God Bless The Contreras Family

New York Yankees pitcher Jose Contreras's family escaped from Cuba the other night in a damatic defection involving a run in with the Coast Guard, the beaching of their boatin shark infested waters, and a sprint to land to ensure asylum.

Miriam Murillo-Flores, the girls, her sister Yamile Murillo, and Murillo's husband, Omar Rodriguez, survived a harrowing trip across the shark-infested Florida Strait in a crowded smugglers' boat that was chased through the dark by the Coast Guard.

"What I kept thinking all the time was God, please allow us to get to the U.S. with no problems. May God protect us," she said last night in Spanish.

"I was afraid I was not going to make it," she said earlier in the day after being released by immigration officials.

"Life is very precious."

Instead of stopping, the smugglers cut their lights and ran their boat aground on Big Pine Key an hour before sunrise Monday, knowing that the Cubans would be granted asylum if they made it safely to shore.

Welcome To America!

Of course, we all know what Bill Clinton and that bitch Janet Reno would have done: