Two Cuban defectors arrive in NY, talk with Jose Contreras agent--Newsday

(Newsday): "Yadel Marti and Yasser Gomez knew they were risking everything they had built when they decided to defect from Cuba earlier this month....As of Thursday, the two have found shelter at the home of a friend in Oyster Bay, businessman Patrick Burke, the godfather to Gomez's son.

• This week, they will enter into talks with agent Jaime Torres, who represents the Mariners' Yuniesky Betancourt and the White Sox's Jose Contreras, in what has turned out to be a whirlwind bid to play on baseball's grandest stage....

In November, Marti, 29, and Gomez, 28, were thrown off the Havana team for "a grave act of indiscipline" - essentially ending their hopes to play in the 2009 World Baseball Classic. Later, it was revealed that the two were being punished for trying to defect to the United States. It was a huge blow for Marti, the team's ace, and Gomez, the 1997 rookie of the year and former Olympian....

• Added Marti: "We weren't allowed to play . . . All we wanted to do is play."

About a month later, the two staged a trip to Mexico. After lying low for more than two weeks,

• they walked across the border to the United States.

• Marti, Gomez and Burke, who helped the two defect, are necessarily sparse on details for fear of reprisal in Cuba. Once across the border, they took a plane to New York."...

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