Cuba Not Allowed to Compete in WBC

Who’d have thought it likely that the US government would mess in things that don’t really concern them? In one of the biggest advertisements of the American national past time, the US Treasury Department have said that they will not allow the Cubans to participate in the upcoming World Baseball Classic and I have to ask how this really affects the US government?

Of course we have the embargo on Cuba and relations between the two countries has been estranged for a while now but a game between Cuba and Baltimore went by without any real incident and the Cubans have participated in a number of Olympics and no one has kicked up a fuss, so why is it a problem now? They aren’t even scheduled to play any group games in America and wouldn’t even play a quarter final game there so the maximum number of games they would even play on US soil would be two so are they afraid the Cubans will storm through the tournament and then make some sort of sweeping statement in the semis and the final? Or maybe by taking part in the tournament the Cuban government will raise the funds and opportunity to stockpile nuclear warheads and start planning an attack upon Florida if Cuba don’t do well?

What’s more likely is that the ultra-territorial right wing government in the White House are just looking to flex some more political muscle on a left wing foe that has been thoroughly vilified over the years.

It would be an absolute travesty if Cuba were excluded from this tournament as they are undoubtedly one of the top baseball nations in the world and any tournament would be worse off for not having that sort of talent involved. Also, of all the nations that would take part Cuba have the most to prove as their amateur status is belittled against other professional sides and their success on an Olympic stage is often downplayed because they don’t get the chance to play against professionals.

This is almost like banning the French from the Olympics or maybe banning Detroit from the NHL, it is totally irrational and serves very little purpose other than to further exemplify the jingoistic foreign policy of the present regime in America. If we’re going to do things like this then why not bring back the reserve clause or the gentleman’s agreement?

Thankfully baseball officials have more sense of building bridges rather than burning them down and are pursuing a way to get this ban lifted and Cuba back into the WBC like they deserve to be but in the meantime this can only diminish the credibility of a tournament that needs as much credence as it can get if its intentions are to be realised. If the US wants to restrict Cuban nationals playing in the Majors and making a living in America that’s fine but to just blindly inhibit something so transient as a two week baseball tournament goes beyond politics and into the realms of pettyness. Hopefully someone with some common sense can sort this out.