Another Cuban baseball player won't return: Esteban Terry stays in Mexico after the Champions League

The outfielder Esteban Terry did not return to Cuba with the rest of the Cocodrilos de Matanzas following the team's participation in the Baseball Champions League Americas 2026, held from March 24 to 29 at the Alfredo Harp Helú Stadium in Mexico City.

The news was reported by Cuba Grand Slam and shared by the page Pelota Cubana USA on Facebook, which confirmed that Terry remained in Mexico after the tournament.

In the competition, Terry was one of the most consistent hitters on the Cuban team: he finished with an average of .353 over 17 at-bats, with six hits, two doubles, and one run batted in.

Radio 26 had described him as the silent hero of Matanzas in the tournament, highlighting his double in the seventh inning, which was crucial in the comeback against the CTBC Brothers of Taiwan on March 25, a game in which he went four for two with two runs scored.

The adventure of the Cocodrilos in Mexico ended abruptly on March 29, when the Diablos Rojos del México crushed them 36-13 in one of the most lopsided defeats in recent international baseball, which eliminated them from the final.

Matanzas had arrived at the tournament as champions of the 64th National Series, won on February 14 with a victory of 11-0 over Las Tunas and a postseason record of 12-2.

The defection of Terry follows a pattern that repeats every time Cuban baseball players travel abroad. In the 2025 edition of the same Champions League, also held in Mexico, the players Rafael Viñales and Denis Peña, from the Las Tunas team, also did not return to the island. In 2023, there was another Cuban defection during the same tournament, and in 2021 six players left the national team during the under-23 World Cup held in Mexico.

This year, the Champions League was the only international showcase available for Cuban baseball players, after Cuba was excluded from the 2026 Caribbean Series held in Guadalajara, an exclusion that the Cuban Baseball Federation deemed "disrespectful."

Terry made his debut in the National Series in 2021 and during the regular phase of the 64th edition, he averaged .417 in five games with the Cocodrilos, the team with which he arrived in Mexico as the national champion.