ST. LOUIS -- Making the leisurely walk from Cincinnati’s Great American Ball Park to the Cardinals team hotel on Friday night – just a couple of hours after making his MLB debut -- César Prieto kept thinking back to a nervous time 4 ½ years earlier when he was sprinting away from a hotel and running toward his dreams. Prieto, a native of Cienfuegos, Cuba, was forced to defect from his home country and the Cuban National Team on May 26, 2021, to pursue his dreams of someday reaching the big leagues. That day, when the Cuban National Team was in West Palm Beach, Fla., to play in an Olympic qualifying baseball tournament, Prieto – 22 years old at the time – exited the team bus and ran toward an awaiting car that hurriedly tore off and took him to freedom. It’s a moment he still thinks about often, but not one he regrets – especially since he’s accomplished his boyhood dream of playing in MLB with the Cardinals. "There were a lot of emotions when I was walking back to the hotel last night,” Prieto told reporters via translator Kleininger Teran in Cincinnati on Saturday before the Cardinals' 4-2 victory over the Reds. “All that went through my mind was the process that I went through to make it here. To finally make it now, it made me really happy.” |
While he’s never been happier than he is now, Prieto deliberated the decision to defect for years. His grandfather, one of the first people to teach him to play baseball and someone who always helped to get him out of work on the family farm so as to avoid injury, always advised him against trying to defect. His parents, César and Maria, were also against the idea of him defecting, but they saw that their wishes were no match for young César's determination. Working with Billy Henderson and Jo Hastings – Florida residents who worked with Prieto for three years to arrange his defection – the 5-foot-9, sweet-swinging infielder was originally planning to run to freedom after the team had landed at the Miami International Airport following their short flight from Havana, Cuba. When that opportunity fell through, Prieto made his break as the team arrived at its hotel in West Palm Beach. Prieto says that he hardly slept in the days before defecting, worried that something might go wrong. But when he turned and ran for the sedan, he was surprisingly at peace with the whole thing. “I was super nervous all day, and I just tried to not think about the bad stuff,” Prieto recounted recently. “I made my decision, and I just kept thinking positive and hoping everything would go well. I did it and I’m so happy that I did. “But, yeah, that (sprint to the car) was like the craziest 30 seconds of my life.” |
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A rising baseball prospect in Cuba throughout much of his teenaged years, Prieto hit the radar of MLB scouts in 2017 when he played the best baseball of his life at an Under-18 tournament in Thunder Bay, Ontario. The trip to Canada was his first time outside of Cuba. While there, he saw the equipment and technology used by those teams, and longed to use those tools to help himself become a better player. That tournament was also the birthplace of his MLB dreams. “In that tournament in Canada, that’s when I really found out that I could play at a high level,” he said. “In that tournament, there were a lot of top MLB prospects, and I had good numbers, and I thought to myself, ‘Maybe I can be an MLB prospect, too.'” Through the years, he heard the horror stories of Cuban star players, such as Yasiel Puig, failing repeatedly at their plans to defect. The COVID-19 pandemic delayed his dreams, but by 2021, he was resolute in what he needed to do. That’s why he never broke stride while running away from the hotel and toward the awaiting vehicle. |
“It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life, and I was so nervous,” he admitted. “But, that day, there was only one guard with the team. We had a lot of players and there was only one guard, and that’s why I made the decision to run.” After spending a few hours at a nearby mall to blend in with others, the full gravity of what he had done started to sink in to him. Mixed in with the feelings of relief and joy, there were USA chants and painful tears. “It’s hard to explain my emotions from that time,” said Prieto, who called his father within minutes of his defection to let him know he was safe. “I was so happy and saying, ‘U-S-A, U-S-A.’ But, at the same time, I was sad. All those emotions kept going back and forth. I had a few tears, but I’m not the type who likes to cry.” After spending time in Clearwater, Fla., where he worked to drop approximately 20 pounds and worked on his game, Prieto signed a deal with the Orioles that guaranteed him a $650,000 signing bonus. And in 2023, when the Cardinals dealt away pitcher Jack Flaherty, Prieto was in their focus as a return in the deal. Prieto, now 26, finished the 2023 season at Triple-A Memphis, and played there in 2024 and 2025. This season with Memphis, Prieto put himself in a position for a promotion by slashing .295/.359/.448/.807 with 29 doubles, nine home runs and 62 RBI. Finally en route to the big leagues, Prieto and fellow rookie Jimmy Crooks had to take two flights, and their luggage was lost. That was nothing compared to the stress of Prieto’s run to freedom. “I feel like I was born again. It’s like I am a new person now,” said Prieto, who struck out during his MLB debut on Friday. “It was so hard for me at first because I didn’t know many people here. But, I made a better life for myself and I know I made the right decision.” |
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