The Extractor

the big leagues. To complete his journey, Prieto would need some help, though, and that's where the extractors come in. Today, s I Senior writer Greg Bishop introduces the unforgettable Joe Hastings and Billie Henderson and takes you inside of a defection as it happens. I'm your host, John Gonzalez from Sports Illustrated and I Heart Radio. This is Sports Illustrated Weekly. You gotta ask yourself how many times you're gonna roll the dice before the dice roll on the wrong side.

Billy Henderson circling the Miami International Airport. This little mission red here and make everything else today ever dumb look like Mickey Mouse targeting a baseball player. They referred to him by the code name of Baby Jay. The initial plan is to grab him at the airport. It's about twelve seventeen um. They should be at any moment now. Five minutes of every mission determine success or failure. It is the bus. The target is over there, the green bus.

That is it. Minute four. I also got my nine millimeter came that were down to three minutes. It's a very dirty business, and it's a scary business. Two minutes left. Now we're gone, one minute left. Jesus, how did that happen? When I've seen with me eye contact. He already knew here, he already knew what time it was. My name is Greg Bishop, and I'm a senior writer with Sports Illustrated, and a few years ago I was introduced to a group of people whose job is to help athletes defect

from Cuba. First, I should give you a little background on the characters. Let's start with Joe Hastings. She is the mastermind of the operation Eastern Airline spight attendant. Then I moved over to American Airlines for twenty seven years, I flip houses. I opened up a restaurant. It's delicious Habana Cafe and Gulfport Cream cheese flawing recipe that will blow your mind. And if a kid calls me from Cuba, I'll try to help them as much as I can.

All right, forgot, I'm a published author too. I've had an interesting life and I wouldn't change anything. Joe's family immigrated from Cuba when she was very young. I was four years old when my parents brought me over, and I thank God every day that they took the difficult decision. I wonder what would have been of my life. You see these kids, and the only way out is a fast boat to either Mexico, Haiti, the Dominican, or a defection.

They're trapped. We're in the century. Those people are sixty two years behind times. They're stuck. It's desperation. There's no hope there, there's no future there. At the end of the day, their future is here, and that's not even for sure. My cousin was a photographer for the Pittsburgh Pirates and there was a kid on that team that was Cuban, and so my cousin brought them to the

restaurant and we struck up a friendship. He knew other players that needed you know, people and what they call investors, and that's how I fell into it. Joe gets the idea in her head that she can help athletes defect from Cuba in ways that are safer, that aren't throwing somebody on a speedboat in the middle of the nights, that don't have people eating passports, that don't involve fake documents, and all the usual methods that are used in this

type of extracting. The person that can help her the most is the main character of this story. We call him the extractor, Billy Henderson. Man. I do a whole lot of stuff, personal training, security, babysitting, extraction. Well, I come from a single parent household. Uh mom and dad divorce when I was a baby. Baby life then was was was tough. I grew up you know, fairly poor. Um it was it was every day was a struggle.

You know, my mom trying to do the best she can to take care of me and my brother, two or three jobs and make sure you eat. I watch my mom worked really hard. Kind of I thought, while they do something to you, you know, saying her crying to night, maybe because she came Bill bill, are we sitting in the dark or we don't got food? You know that kind of affect you a little bit. So I remember, you know, I'm just saying, you know, I'm I'm gonna do something to try to help my mom.

I was young. I think I was thirteen and going on fourteen, but I was like, I have to do something. So we went and probably like at least seven to ten places at least. Then finally we came to the harbanded cafe and he was on a bike and he came in and he asked if I was looking, you know, for help, and I could. He he was little, I mean you see him now. He was this little guy with this big head, and I'm like, son, how old are you? He goes, I'm fourteen. I'm willing to do anything.

And then she was like, okay, kid, listen. You can't say anything to anybody about your age, but you're hired. She was like, come back to night at eight o'clock. And I was like, I couldn't. I remember being so extat static. I just I didn't know what to do. Man. I couldn't stop thinking like, oh man, I got a job to make money. I'm going to help my mom. I can't wait. He has been with us ever since. He is loyal, kind, caring. I've known him twenty five years.

