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Seattle Mariners

Mariners notes: Leonys Martin hopes to play for Cuba

Bob Dutton Tacoma News Tribune

ARLINGTON, Texas – Having returned to one former home this week when the Mariners opened the season at Texas, center fielder Leonys Martin can’t help but wonder whether he’ll ever be allowed to return to play for his homeland.

Cuba.

It’s not at the front of his thoughts, certainly.

Martin, 28, is still fitting into his new club, and he’s yet to enter the home clubhouse at Safeco Field. Even so, the past pushed in hard this week when he returned to Globe Life Park for the first time as a visiting player.

It was Martin’s two-out RBI double that broke a tie in the seventh inning Tuesday before the Mariners turned the game into a 10-2 rout that saw the benches nearly empty when things grew tense in a six-run eighth inning.

Martin was among the first out of the dugout before tempers cooled. Asked afterward how it felt to be lined up in a potential conflict against former teammates, he left no doubt regarding his loyalties.

“I love Seattle,” he said. “I love my new team, my new teammates and coaching staff.” They are his future, and he was ready to rumble, but the past still tugs in different ways.

And Martin is hopeful.

A potential benefit from the escalating baseball diplomacy between the United States and Cuba is the possibility that defectors such as Martin might again play for their national team.

Cuban baseball commissioner Heriberto Suarez was quoted last month by FoxSports.com as saying “everything is on the table” in regard to his country’s new willingness to work with Major League Baseball.

Those comments came in the glow of the visit by the Tampa Bay Rays to Havana to play an exhibition game against the Cuban national team and followed a goodwill tour last December by several major-league players.

“Oh, I wish,” said Martin, who had three more hits Wednesday when the Mariners rallied for a 9-5 victory over the Rangers.

“That would be an amazing feeling to represent your country again. To be able to play for your fans and your family again, it would be an amazing feeling. That would be one of my dreams.”