Speaker 1: Before we get started, we asked that you please rate
Speaker 1: and review our show. It helps people find us. On
Speaker 1: this episode of Sports Illustrated Weekly, you can get from
Speaker 1: Havana to Miami in eighty minutes by plane. For many Cubans,
Speaker 1: the promise of leaving an often repressive life on the
Speaker 1: island for a new one in the United States is
Speaker 1: too great to ignore. It's even more so for elite
Speaker 1: baseball players like say Sar Prieto, who could go from
Speaker 1: a bike to a bend's if he makes it to
Speaker 1: the big leagues. To complete his journey, Prieto would need
Speaker 1: some help, though, and that's where the extractors come in. Today,
Speaker 1: s I Senior writer Greg Bishop introduces the unforgettable Joe
Speaker 1: Hastings and Billie Henderson and takes you inside of a
Speaker 1: defection as it happens. I'm your host, John Gonzalez from
Speaker 1: Sports Illustrated and I Heart Radio. This is Sports Illustrated Weekly.
Speaker 1: You gotta ask yourself how many times you're gonna roll
Speaker 1: the dice before the dice roll on the wrong side.
Speaker 1: Billy Henderson circling the Miami International Airport. This little mission
Speaker 1: red here and make everything else today ever dumb look
Speaker 1: like Mickey Mouse targeting a baseball player. They referred to
Speaker 1: him by the code name of Baby Jay. The initial
Speaker 1: plan is to grab him at the airport. It's about
Speaker 1: twelve seventeen um. They should be at any moment now.
Speaker 1: Five minutes of every mission determine success or failure. It
Speaker 1: is the bus. The target is over there, the green bus.
Speaker 1: That is it. Minute four. I also got my nine
Speaker 1: millimeter came that were down to three minutes. It's a
Speaker 1: very dirty business, and it's a scary business. Two minutes left.
Speaker 1: Now we're gone, one minute left. Jesus, how did that happen?
Speaker 1: When I've seen with me eye contact. He already knew here,
Speaker 1: he already knew what time it was. My name is
Speaker 1: Greg Bishop, and I'm a senior writer with Sports Illustrated,
Speaker 1: and a few years ago I was introduced to a
Speaker 1: group of people whose job is to help athletes defect
Speaker 1: from Cuba. First, I should give you a little background
Speaker 1: on the characters. Let's start with Joe Hastings. She is
Speaker 1: the mastermind of the operation Eastern Airline spight attendant. Then
Speaker 1: I moved over to American Airlines for twenty seven years,
Speaker 1: I flip houses. I opened up a restaurant. It's delicious
Speaker 1: Habana Cafe and Gulfport Cream cheese flawing recipe that will
Speaker 1: blow your mind. And if a kid calls me from Cuba,
Speaker 1: I'll try to help them as much as I can.
Speaker 1: All right, forgot, I'm a published author too. I've had
Speaker 1: an interesting life and I wouldn't change anything. Joe's family
Speaker 1: immigrated from Cuba when she was very young. I was
Speaker 1: four years old when my parents brought me over, and
Speaker 1: I thank God every day that they took the difficult decision.
Speaker 1: I wonder what would have been of my life. You
Speaker 1: see these kids, and the only way out is a
Speaker 1: fast boat to either Mexico, Haiti, the Dominican, or a defection.
