{"id":703431,"date":"2026-06-14T11:18:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-14T11:18:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/703431\/"},"modified":"2026-06-14T11:18:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-14T11:18:10","slug":"for-dodgers-andy-pages-breakout-season-clouded-by-cuba-anxiety","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/703431\/","title":{"rendered":"For Dodgers’ Andy Pages, breakout season clouded by Cuba anxiety"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As he drives home from Dodger Stadium, Andy Pages,<\/a> an immigrant in a city of immigrants, runs through questions to ask his family in Cuba. How is Mantua, a town of 23,000 people tucked in the northwesternmost part of the island? Is the power on? Is everyone safe?<\/p>\n

Sometimes, the WhatsApp messages Pages sends his family read as delivered. The hardest days are when the messages don\u2019t deliver, and his phone calls go straight to voicemail, he said. Somewhere in the back of his head, a voice whispers: Something must have happened.<\/p>\n

Unlike his teammates \u2014 both American and those on visas \u2014 Pages is distinctly cut off in the United States, where he lives with his wife, Alondra, but is separated from his parents and sister in Mantua. The third-year Dodgers center fielder is making $800,000 this year but can\u2019t spend his money on flights home or on bringing his family to the country where he plays baseball. The tense relations between the U.S. and Cuba \u2014 the Trump administration has imposed economic sanctions and made diplomatic threats<\/a> \u2014 don\u2019t allow for that.<\/p>\n

So as the phone dials, Pages is put through the agony of not knowing, hoping he doesn\u2019t have to experience the hell of something bad happening.<\/p>\n

\u201cI haven\u2019t found any way that gives me that tranquility and peace,\u201d he told The Times in Spanish two weeks ago. \u201cBecause the way things are there, what\u2019s always on your mind is that it could happen. Anything, anytime. And I have all my family in Cuba. So, you have to live with that worry all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pages \u2014 one of 34 Cuban players in MLB \u2014 is a quiet, private person. He doesn\u2019t dwell for long in the good or the bad. Keeping his thoughts from drifting too much, even about Cuba, has propelled his career forward.<\/p>\n

When he was younger, he didn\u2019t think much about being a baseball player in the United States or leaving the island. He just wanted to be the best, like his childhood hero, two-time World Series winner Yuli Gurriel.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs I grew up, I was able to understand the big leagues,\u201d said Pages, at 25 a two-time World Series champion<\/a> and the youngest player from Cuba to achieve that feat. \u201cI realized it was the best baseball in the world. I had it in my mind to reach this level.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The <\/p>\n

The Dodgers\u2019 Andy Pages gets a hug from Teoscar Hern\u00e1ndez after hitting a two-run homer on April 10.<\/p>\n

(Gina Ferazzi \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

Pages\u2019 journey to the U.S. was not unique among Cuban players. But, in U.S.-Cuban relations, there\u2019s never been a greater moment of escalation in Pages\u2019 life. He was born nearly a decade after the end of the Cold War, and tensions eased under the Obama administration. Pages remembers this time in Mantua with a smile, one of the few times he isn\u2019t serious.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a pretty cheerful place where everyone tries to help each other, and where people like to spend time together,\u201d he said. \u201cThey have wonderful scenery that anyone who visits can enjoy. And yes, I would say that people are always happy there, spending time together and lots of parties, lots of music.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nowadays, Pages sees Cuba through the eyes of others: the television packages about the U.S. government\u2019s sanctions, the fuel restrictions that cause blackouts,<\/a> and the brief glimpses of Cuba his family sends him.<\/p>\n

The two countries\u2019 foreign relations over more than a century have been complicated, oscillating between a hesitant neutrality and saber-rattling. But ever since the United States captured Venezuelan president Nicol\u00e1s Maduro<\/a> in January on charges related to narco-terrorism and drug trafficking, the officials in President Trump\u2019s administration, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, declared the Cuban government is \u201cin a lot of trouble.\u201d<\/p>\n

In late January, Trump signed an executive order<\/a> imposing tariffs on countries that sell or supply Cuba with oil, causing hospitals to suspend noncritical surgeries and rampant blackouts on the island. In recent weeks, a federal grand jury in Miami indicted former Cuban president Ra\u00fal Castro, <\/a>95, on charges related to a 1996 shooting in which a Cuban fighter jet downed two planes piloted by Cuban exiles from the U.S.<\/p>\n