Billy was a football star who ended up going to South Florida on a football scholarship. He played running back there and was climbing up the depth chart until he injured his knee, and from there he went into the services. He was in the Navy. He got placed in the Marines. He worked as a combat medic. He came back to Tampa eventually, where he was a police officer. He was a beat cop, among other jobs, until he became a private detective. He was part of groups that would hunt

what he calls the baddest of the baddest criminals. You're talking murders, rapists, arsonists, you know, people that have done really serious crimes. He worked undercover in that job. He saw a lot of crimes, he was shot at, and ultimately he was looking for something else to do. When Joe sat him down one day, you know, about eight years ago, to talk to him about her idea that there had to be a better way to find athletes

and help take them out of Cuba. Now, Billy Audily had the perfect skill set to help Joe with this endeavor. And at first, when Joe brings in this idea that they can help athletes affect from Cuba, he reacts the way I think any normal person would react, and he says, what, that's not gonna happen, man, It's not just like that, you know what I mean? You just can't go down and get somebody. And I was like, what you want

me to do? Get a helicopter, throwing out a letter and and and try to get the boy, and she was like yeah. Maybe. I was thinking like, okay, hey, listen, what if I get caught, or what if you know, I get hurt? Or what if a bunch of different what is? But then I started to think. I said, you know what, and sometimes in life you gotta take a chance, and for me, like taking the chance to actually like living life, because I feel like if you're

not taking the chance, you're not you're not living. You're living in the box. And I was like, you know it, why not, let's let's do it. Let's roll the dice, you know, this little mission ready here and make everything else today ever dumb? Look like Mickey Mouse. You know what I'm saying, It's not gonna be easy. It's gonna be really challenging. We got a plan. Stick to the plan, you know what I mean, and that's how we're gonna get through. They set up a plan with the athlete

in question. They have pictures sent from that athlete of travel, documents, visa, you know, all the pertinent information. And then they look for a country that's generally friendlier in extradition laws in Mexico, a, Guatemala, and Ecuador, and they tried to take the athlete there. Then they can live there temporarily, help them get the necessary paperwork to enter the United States, and then bring them in legally. What was different this time is that

they were targeting a baseball player. They referred to him by the code name of Baby Jay. They tried to get Baby j and Mexico, and ultimately it came to look like they were gonna end up taking him in Florida, which is unusual. I asked them for something else. I wanted them to film the mission with a GoPro camera and we would not only be able to hear them recap what it's like to help someone defect from Cuba, but we will be able to see it and hear it with our own eyes and ears. All Right, we're

the airport. It's about twelve seventeen. Um, they should be at any moment now, um, so we here, so now now, I was just a waiting game. Billy Henderson circling the Miami International Airport. This is after Billy and Joe had gone to Mexico to try to get Baby J, their code name for the baseball player they wanted to help

defect from Cuba. They know that he's in the air and that he's gonna land soon, and that he's on his way from Cuba to Miami, and the initial plan is to grab him at the airport, you know, so that he can walk away from the team, run away from the team, whatever he must do to get away from the team. So Billy's driving around the airport, he's thinking about Baby J. They've been planning this mission, which is what he calls it, for weeks and months, and

he just hopes that everything goes as planned. But there is one problem. Nothing ever goes as plan in these there's always some sort of thing that happens. They're always gonna have to react in the moment, and they're always gonna have to look for the five minutes of every mission that will determine success or failure. Now, Billy doesn't know when those five minutes are, he doesn't know when

they're gonna be. But that's where his training as a private detective, undercover agent, all of these things come into play. And so that's when the plane starts to come down in Miami, and here we go, another caper is beginning.

