Isla Mujeres, he was under “house arrest” in a motel while various parties tried to figure out who exactly was to pay the ransom/fee for liberating him. The usual rate is $10,000 but Puig’s baseball pedigree meant he was going to be a multi-millionaire the moment he landed on American soil. So, the negotiations dragged on and the price went up and up. Amid growing fears his frustrated captors might damage his precious hands, he was kidnapped again, this time by friendlier forces.

Within weeks of this group of black-clad men storming the motel, he was walking a bridge across the Rio Grande, claiming political asylum, the right of every Cuban who sets foot on dry land in the US.

As a prospect with Elefantes of Cienfuegos (where he was suspended more than once after several failed attempts to defect), Puig trousered $17 a month. His first contract with the Dodgers was a seven-year deal worth $42 million and, if he continues at his current pace, his next will be twice that.

Against this background it’s easy to see why somebody would place their life in the hands of human traffickers even if by doing so they lay themselves open to extortion attempts down the line.

As Puig morphed quickly from superstar athlete to celebrity, hanging with Jay-Z, being funny on late night TV, stories abounded about menacing strangers circling, as those with purported roles in paying his freight sought retribution or recompense.

Despite that worrisome distraction, the wisdom of the Dodgers’ outsized investment in his talent was immediately apparent. Just four record-setting weeks after being promoted from the minors to the majors last summer, there was unfounded talk of him being drafted into that season’s All-Star game. Dispatching 12 home runs and batting over .300 (the benchmark for a top hitter) in the first half of this campaign made him a shoo-in for next week’s encounter.

Statistics only offer a rough outline of his brilliance because they don’t capture the colourful ways in which he amazes and excites.

Typical cameo

Last Saturday against the Colorado Rockies offered a typical cameo. He misjudged the flight of a fly ball but then had the athleticism, speed and grace to change direction, to make a leaping catch in mid-air, and to unfurl a spectacular throw in time to get a runner out at third base. One writer described the double play as merely the latest showing from “Yasel Puig Baseball Theatre”.

His brashness and showboating have endeared him to younger fans while appalling purists. Baseball adheres to a bizarre, largely unwritten code supposedly designed to preserve the dignity of the sport. The Cuban has been pilloried for not paying enough respect to veterans, for using his interpreter to source phone numbers from female fans, and, most of all, for enjoying his successes on the field a little too overtly.

It says much for this game’s peculiar moral relativism that Puig flipping a bat or raising his arms in celebration of a home run is more troubling than Mark McGwire, the infamous steroid user, being the Dodgers’ current hitting coach.

To this point, the only thing Puig can't quite do is outrun the shadow of his own past. Miami-based lawyers have filed a $12 million lawsuit claiming he was a Cuban government informer who caused their client, a boxer named Miguel Angel Corbacho Daudinot, to be imprisoned and tortured by the Castro regime. Last month, a Florida judge ruled there is enough evidence for the case to go to trial in November.

That courtroom might represent the best chance anybody has of unearthing the whole truth about Puig’s remarkable journey from there to here.