Speaker 1: They're trapped. We're in the century. Those people are sixty
Speaker 1: two years behind times. They're stuck. It's desperation. There's no
Speaker 1: hope there, there's no future there. At the end of
Speaker 1: the day, their future is here, and that's not even
Speaker 1: for sure. My cousin was a photographer for the Pittsburgh
Speaker 1: Pirates and there was a kid on that team that
Speaker 1: was Cuban, and so my cousin brought them to the
Speaker 1: restaurant and we struck up a friendship. He knew other
Speaker 1: players that needed you know, people and what they call investors,
Speaker 1: and that's how I fell into it. Joe gets the
Speaker 1: idea in her head that she can help athletes defect
Speaker 1: from Cuba in ways that are safer, that aren't throwing
Speaker 1: somebody on a speedboat in the middle of the nights,
Speaker 1: that don't have people eating passports, that don't involve fake documents,
Speaker 1: and all the usual methods that are used in this
Speaker 1: type of extracting. The person that can help her the
Speaker 1: most is the main character of this story. We call
Speaker 1: him the extractor, Billy Henderson. Man. I do a whole
Speaker 1: lot of stuff, personal training, security, babysitting, extraction. Well, I
Speaker 1: come from a single parent household. Uh mom and dad
Speaker 1: divorce when I was a baby. Baby life then was
Speaker 1: was was tough. I grew up you know, fairly poor.
Speaker 1: Um it was it was every day was a struggle.
Speaker 1: You know, my mom trying to do the best she
Speaker 1: can to take care of me and my brother, two
Speaker 1: or three jobs and make sure you eat. I watch
Speaker 1: my mom worked really hard. Kind of I thought, while
Speaker 1: they do something to you, you know, saying her crying
Speaker 1: to night, maybe because she came Bill bill, are we
Speaker 1: sitting in the dark or we don't got food? You
Speaker 1: know that kind of affect you a little bit. So
Speaker 1: I remember, you know, I'm just saying, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do something to try to help my mom.
Speaker 1: I was young. I think I was thirteen and going
Speaker 1: on fourteen, but I was like, I have to do something.
Speaker 1: So we went and probably like at least seven to
Speaker 1: ten places at least. Then finally we came to the
Speaker 1: harbanded cafe and he was on a bike and he
Speaker 1: came in and he asked if I was looking, you know,
Speaker 1: for help, and I could. He he was little, I
Speaker 1: mean you see him now. He was this little guy
Speaker 1: with this big head, and I'm like, son, how old
Speaker 1: are you? He goes, I'm fourteen. I'm willing to do anything.
Speaker 1: And then she was like, okay, kid, listen. You can't
Speaker 1: say anything to anybody about your age, but you're hired.
Speaker 1: She was like, come back to night at eight o'clock.
Speaker 1: And I was like, I couldn't. I remember being so
Speaker 1: extat static. I just I didn't know what to do. Man.
Speaker 1: I couldn't stop thinking like, oh man, I got a
Speaker 1: job to make money. I'm going to help my mom.
Speaker 1: I can't wait. He has been with us ever since.
Speaker 1: He is loyal, kind, caring. I've known him twenty five years.
Speaker 1: Billy was a football star who ended up going to
Speaker 1: South Florida on a football scholarship. He played running back
Speaker 1: there and was climbing up the depth chart until he
Speaker 1: injured his knee, and from there he went into the services.
Speaker 1: He was in the Navy. He got placed in the Marines.
Speaker 1: He worked as a combat medic. He came back to
Speaker 1: Tampa eventually, where he was a police officer. He was
Speaker 1: a beat cop, among other jobs, until he became a
Speaker 1: private detective. He was part of groups that would hunt
Speaker 1: what he calls the baddest of the baddest criminals. You're
Speaker 1: talking murders, rapists, arsonists, you know, people that have done
Speaker 1: really serious crimes. He worked undercover in that job. He
Speaker 1: saw a lot of crimes, he was shot at, and
Speaker 1: ultimately he was looking for something else to do. When
Speaker 1: Joe sat him down one day, you know, about eight
Speaker 1: years ago, to talk to him about her idea that
Speaker 1: there had to be a better way to find athletes
Speaker 1: and help take them out of Cuba. Now, Billy Audily
Speaker 1: had the perfect skill set to help Joe with this endeavor.
