HAVANA — Some of Major League Baseball's biggest Cuban-born stars put dozens of boys through batting, pitching and catching drills in a sunny Havana ballpark, part of a three-day mission meant to warm relations between the U.S. league and this baseball-mad nation.
Among the teachers at Wednesday's baseball clinic were Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder Yasiel Puig, St. Louis Cardinals catcher Brayan Pena and Chicago White Sox first baseman Jose Abreu — defectors who were once reviled by Cuban officials for abandoning the communist-run country but who have returned in triumph following last year's historic detente between the Cold War foes.