Coming To The United States
By early 2004, Cuba's national team and the Industriales banned Morales from their teams for disciplinary reasons due to their belief that he had met with people in an attempt to flee the nation. Morales denies this accusation, telling a reporter "That's not true. I never talked to any agent. But from that moment on, I just wanted to leave. I tried to do it several times without success, occasionally ending up in jail." He escaped on a raft in June 2004 to the shores of southern Florida, his 12th attempt at escape.
But, as is the usual practice of defectors, he chose to leave the country to establish foreign residency so as to avoid the MLB draft. He left once again, this time to the Dominican Republic, where he was privately scouted by several Major League teams. Preston Gómez, in his role as consultant to Angels general manager Bill Stoneman, ended up signing him to a six-year deal with three-million dollars up front in December 2004. Morales played winter ball for the Estrellas Orientales Dominican team to keep himself in game shape.
Read more about this topic: Kendrys Morales
Famous quotes containing the words united states, coming to, coming, united and/or states:
“In the United States, though power corrupts, the expectation of power paralyzes.”
—John Kenneth Galbraith (b. 1908)
“The things that were coming to be talked about
Have come and gone and are still remembered
As being recent. There is a grain of curiosity
At the base of some new thing, that unrolls
Its question mark like a new wave on the shore.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“What a vast fraternity it is,—that of ‘Hearts that Ache.’ For the last three months it has seemed to me as though all society were coming to me, to drop its mask for a moment and initiate me into the mystery. How we do suffer! And we go on laughing; for, as a practical joke at our expense, life is a success.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)
“In one notable instance, where the United States Army and a hundred years of persuasion failed, a highway has succeeded. The Seminole Indians surrendered to the Tamiami Trail. From the Everglades the remnants of this race emerged, soon after the trail was built, to set up their palm-thatched villages along the road and to hoist tribal flags as a lure to passing motorists.”
—For the State of Florida, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“Action from principle, the perception and the performance of right, changes things and relations; it is essentially revolutionary, and does not consist wholly with anything which was. It not only divides States and churches, it divides families; ay, it divides the individual, separating the diabolical in him from the divine.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)