Speaker 1: And at first, when Joe brings in this idea that
Speaker 1: they can help athletes affect from Cuba, he reacts the
Speaker 1: way I think any normal person would react, and he says, what,
Speaker 1: that's not gonna happen, man, It's not just like that,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? You just can't go down
Speaker 1: and get somebody. And I was like, what you want
Speaker 1: me to do? Get a helicopter, throwing out a letter
Speaker 1: and and and try to get the boy, and she
Speaker 1: was like yeah. Maybe. I was thinking like, okay, hey, listen,
Speaker 1: what if I get caught, or what if you know,
Speaker 1: I get hurt? Or what if a bunch of different
Speaker 1: what is? But then I started to think. I said,
Speaker 1: you know what, and sometimes in life you gotta take
Speaker 1: a chance, and for me, like taking the chance to
Speaker 1: actually like living life, because I feel like if you're
Speaker 1: not taking the chance, you're not you're not living. You're
Speaker 1: living in the box. And I was like, you know it,
Speaker 1: why not, let's let's do it. Let's roll the dice,
Speaker 1: you know, this little mission ready here and make everything
Speaker 1: else today ever dumb? Look like Mickey Mouse. You know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, It's not gonna be easy. It's gonna
Speaker 1: be really challenging. We got a plan. Stick to the plan,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, and that's how we're gonna
Speaker 1: get through. They set up a plan with the athlete
Speaker 1: in question. They have pictures sent from that athlete of travel, documents, visa,
Speaker 1: you know, all the pertinent information. And then they look
Speaker 1: for a country that's generally friendlier in extradition laws in Mexico, a, Guatemala,
Speaker 1: and Ecuador, and they tried to take the athlete there.
Speaker 1: Then they can live there temporarily, help them get the
Speaker 1: necessary paperwork to enter the United States, and then bring
Speaker 1: them in legally. What was different this time is that
Speaker 1: they were targeting a baseball player. They referred to him
Speaker 1: by the code name of Baby Jay. They tried to
Speaker 1: get Baby j and Mexico, and ultimately it came to
Speaker 1: look like they were gonna end up taking him in Florida,
Speaker 1: which is unusual. I asked them for something else. I
Speaker 1: wanted them to film the mission with a GoPro camera
Speaker 1: and we would not only be able to hear them
Speaker 1: recap what it's like to help someone defect from Cuba,
Speaker 1: but we will be able to see it and hear
Speaker 1: it with our own eyes and ears. All Right, we're
Speaker 1: the airport. It's about twelve seventeen. Um, they should be
Speaker 1: at any moment now, um, so we here, so now now,
Speaker 1: I was just a waiting game. Billy Henderson circling the
Speaker 1: Miami International Airport. This is after Billy and Joe had
Speaker 1: gone to Mexico to try to get Baby J, their
Speaker 1: code name for the baseball player they wanted to help
Speaker 1: defect from Cuba. They know that he's in the air
Speaker 1: and that he's gonna land soon, and that he's on
Speaker 1: his way from Cuba to Miami, and the initial plan
Speaker 1: is to grab him at the airport, you know, so
Speaker 1: that he can walk away from the team, run away
Speaker 1: from the team, whatever he must do to get away
Speaker 1: from the team. So Billy's driving around the airport, he's
Speaker 1: thinking about Baby J. They've been planning this mission, which
Speaker 1: is what he calls it, for weeks and months, and
Speaker 1: he just hopes that everything goes as planned. But there
Speaker 1: is one problem. Nothing ever goes as plan in these
Speaker 1: there's always some sort of thing that happens. They're always
Speaker 1: gonna have to react in the moment, and they're always
Speaker 1: gonna have to look for the five minutes of every
Speaker 1: mission that will determine success or failure. Now, Billy doesn't
Speaker 1: know when those five minutes are, he doesn't know when
Speaker 1: they're gonna be. But that's where his training as a
Speaker 1: private detective, undercover agent, all of these things come into play.
Speaker 1: And so that's when the plane starts to come down
Speaker 1: in Miami, and here we go, another caper is beginning.
