C. Trent Rosecrans

crosecrans@enquirer.com

Reds catcher Brayan Pena not only left home at 16, he left his country at 16, unable to return. Since leaving Cuba in 1998, Pena has not returned to the island, but on Wednesday, Pena can finally entertain thoughts of one day visiting his homeland again and seeing family he left behind.

President Barack Obama moved to normalize relations with Cuba on Wednesday, which could mean many wide-ranging changes to the United States' relations with Cuba.

Pena is one of three Cuban players with the Reds, along with pitchers Aroldis Chapman and Raisel Iglesias. All three had to leave Cuba without knowing exactly what their future held. All three left loved ones behind.

Of the three, Pena has been in the United States the longest. Both Chapman and Iglesias played in Cuba and for the Cuban national team, while Pena left as a teenager, leaving the national team while it was playing in Venezuela to begin his life in the United States.

Since then, Pena's mother, father and four brothers have joined him in the United States, but his extended family is still in Cuba. He's talked to them on the phone, sent DVDs of his games and more, but he hasn't seen them in person since he was 16 — literally half his lifetime, as he will turn 33 next month.

Today's actions could help that change.

"I think it's a very important step for freedom," Pena said from his home in Florida on Wednesday. "I think the fact that we're getting closer and closer to the freedom for the Cuban people. I think there are a lot of people who aren't going to agree with that, but for the Cuban people, it's awesome. At the end of the day, the reality is the ones who are suffering and the ones asking for opportunity are the Cuban people."

Pena became a U.S. citizen in 2008 and his three children were all born here. He has no desire to move back to Cuba, but he would like to visit.

"It's tough, very tough, a lot of people don't know behind the scenes what it is for Cuban players," Pena said. "Behind the scenes, we struggle a lot because we're away from our homeland and our families."

Pena said he'd texted with new Kansas City Royals designated hitter Kendrys Morales on Wednesday between running his sons, Brayan Jr. and Javier, to soccer and baseball practice, and he'd hoped to get in touch with Chapman on Thursday.

The ability for Cubans in the big leagues to reconnect with family back home and send money to Cuba could be the most immediate change on the game, but other changes could take much longer, said Cuban baseball historian and author Peter C. Bjarkman.

"The one thing that may happen is the thawing of relations may lead to an increase in negotiations between the Cuban baseball people in the U.S. and you may see more exchange games and you may see them allow some of the players to play in the major leagues," said Bjarkman, who has a book on Cuban defectors coming out next year. "That's not going to be solved in one weekend, it's an ongoing negotiation. I don't see where anything is going to change right away."

Major League Baseball issued a statement Wednesday eventually saying the same thing:

"Major League Baseball is closely monitoring the White House's announcement regarding Cuban-American relations. While there are not sufficient details to make a realistic evaluation, we will continue to track this significant issue, and we will keep our Clubs informed if this different direction may impact the manner in which they conduct business on issues related to Cuba."

Even if the floodgates opened today, consultant and former agent Joe Kehoskie said he doesn't see too many impact players jumping to the United States.

"The key question is how much Cuba will let its players go play abroad," Kehoskie said. "For 20 years, people have blamed the embargo for keeping Cuban players out of Major League Baseball, but the reality is it's Cuba's unwillingness to allow its players to play Major League Baseball."

In 2013, Cuba announced it would allow its players to play abroad, but they must still play for the national team and in Cuba's domestic league, which runs from November to April. Five Cuban players — Frederich "Freddy" Cepeda, Yulieski Gourriel, Alfredo Despaigne, Barbaro Canizares and Hector Mendoza — played in Japan this year after their season in Cuba ended in April. None of them played more than 62 games.

"Cuba is not going to give up its system and not all of a sudden welcome U.S. corporations in to buy up all its resources and set up hotels and etc., etc., and by the same token, it's not going to let MLB come in and wipe out its baseball, either," Bjarkman said. "The real problem, the thing that's a loggerhead between MLB and the Cuban federation is that Cuba would like to see its players go out and make money and bring money back into the country. But they want to control their own players, they want to determine which players they let go, which is what they're doing in Japan."

The Reds, with millions of dollars tied up into Chapman and Iglesias, wouldn't let their pitchers pitch in Cuba the offseason or wait until May to regain their services, and no team that pays top dollar for any other Cuban player would allow that, either.

There's also the question of whether a true Cuban team could take the field in the next World Baseball Classic, scheduled for 2017. That, like so many other things, is still to be seen. For now, Pena and others are just excited at the possibilities, not for baseball, but for family.

"I'm not one of those guys who likes to talk about politics, but when it's about the Cuban people and our people, I try to stay in touch, because it means a lot to us for us to be able to go back to our homeland and it means a lot of us to be reunited with our families," Pena said. "It doesn't matter how different it is down there in Cuba, America is my home. I wouldn't go anywhere else. This is my home, this is my family's home, I wouldn't go back to Cuba or anything like that, but I would like to go down there and visit my family and friends and spend some time with them."