Billy's circling in a dark suv. Joe is inside and she's waiting with a group of Cuban fans who are downstairs at Baggage Claim, and essentially they're there because the Cuban team is arriving and they want to cheer them on, and so they're already thinking this could be problematic, the huge crowd that would see if Caesar Prieto ran away from the team, if he'd affected right in that moment,

and so they're starting to grow concerned. It gets even worse when the Cuban team does not come out in Baggage Claim, but in the arrivals area, and someone happens to notice this, and all of a sudden, we hear this yelling, the Cuban team is up here. The Cuban

team is up here. There's some screaming and shouting, and all of a sudden, this entire crowd of reporters and TV cameras and Cuban baseball fans and Joe Hastings, who's hiding in a wig and flip flops all disguised, has to run upstairs because that's where the Cuban team is. So already this looks like it's not going according to plan. Man, they're good, community. That is the bus. The target is

over there, the green bus. That is it. So the GoPro cameras on and the terminals packed, and Billy makes a split decision right in that instant. We can't do this at the airport. We're gonna have to do it at the hotel. We're good a minute, Altaire, But Laddy,

I don't know if I'm getting the closer. Now. The Cuban national team was staying in West Palm Beach, so they start following the bus with the Cuban national team, and at one point Billy notices and Joe notices another agent that regularly signs Cuban players was doing the same drive they were, so they know they're gonna have company.

Timy trust that's after Baby, that's Timie get behind him, and they know they need to get to this hotel and get him that day, or else they might lose out on all the work they've done to get him over here. And so they decided that they're going to go to the hotel, and what they needed was for someone to block the exit. There's only one way in and there's only one way out. So Billy makes a

couple of really critical decisions right in that minute. The first is that they're gonna take baby j They're gonna help him defect right that day at that hotel. He figures that they'll be at their most vulnerable right when they arrived. They want to call one of Joe's friends from her flight attendant days, and this person another form of flight attendant they need a favor from. They want the friend to block the exit of the alleyway so

that they can go out the end. Prints Billy has decided it's going to be easier to point his car toward the entrance because people won't be expecting him to go that way and the bus itself won't be blocking the alleyway. So once they've decided that, they settled in front of the hotel, and they know they have to think quickly and act. Ultimately, Joe's friend does as they asked, pulls up to the hotel, gets to the alleyway, parks between the lobby and the parking garage, and now there's

only one way out. When the bus pulls in with Joe and Billy driving in behind them, the exit is now blocked. That means the bus doesn't park in the alleyway instead of parks on the street off to the side. Meanwhile, nobody notices that the SUV that have been following the bus does pull in the alleyway, but it pulls around and points the wrong way. Billy knows, hey, I have got to get this guy now. So remember the five

minutes that are critical to every mission. He knows that that clock starts right then, So here's how the five minutes go chose In the car, She's worried that they're pointed the wrong direction. She thinks it will be obvious. She yells at Billy and says, Billy, this is a one way street. How obvious is that this is minute five? Roughly minute four? Billy ignores her and he opens his car door and he says, hey, you got to climb

in the driver's seat. I'm gonna go get Baby J. He walks to the bus as she gets around and gets Inky. Now we're down to three minutes. Baby J is getting off the bus at this point, as is all his friends from the Cuban national team. He hugged one of them, and I thought this was really kind of a poetic anecdote. The one guy, he turned around to him and he said goodbye to him, and he said, hey, he took out like a hundred Cuban pacos, and he goes, I won't be needing this anymore. He says, I want

you to have it. He looked at him and he said, go, I wish I would have done what you are about to do. I wish I would have done it when I had the opportunity. They all know, they all know it. So it's about two minutes left now. Baby J is lingering on the fringe of the group of Cuban baseball players. He's sort of near the lobby and sort of near the alleyway, and Billy makes sure to make eye contact with him. He wants a quick and stern look so that they're clear. I'm Billy, I'm Baby J. This is

about to happen. It gotta be not That's what I kept thinking. Let's go. There's goal time, man, Yeah, that's what I like. Right here, come on, brand get Baby Jay nods at him, He nods back, and it's really, really, really about go time. One minute left. Baby J is sprinting. He's running away from his teammates and towards Billy. In fact, he ran so fast that he ran into Billy's back

