Throwing Cuban players a lifeline

Sporting News, The, August 10, 1998 by Kevin Baxter

"People should know there's a man who will give them his hand, his heart, everything," Francisco Santiesteban--a slight, light-hitting 27-year-old catcher for the Class A Lancaster JetHawks, a Seattle farm club--says of his agent.

There's little chance Santiesteban will ever play for the Mariners, a fact Cubas probably grasped long before he signed him. But there's virtually no chance Santiesteban will be doing manual labor for $10 a month, the going rate in Cuba today.

For Santiesteban, that means as much as any million-dollar contract.