Why Orioles pitcher Cionel Pérez refused to play for Cuba in the World Baseball Classic

SARASOTA, Fla. — When Cionel Pérez heard about the phone calls going around, he wanted to be sure he didn’t receive one.

Coming off a breakout season in the Orioles’ bullpen, the 26-year-old left-hander knew his home country of Cuba was reaching out to players who had defected about representing the nation in the upcoming World Baseball Classic. For the first time in the event’s history, players in the affiliated major or minor leagues will be able to play for Cuba.

But Pérez had no interest in being among them. When he heard of friends and former teammates being contacted about joining Cuba’s national team for the WBC, he sent out four tweets in early December explaining his decision. The thread opened with a picture of him pitching in an Orioles uniform, with a backdrop of the Cuban flag and landscape behind him.

“I choose not to participate for a government that calls me a traitor,” he wrote in Spanish, closing with, “I am Cuban, I feel for my people, I also suffer from everything that is happening in Cuba. I have family, I have grandparents, I have uncles and I have cousins who still live in that jail. Saying no to representing my country hurts my soul but I have my values and moral very clear.”

Pérez expanded on his tweets in a conversation with The Baltimore Sun this week. Alongside his parents, wife, sister and brother-in-law, he defected in 2015, escaping a country he said “cut off my wings.” He signed with the Houston Astros the next year and made his major league debut in 2019 before being traded to Cincinnati in early 2021. After that season, the Orioles claimed Pérez on waivers, and he spent all year in their bullpen, posting a 1.40 ERA that ranked as the second lowest in franchise history.

He would have been a useful piece for Cuba in next month’s WBC, which will feature Orioles outfielder Cedric Mullins (United States), outfielder Anthony Santander (Venezuela) and right-hander Dean Kremer (Israel). Yoán Moncada, Luis Robert and Yoenis Céspedes are among the current and former major leaguers on Cuba’s roster, and although Pérez said “I totally respect and understand” others’ decision to play for their native country, Pérez said he couldn’t bring himself to do so.

“It’s difficult coming from a political system that doesn’t work for its people,” Pérez said through team interpreter Brandon Quinones. “I didn’t feel like it was the right decision for me to go back and participate when they’ve taken so much away from me and from the country itself.

“It’s very frustrating. I love my country and all my friends and teammates and people that I have over there, but for me, it doesn’t sit right with me and feel right participating for a country who does very little for its people. A lot of people say politics doesn’t affect sports or baseball, but in Cuba, it very much does. They’re very much connected, and it’s very unfortunate that that’s the case.”

Pérez said that although he’s able to keep in touch with the family he still has in Cuba, he hasn’t seen them since returning to the country in 2018. He mentioned in his tweets that his family there can’t watch his pitching appearances.

“Since I’ve been very, very vocal about human rights and things going on over there, I’ve kind of been hesitant about going back to Cuba and visiting them,” he said. “Just trying to avoid any repercussions because of what I said.”

Pérez said he believes becoming a U.S. citizen would make a return to Cuba possible and safer. His wife, Devora, recently became a citizen, and Pérez said he hopes that simplifies his own efforts, though he’ll go through the application process as needed, if not.

It won’t change how he feels about how Cuba treats its citizens.

“People don’t have food,” Pérez said. “People don’t have basic needs. A lot of times, people don’t have electricity for nine, 10 hours at a time. People don’t have soap to even shower with. There’s just a lot of overall oppression. People protest on the streets, but if they see you recording or if they catch you protesting, they can put you in jail for two, three days at a time. Little things like that that they take big offenses with.

“It’s very unfortunate that they just treat their people in that way, even though they don’t really do anything wrong.”