It's always the same story. Cuban baseball player has a lot of talent. Cuban baseball player dreams big dreams about playing in the major leagues. Cuban baseball player moves to the Dominican Republic, trains at an academy, and hires agents to negotiate a contract. Cuban baseball player agrees to give some of his money to academy and representation. Cuban baseball players gives no money to academy or representation and denies that he ever made such a commitment in the first place.

Okay, so it's just a report and nothing is confirmed. But still:

When Yoenis Cespedes signed a four-year, $36 million contract with the A's in February, his representatives say he agreed to pay 17-percent of his total income to the Born To Play Academy in the Dominican Republic, and 5-percent more to the Wasserman Group, the company which represented him in contract negotiations with the A's. According to an ESPNDeportes.com report, Cespedes has not paid either.

Further, for funsies:

"The basic understanding with Cespedes was that he would pay 22 percent of all the money received from Oakland 48 hours after receiving payment. We have evidence that he has already received a $5 million signing bonus in addition to his regular April salary, but now he's evading payments. He is an ungrateful one."

Cespedes waves it all off as "Internet rumors". And for all I know, he's right. Maybe it is just a bunch of Internet rumors. But from the sounds of things, the baseball academy has a contract, presumably with Cespedes' signature, and presumably including little details Cespedes claims never existed. It's hard to argue with a signed contract. Cespedes could try to distract a judge by hitting massive dingers, but there's no guarantee the judge would be a baseball fan, or a baseball fan who values the long ball over small ball.

It all sounds pretty shady. "He is an ungrateful one" - that's a good quote. Cespedes could be giving the royal screwjob to some people who helped him to get to where he is, and of course that's not right. On the other hand, would it surprise you if Cespedes turned out to be kind of a prick? Thing about pricks is that they act like pricks.