Speaker 1: Billy's circling in a dark suv. Joe is inside and
Speaker 1: she's waiting with a group of Cuban fans who are
Speaker 1: downstairs at Baggage Claim, and essentially they're there because the
Speaker 1: Cuban team is arriving and they want to cheer them on,
Speaker 1: and so they're already thinking this could be problematic, the
Speaker 1: huge crowd that would see if Caesar Prieto ran away
Speaker 1: from the team, if he'd affected right in that moment,
Speaker 1: and so they're starting to grow concerned. It gets even
Speaker 1: worse when the Cuban team does not come out in
Speaker 1: Baggage Claim, but in the arrivals area, and someone happens
Speaker 1: to notice this, and all of a sudden, we hear
Speaker 1: this yelling, the Cuban team is up here. The Cuban
Speaker 1: team is up here. There's some screaming and shouting, and
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, this entire crowd of reporters and
Speaker 1: TV cameras and Cuban baseball fans and Joe Hastings, who's
Speaker 1: hiding in a wig and flip flops all disguised, has
Speaker 1: to run upstairs because that's where the Cuban team is.
Speaker 1: So already this looks like it's not going according to plan. Man,
Speaker 1: they're good, community. That is the bus. The target is
Speaker 1: over there, the green bus. That is it. So the
Speaker 1: GoPro cameras on and the terminals packed, and Billy makes
Speaker 1: a split decision right in that instant. We can't do
Speaker 1: this at the airport. We're gonna have to do it
Speaker 1: at the hotel. We're good a minute, Altaire, But Laddy,
Speaker 1: I don't know if I'm getting the closer. Now. The
Speaker 1: Cuban national team was staying in West Palm Beach, so
Speaker 1: they start following the bus with the Cuban national team,
Speaker 1: and at one point Billy notices and Joe notices another
Speaker 1: agent that regularly signs Cuban players was doing the same
Speaker 1: drive they were, so they know they're gonna have company.
Speaker 1: Timy trust that's after Baby, that's Timie get behind him,
Speaker 1: and they know they need to get to this hotel
Speaker 1: and get him that day, or else they might lose
Speaker 1: out on all the work they've done to get him
Speaker 1: over here. And so they decided that they're going to
Speaker 1: go to the hotel, and what they needed was for
Speaker 1: someone to block the exit. There's only one way in
Speaker 1: and there's only one way out. So Billy makes a
Speaker 1: couple of really critical decisions right in that minute. The
Speaker 1: first is that they're gonna take baby j They're gonna
Speaker 1: help him defect right that day at that hotel. He
Speaker 1: figures that they'll be at their most vulnerable right when
Speaker 1: they arrived. They want to call one of Joe's friends
Speaker 1: from her flight attendant days, and this person another form
Speaker 1: of flight attendant they need a favor from. They want
Speaker 1: the friend to block the exit of the alleyway so
Speaker 1: that they can go out the end. Prints Billy has
Speaker 1: decided it's going to be easier to point his car
Speaker 1: toward the entrance because people won't be expecting him to
Speaker 1: go that way and the bus itself won't be blocking
Speaker 1: the alleyway. So once they've decided that, they settled in
Speaker 1: front of the hotel, and they know they have to
Speaker 1: think quickly and act. Ultimately, Joe's friend does as they asked,
Speaker 1: pulls up to the hotel, gets to the alleyway, parks
Speaker 1: between the lobby and the parking garage, and now there's
Speaker 1: only one way out. When the bus pulls in with
Speaker 1: Joe and Billy driving in behind them, the exit is
Speaker 1: now blocked. That means the bus doesn't park in the
Speaker 1: alleyway instead of parks on the street off to the side. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: nobody notices that the SUV that have been following the
Speaker 1: bus does pull in the alleyway, but it pulls around
Speaker 1: and points the wrong way. Billy knows, hey, I have
Speaker 1: got to get this guy now. So remember the five
Speaker 1: minutes that are critical to every mission. He knows that
Speaker 1: that clock starts right then, So here's how the five
Speaker 1: minutes go chose In the car, She's worried that they're
Speaker 1: pointed the wrong direction. She thinks it will be obvious.