The humanitarian crisis<\/a> in Cuba places players such as Pages in difficult situations.<\/p>\n

He can\u2019t go back and he worries about expressing his thoughts about the situation, risking becoming a liability. The pressures, both economic and personal, are familiar to the other Latin American players on the team. Some, like Teoscar Hern\u00e1ndez<\/a>, try to make life a little lighter.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis game is, like I always said, already hard for us to be putting more pressure on ourselves, so I go around, I just try to be positive to everybody, so they can feel good going into the games,\u201d Hern\u00e1ndez said.<\/p>\n

But unlike the family of Hern\u00e1ndez, who watched his children run around the mound when the Dodgers recently honored the Dominican outfielder with a bobblehead doll, most of Pages\u2019 family can only listen to his baseball games<\/a> on the radio or through fuzzy images on the television.<\/p>\n

\"Dodgers <\/p>\n

Dodgers center fielder Andy Pages has steadily improved his defense in center field over the course of his first three seasons with the team.<\/p>\n

(Gina Ferazzi\/Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

No one understands that more than Dodgers infielder Miguel Rojas. A Venezuelan immigrant, Rojas said he felt a personal responsibility for Pages, who is caught between wanting to speak more about the situation and being guarded because of his budding career and the fact that he\u2019s not yet eligible to be a free agent.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to preserve our job, because this is our only way to make an income, and a lot of us are the head of the family, so we got to continue to think about it that way,\u201d Rojas said. \u201cI would like to be more vocal and be a little bit more present for my community, but it\u2019s really hard because I\u2019m performing my job, and if I stop doing this, I don\u2019t know how to do anything else.\u201d<\/p>\n

The duality of Pages \u2014 the baseball player and the person off the field \u2014 was on display following a 4-3 loss to the Philadelphia Phillies on May 30, a game in which he\u2019d doubled and scored a run. He squeezed past a huddle of media members waiting to talk to Tanner Scott, and Scott\u2019s locker stood between Pages and the double doors that lead out of the clubhouse.<\/p>\n

The usual bass-thumping reggaeton music was nowhere to be heard. Instead, it was quiet as the players entered, heads tucked as they quietly bid each other a good night. Pages\u2019 black cap was pulled low, and he shuffled through, turning only to say good night in Spanish quietly.<\/p>\n

Pages has been a breakout star<\/a> for the Dodgers this season and has shouldered the weight of steadying a team that had an unsteady May. He\u2018s tied for the major league lead in RBIs with 56 and is second in the National League in defensive runs saved (13) while playing error-free ball. Pages has the second-most home runs on the Dodgers (15) and is in the top five on the team in batting average and slugging percentage \u2014 all while he monitors his family\u2019s situation from afar.<\/p>\n

Pages doesn\u2019t speak much about his life in the U.S. other than in small, general assertions. He\u2019s grateful for the freedom he has here. He struggles to overcome the sadness that he can\u2019t share his life with his family. He leaves his hopes for a better future in the hands of his Christian faith.<\/p>\n

There are also glimpses of homesickness. He rattles off everything he loved about Mantua without hesitation when asked, circling through the words to make sure he didn\u2019t miss anything. When he\u2019s tired, he orders from Porto\u2019s,<\/a> a chain of Cuban bakeries in Los Angeles that Pages said remind him most of home. Though, truthfully, he doesn\u2019t think anything in the city lives up to Cuba. It\u2019s just not the same.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose things shouldn\u2019t happen in a country as beautiful and joyful as Cuba<\/a>,\u201d he said, looking off into the distance.<\/p>\n

As Rojas describes, it is not easy to focus on your job when you see people you know at home suffering.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are here to perform and actually provide entertainment to people, and sometimes we are seen like that,\u201d he said. \u201cThe problem is when the lights are off at night, when you have to go home, when you become a regular human being that is on the streets.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As he drives home from Dodger Stadium, Andy Pages, an immigrant in a city of immigrants, runs through…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":703432,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[8971,16470,304010,83342,4279,3006,16797,271,3591,304011,363,25283,3590,968,99,2384,2830],"class_list":["post-703431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-andy-pages","tag-country","tag-cuba-anxiety","tag-difficult-situation","tag-dodgers","tag-family","tag-immigrant","tag-life","tag-lot","tag-mantua","tag-mlb","tag-page","tag-people","tag-president-trump","tag-sports","tag-time","tag-u-s"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=703431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703431\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/703432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=703431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=703431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=703431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}