The Accidental Hero

     George Clero just wants to be a hero; to be voted Most Valuable Something, or Something of the Year. But after nine years in baseball, he’s still stuck in the low minor leagues. Thinking it might help his career, he’s even changed his name from Jorge Escalero to hide his Cuban heritage.  Then, in the summer of 1960, his secret is discovered, and he’s advanced to Triple-A because he’s Cuban.

     The irony does nothing for George’s career. He soon finds himself “drafted” into the force invading Cuba at the Bay of Pigs. When captured, George protests that he’s just a ballplayer, and not a mercenary or CIA spy as all but one of his captors suspect. The lone exception: Fidel Castro.

     Castro believes George’s story and turns him into a privileged prisoner. The dictator, who is certain he could’ve been a ballplayer if he hadn’t had a revolution to foment, takes George out of captivity to ballfields where he feeds his ego by humiliating the former catcher with his wicked curveball.

     Seeing George as a propaganda victory if he can convince him to defect, Castro entices with the very sensual and very committed revolutionary, Naty Cristobal. George tries to please Naty by embracing the revolution, but the sudden appearance of his estranged, pro-Batista mother creates a dangerous compication.

     As the Missile Crisis unfolds, with fears rampant that the yanquis will invade, George is returned to briefly prison, where he finds his comrades have continued to suffer inn captivity and have come to believe he has betrayed and abandoned them.

     With Danger lurking both within and withour prison, George realizes he must devise a plan to save himself, his mother, and his fellow captives. Using Fidel’s ego against him, along with the only thing he knows: baseball, George challanges Castro to a baseball contest. The stakes: survival and freedom.

     But what chance can a mere baseball man have against the iron-fisted ruler?