Bueno made the 2004 Olympic team, but Cuban officials deemed him a flight risk and left him home.
"When they wouldn't let me fly with the team I decided to come here," Bueno said through a translator.
Bueno, who pitches in the Atlanta Braves organization, is one of at least 135 Cuban-born players to enter the minor leagues since 1991 when the Soviet Union fell, leaving Cuba among the poorest nations in the Western Hemisphere.
They fled Fidel Castro's regime on overcrowded speedboats. They walked away from their handlers during international competition. They came to America as children with their parents.
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