Speaker 1: She yells at Billy and says, Billy, this is a
Speaker 1: one way street. How obvious is that this is minute five?
Speaker 1: Roughly minute four? Billy ignores her and he opens his
Speaker 1: car door and he says, hey, you got to climb
Speaker 1: in the driver's seat. I'm gonna go get Baby J.
Speaker 1: He walks to the bus as she gets around and
Speaker 1: gets Inky. Now we're down to three minutes. Baby J
Speaker 1: is getting off the bus at this point, as is
Speaker 1: all his friends from the Cuban national team. He hugged
Speaker 1: one of them, and I thought this was really kind
Speaker 1: of a poetic anecdote. The one guy, he turned around
Speaker 1: to him and he said goodbye to him, and he said, hey,
Speaker 1: he took out like a hundred Cuban pacos, and he goes,
Speaker 1: I won't be needing this anymore. He says, I want
Speaker 1: you to have it. He looked at him and he said, go,
Speaker 1: I wish I would have done what you are about
Speaker 1: to do. I wish I would have done it when
Speaker 1: I had the opportunity. They all know, they all know it.
Speaker 1: So it's about two minutes left now. Baby J is
Speaker 1: lingering on the fringe of the group of Cuban baseball players.
Speaker 1: He's sort of near the lobby and sort of near
Speaker 1: the alleyway, and Billy makes sure to make eye contact
Speaker 1: with him. He wants a quick and stern look so
Speaker 1: that they're clear. I'm Billy, I'm Baby J. This is
Speaker 1: about to happen. It gotta be not That's what I
Speaker 1: kept thinking. Let's go. There's goal time, man, Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: what I like. Right here, come on, brand get Baby
Speaker 1: Jay nods at him, He nods back, and it's really, really,
Speaker 1: really about go time. One minute left. Baby J is sprinting.
Speaker 1: He's running away from his teammates and towards Billy. In fact,
Speaker 1: he ran so fast that he ran into Billy's back
Speaker 1: on the way to the car. A matter of fact,
Speaker 1: was so scared and nervous man, because I had I
Speaker 1: had just a little bit of head starting on, and
Speaker 1: he ran me down and pushed me into back. But
Speaker 1: that little run, man, was a representation of for everything
Speaker 1: that he could have won it. So I couldn't imagine
Speaker 1: what he was thinking. You know, he probably thinking, man,
Speaker 1: and I'm running for my life, for my freedom, for
Speaker 1: my future and everything else. In that moment, all that
Speaker 1: came together in that moment, just that little ten second window,
Speaker 1: just that changed his whole future. Eventually they separate, they
Speaker 1: make it to the car and they both climb in.
Speaker 1: And it happened so quickly and so early into the
Speaker 1: journey of the Cuban national team that basically people in
Speaker 1: Cuba couldn't believe it. They were like, this is the
Speaker 1: fastest defection in the history of Cuban athletes defecting. No
Speaker 1: do do do? Do do? Billy looks in the back
Speaker 1: seat as Joe screams, we're gone, and Billy turns and
Speaker 1: looks at him and he sees Baby Jay smiling. He's
Speaker 1: free and says, our Prieto is now ready to begin
Speaker 1: a baseball career in the United States. Jesus, how did
Speaker 1: that happen? When I've seen with me eye contact, he
Speaker 1: already knew he are, He already knew what time it was.
Speaker 1: After the adrenaline and everything wears off from these incredible missions.
