Posted on 12/18/2014 12:25:18 AM PST by llevrok
WASHINGTON — At a dinner in one of Fidel Castro’s palaces in 1999, Castro and several of Major League Baseball’s senior executives discussed one of the few bonds between Cuba and the United States: baseball. The executives, including baseball’s commissioner, Bud Selig, were there for an exhibition game between the Baltimore Orioles and the Cuban national team, as part of an effort by President Bill Clinton to thaw relations. As the dinner stretched into the early hours of the morning, Castro regaled Selig with tales from the history of Cuban baseball and fantasized about what would happen if the United States and Cuba ever normalized ties. Castro told one of the executives, Sandy Alderson, who had overseen preparations for the trip, that he was open to the idea of major league teams having academies in Cuba similar to the ones in the Dominican Republic, where teenage players honed their skills in the hopes of making it to the majors.
Still, he emphasized that one of Cuba’s biggest fears was a basic one - that if Major League Baseball was allowed into the island, with all its resources, it would eventually take over the sport, as it essentially did in the Dominican Republic. “How that can be controlled if Cuba becomes freer is very difficult to say,” he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at bnd.com ...
Looks like Castro was just fine with “killing Cuban baseball”.
As for me, I’ve never watched MLB since the last strike.
There was an interview back in the early 1990s, where a baseball scout was asked about how many Cuban players could walk out and play pro-ball immediately, and his response was a minimum of forty players are talented enough to be on major league teams, with another hundred needing a year or two in the minors to make it.
What I suspect is that some baseball owner is in the middle of this...hoping to get an angle to move his team into Cuba within three years. My suggestion? Tampa Bay Rays, the Oakland A’s, or the Miami Marlins. They are all marginally surviving in their current environment, and zero profit (as least Forbes says that).
The problem is that no idiot in Havana would pay more than $3 for a entry ticket to a game. And even with a massive change in US relations.....it’s twenty years of recovery required before any team could market itself in Havana and sustain the operating costs.
One thing that kind of surprises me is why under Communist control and during the years of Soviet influence, soccer didn’t take off as a popular sport in Cuba. After all, soccer is very cheap to play to start with.
An MLB team move to Cuba? LOL. No chance.
But it would be a good thing if MLB caliber Cuban players were allowed to come here freely, where the best players in the world belong.
A MLB team now? No.
Single/Double/Triple A team? Yes. Spring Training and Fall Leagues? Yes. Training academies? Yes.
IF, IF Cuba ever got their s**t together (no Communism), in a couple decades, yes, a MLB team could make it.
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