on the way to the car. A matter of fact, was so scared and nervous man, because I had I had just a little bit of head starting on, and he ran me down and pushed me into back. But that little run, man, was a representation of for everything that he could have won it. So I couldn't imagine what he was thinking. You know, he probably thinking, man, and I'm running for my life, for my freedom, for

my future and everything else. In that moment, all that came together in that moment, just that little ten second window, just that changed his whole future. Eventually they separate, they make it to the car and they both climb in. And it happened so quickly and so early into the journey of the Cuban national team that basically people in Cuba couldn't believe it. They were like, this is the fastest defection in the history of Cuban athletes defecting. No

do do do? Do do? Billy looks in the back seat as Joe screams, we're gone, and Billy turns and looks at him and he sees Baby Jay smiling. He's free and says, our Prieto is now ready to begin a baseball career in the United States. Jesus, how did that happen? When I've seen with me eye contact, he already knew he are, He already knew what time it was. After the adrenaline and everything wears off from these incredible missions.

Now they have a Cuban athlete to take care of, and while the Hastings take care of the expenses in the paperwork, Billy becomes something of a minder. He's a chef, he's a trainer, he's a chauffeur. And this is where Billy's existential crisis comes in. He knows that he's taking a lot of risk. Joe knows that she's spending a lot of money, and so far they haven't quite had a guy that reached the level of stardom that all wanted,

but there is something always that brings them back. It's really just an interesting story to me because it sort of looks at the duality of being a real life superhero, because on one hand, you're doing something that a few

human beings in the world could ever do. Your life is exciting, there's adrenaline, there's impact, and yet at the same time, I think it's kind of sad because you're taking all this risk and you're making all this change, and yet your own life, Billy's own specific life isn't exactly what he wants to me, that there's a gap there that he must close. I've talked to him in the weeks since says a crushed it in high a

ball for the Orioles. He ended up getting promoted to Double A, where he's playing for the Bowie Bass Socks. Billy is living with him, Joe is running a restaurant. Billy insists that he's done, that this is it, that he's not going to do it again. But I do wonder if there's not a future for him and Caesar, if Caesar doesn't make him some sort of manager security guard.

Uh YouTube filmer, because the two seem to have a really strong bond and they're still together many months after says Are was able to defect from Cuba and begin his career as a professional baseball player in the United States. So I think what what connects these two guys is humanity, you know, um, being able to help people and help each other under really difficult conditions, Being able to see in someone who's not like you at all, some things that you see in yourself. And to me, that's kind

of the core of it. This um superhero who can be sad and can be happy, and this baseball player who's about to embark on a life that looks like he could be pretty bountiful. And what they share is a humanity and a faith in each other that I think overshadows all the concerns and all all the risk and everything else that they've done and taken. I think it's human beings. We get so stuck on me me ah, you know, sometimes we gotta get outside of that and

you gotta you gotta help somebody, you know. That's that's pretty much what I've been doing all my life. You know. Part of my professional careers is help people military police source. Being on the team, you know playing football, you know you assist you, you help your team, MASA. The number one thing is help help somebody. Greg Bishop is a senior writer for s I. You can read his article about the Cuban extraction caper on SI dot com. Will

post a link in our show notes. Thanks for listening, and a reminder to please rate and review our show that helps people find us. Sports Illustrated Weekly is a production of Sports Illustrated and I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite shows. And for more of Sports Illustrated It's best stories and podcasts,

visit SI dot com. This episode of Sports Illustrated Weekly was produced by Jessica Armoski, Jordan Rizzieri, and Isaac Lee, who was also our sound engineer. Our senior producer is Dan Bloom. Our acting senior producer is Harry sward Out. Our executive producers are Scott Brody and me John Gonzalez. Our theme song is by Nolan Schneider. And if you've stuck around this long, we leave you with this. I had changed my clothes in the car and I had

put a wig on, and it was so fast. Before I knew it, Billy was pounding on the car, go go go, and I went like this, I looked like cousin it. The wigs smashed, and my shoe, my little flip flop, fell. I left it there