Speaker 1: Now they have a Cuban athlete to take care of,
Speaker 1: and while the Hastings take care of the expenses in
Speaker 1: the paperwork, Billy becomes something of a minder. He's a chef,
Speaker 1: he's a trainer, he's a chauffeur. And this is where
Speaker 1: Billy's existential crisis comes in. He knows that he's taking
Speaker 1: a lot of risk. Joe knows that she's spending a
Speaker 1: lot of money, and so far they haven't quite had
Speaker 1: a guy that reached the level of stardom that all wanted,
Speaker 1: but there is something always that brings them back. It's
Speaker 1: really just an interesting story to me because it sort
Speaker 1: of looks at the duality of being a real life superhero,
Speaker 1: because on one hand, you're doing something that a few
Speaker 1: human beings in the world could ever do. Your life
Speaker 1: is exciting, there's adrenaline, there's impact, and yet at the
Speaker 1: same time, I think it's kind of sad because you're
Speaker 1: taking all this risk and you're making all this change,
Speaker 1: and yet your own life, Billy's own specific life isn't
Speaker 1: exactly what he wants to me, that there's a gap
Speaker 1: there that he must close. I've talked to him in
Speaker 1: the weeks since says a crushed it in high a
Speaker 1: ball for the Orioles. He ended up getting promoted to
Speaker 1: Double A, where he's playing for the Bowie Bass Socks.
Speaker 1: Billy is living with him, Joe is running a restaurant.
Speaker 1: Billy insists that he's done, that this is it, that
Speaker 1: he's not going to do it again. But I do
Speaker 1: wonder if there's not a future for him and Caesar,
Speaker 1: if Caesar doesn't make him some sort of manager security guard.
Speaker 1: Uh YouTube filmer, because the two seem to have a
Speaker 1: really strong bond and they're still together many months after
Speaker 1: says Are was able to defect from Cuba and begin
Speaker 1: his career as a professional baseball player in the United States.
Speaker 1: So I think what what connects these two guys is humanity,
Speaker 1: you know, um, being able to help people and help
Speaker 1: each other under really difficult conditions, Being able to see
Speaker 1: in someone who's not like you at all, some things
Speaker 1: that you see in yourself. And to me, that's kind
Speaker 1: of the core of it. This um superhero who can
Speaker 1: be sad and can be happy, and this baseball player
Speaker 1: who's about to embark on a life that looks like
Speaker 1: he could be pretty bountiful. And what they share is
Speaker 1: a humanity and a faith in each other that I
Speaker 1: think overshadows all the concerns and all all the risk
Speaker 1: and everything else that they've done and taken. I think
Speaker 1: it's human beings. We get so stuck on me me ah,
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes we gotta get outside of that and
Speaker 1: you gotta you gotta help somebody, you know. That's that's
Speaker 1: pretty much what I've been doing all my life. You know.
Speaker 1: Part of my professional careers is help people military police source.
Speaker 1: Being on the team, you know playing football, you know
Speaker 1: you assist you, you help your team, MASA. The number
Speaker 1: one thing is help help somebody. Greg Bishop is a
Speaker 1: senior writer for s I. You can read his article
Speaker 1: about the Cuban extraction caper on SI dot com. Will
Speaker 1: post a link in our show notes. Thanks for listening,
Speaker 1: and a reminder to please rate and review our show
Speaker 1: that helps people find us. Sports Illustrated Weekly is a
Speaker 1: production of Sports Illustrated and I Heart Radio. For more
Speaker 1: podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite shows. And
Speaker 1: for more of Sports Illustrated It's best stories and podcasts,
Speaker 1: visit SI dot com. This episode of Sports Illustrated Weekly
Speaker 1: was produced by Jessica Armoski, Jordan Rizzieri, and Isaac Lee,
Speaker 1: who was also our sound engineer. Our senior producer is
Speaker 1: Dan Bloom. Our acting senior producer is Harry sward Out.
Speaker 1: Our executive producers are Scott Brody and me John Gonzalez.
Speaker 1: Our theme song is by Nolan Schneider. And if you've
Speaker 1: stuck around this long, we leave you with this. I
Speaker 1: had changed my clothes in the car and I had
Speaker 1: put a wig on, and it was so fast. Before
Speaker 1: I knew it, Billy was pounding on the car, go
Speaker 1: go go, and I went like this, I looked like
Speaker 1: cousin it. The wigs smashed, and my shoe, my little
Speaker 1: flip flop, fell. I left it there