[Marxism] U.S. government vetoes Cuban team playing in MLB tournament

["Walter Lippmann" <walterlx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

(While I can't yet imagine that Washington was afraid that
US baseball players might defect to Cuba, this is a rather
revealing article, isn't it? It really gives you the strong
impression that Washington really IS afraid of the Cubans
beating the professional US team at their own game: baseball.

(It takes quite some chutzpah for the counter-revolutionary
exile militants in Miami to publicly proposed that a bunch 
of ex-Cubans who abandoned the island to seek fortune and
fame in Disneylandia should be awarded the right to be the
representatives of their country in Baseball. What's next?
Gloria Estefan singing in place of Omara Portuondo at the
Latin Grammys? The United States is looking like a pitiful
giant, isn't it? I'm reminded of Archie Brown, that great
Communist longshoreman who led the crowds to chant at the
San Francisco hearing of the House Un-American Activities
Committee: "Open The Doors! Open The Doors! What Are They 
Afraid of! Open The Doors!"

(Nice photo of the REAL Cuban team winning over Australia at
the 2004 Olympics posted to the Miami Herald website here:
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/13406558.htm
===========================================================

Posted on Wed, Dec. 14, 2005
U.S. government vetoes Cuban team playing in MLB tournament
By KEVIN BAXTER and FRANCES ROBLES
frobles@xxxxxxxxxx

Cuba's hopes of playing in the World Baseball Classic next spring
have been dashed ---- the U.S. Department of Treasury denied Major
League Baseball the license required for the island's team to
participate, the Herald has learned.

The move came after Cuban-American members of congress urged Treasury
to veto the license application and asked Major League Baseball to
drop the Cuban team from the tournament.

''There's always the option of an appeal. Major League Baseball's
official position is: we want Cuba to play,'' said Ronaldo Peralta,
who runs Major League Baseball's office in the Dominican Republic.

The first-ever World Baseball Classic is an 18-day, four-round
international tournament established by Major League Baseball and the
Major League Baseball Players Association. To be held in March, it
will feature 16 teams of professional players from North America,
Asia, Europe, Australia, Africa and Latin America.

Games will be played in Tokyo, Puerto Rico, Florida, Arizona and
California.

But since the participating teams will reap financial benefit from
the tournament, the Cuban team needs a special license from
Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), which enforces
the U.S. embargo against Cuba.

Congress members on all sides of the political spectrum have waded
into the issue.

New York's Democratic Rep. José Serrano, had urged the Cubans be
allowed to play. ''Let's keep politics out of this,'' he said in a
statement.

Miami Republican Rep. Lincoln Díaz-Balart wrote letters urging Major
League Baseball to allow Cuban defectors already playing in
professional teams to form a Cuban team and play in the tournament.

''I sincerely hope that Major League Baseball now authorizes free
Cuban players, who are currently in the major and minor leagues, to
represent Cuba in the tournament,'' he said in an email Wednesday.

In a letter last week to MLB Commissioner Bud Selig, Díaz Balart
wrote: ``It is difficult to believe that major league baseball would
have invited a team from apartheid-era South Africa to participate in
a tournament.''

And in a letter to Treasury Secretary John Snow, Díaz-Balart said
letting Cuba play in the tournament would ``allow a state sponsor of
terrorism to use U.S. currency to finance its machinery of
oppression.''

MLB representatives earlier this week told the Herald they could not
confirm that their bid on Cuba's behalf for the OFAC permit had been
denied. Peralta said the news came late Tuesday.

Baseball officials in New York could not be reached for comment
Wednesday morning. The Department of Treasury also refused to
comment.

Paul Archey, vice president of MLB International and the point man
for the World Classic, has said that the next option is replacing
Cuba with either Nicaragua or Colombia, with Nicaragua the most
likely choice.

But there are some two dozen Cuban defectors who have played in the
majors who are ready to take Cuba's place, an idea the league has
shunned because the players would need a national baseball federation
representing them.

''We're probably the only players in the world who can't play ball
for their own nation,'' said Chicago Cubs pitcher Eddy Oropesa. ``We
had to desert our countries and leave our families just to play
baseball, and now we're in limbo.''

The league, several Cuban players and agents said, has ignored the
Cuban defectors' plea to join the classic.

Cuban leader Fidel Castro ''uses entertainment, athletics, academia,
all facets of Cuban life as part of his propaganda. That is why so
many athletes have defected to the U.S. whenever possible,''
congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen said in an email to the Herald
Wednesday. ``Everything under Castro is political, even baseball.''



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