This story was excerpted from John Denton’s Cardinals Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here . And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

ST. LOUIS -- Making the leisurely walk from Cincinnati’s Great American Ball Park to the Cardinals team hotel on Friday night – just a couple of hours after making his MLB debut -- César Prieto kept thinking back to a nervous time 4 ½ years earlier when he was sprinting away from a hotel and running toward his dreams.

Prieto, a native of Cienfuegos, Cuba, was forced to defect from his home country and the Cuban National Team on May 26, 2021, to pursue his dreams of someday reaching the big leagues. That day, when the Cuban National Team was in West Palm Beach, Fla., to play in an Olympic qualifying baseball tournament,

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