Rays’ flight home from Cuba delayed seven hours

All the best highlights from the Rays historic visit Cuba, Andre Ethier is sidelined for 10-14 weeks, plus Jose Fernandez throws five hitless innings.

The flight from Cuba to Florida usually takes less than an hour, but for the Tampa Bay Rays Tuesday night, it took seven.

According to the Tampa Bay Times, the team used two planes to get to Cuba for its historic game against the Cuban national team. The first plane, carrying ownership, media, sponsors and the St. Petersburg mayor, was delayed a couple hours but arrived in Florida around 10:30 p.m. Tuesday night.

But the second plane, carrying the players and team staff, was delayed seven hours and didn’t arrive until 5 a.m. Wednesday morning.

After waiting six hours on the runway, a mechanical issue was discovered and the team had to switch to another plane. The team is scheduled to play the Minnesota Twins Wednesday and will field a team of minor league players who didn’t make the trip to Cuba.

The team also cancelled a planned workout at Tropicana Field that was scheduled for Wednesday.

The Rays beat the Cuban national team 4-1 on Tuesday in the first game featuring an MLB team on Cuban soil since 1999.

When submitting content, please abide by our submission guidelines, and avoid posting profanity, personal attacks or harassment. Should you violate our submissions guidelines, we reserve the right to remove your comments and block your account. Sportsnet reserves the right to close a story’s comment section at any time.