MSNBC LBN: U.S. approves Cuba's participation in World Baseball Classic

[sabra]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10943151/

Cuba gets U.S. permission to play in WBC
Treasury Department pressured by Major League Baseball, other officials


Updated: 11:04 a.m. ET Jan. 20, 2006
NEW YORK - Cuba will be allowed to play in the World Baseball Classic, after all.

The U.S. Treasury Department issued a license Friday allowing the Cubans to participate in the 16-team tournament, a government and a baseball official said. The pair spoke on condition of anonymity because an official announcement had not been made.

Baseball’s first application was denied in mid-December by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, but the commissioner’s office and the players’ association reapplied after Cuba said it would donate any profits it receives to victims of Hurricane Katrina.

edit: update

[Skink]

1. we still got the height

[jarab]

2. Capitulation came quickly once the IOC

held a future olympics' hosting over the USA's head.

[Judi Lynn]

3. Couldn't be better! Grand news. [sub]Bush[/sub] administrations' condition

for allowing Cuba to participate in something it has been doing FOR YEARS AND YEARS was mighty big of them! It sounds completely contrived, as well, since Cuba wouldn't have been in it for the "money," anyway. Pride in their abilities is important to them. They have a fantastic reputation in baseball. From the article:

“This agreement ensures that no funding will make its way into the hands of the Castro regime. The Treasury is pleased to now be able to issue this license and looks forward to seeing all of the teams showcase their talents on the international stage.”

After the initial rejection, the International Baseball Federation threatened to withdraw its sanction of the tournament if Cuba was not allowed to participate and Puerto Rico threatened to withdraw as a host.

“We were always positive,” said Antonio Munoz, the promoter who paid millions of dollars to stage the first two rounds in Puerto Rico. “There were some negative people, but they were wrong in the end. I always said there was no Plan B. There was only one plan: That Cuba would come and that all efforts should be focused on obtaining approval.”
(snip)

[Whoa_Nelly]

4. Yeah...swell (grrrr!)

Let'em in to play baseball...Georgie Loves himself some baseball! But woe to Katrina survivors that Cuba's offer to send medical help to aid in the direct aftermath was refused :grr:

[IA_Seth]

5. Only because Castro called us chicken! n/t

[MrMonk]

6. Oh no! Tell me Fidel didn't put the "double-dog dare" on George!

[IA_Seth]

9. Sho nuff

It was funny because it was just yesterday or the day prior I heard on the news that Cuba had issued a statement something to the effect of the US was scared to play Cuba.

I was laughing and said that ol Georgie wouldn't let that dare stand and that we would reverse course. Sure enough...

It's sad when anyone that has lived through childhood that included a playground can guess this idiot's foreign policy moves.

[The Stranger]

7. How big of the U.S.

[K-W]

8. I knew they would reverse the decision.

Just more belligerence from the US.

[Solon]

10. Too bad the Yankees didn't draft Castro back in the day...

Yes I mean the baseball team, and yes, Castro was a pretty good baseball player.

[Judi Lynn]

11. Reminds one of Jimmy Carter's visit to Cuba. He was asked to

throw out a ball at a baseball game. They took some good publicity shots.

[Solon]

12. LOL, sorry I just find it funny to see Castro in an Adidas jacket.

The US government seems to think the guy was born in uniform after all. :)

[Judi Lynn]

13. They are the only photos we see published here, but I have seen

his photos wearing suits occassionally, like funerals for Trudeau and Mitterand. No doubt we only get the views which conform to the image which fits the propaganda.

[Clutch Cargo]

14. Good decision.

We invented the game. We should be proud that other countries enjoy the sport that we created.

[Judi Lynn]

16. Who's this WE? Why the proprietary attitude? The us against them

routine is juvenile, and poorly considered.

How much did you have to do with the "invention" of baseball?

[Pavulon]

18. Self delete

[Pavulon]

15. Good chance for the players to defect

Good opportunity for them to come to the NBA and make big bucks. Kendry is doing well.

[Clutch Cargo]

17. I hadn't thought of that.

But I do like the fact that this gives those in a Communist country the opportunity to travel and see that things can be better than what they suffer under Castro. It's a good thing.

[Judi Lynn]

19. Ah, travelling, like the Cubans who used to come and go to the U.S.

and still go to Mexico, Central America, South America, Canada, and points east, west, north and south?

That time-worn propaganda can only carry you so far.

[Mika]

20. Its the US that denies travel visas to Cubans.

There have been many threads here on DU discussing cases where the US gov denies visas to Cuban artists, musicians, athletes, Drs., researchers, etc etc.. Otherwise, if they can afford it, Cubans do travel to most of the rest of the world and then return home to Cuba.

Of course, travel banned Americans don't know much about the real Cuba because of the US gov dictate that bans Americans from Cuba.

[Mika]

23. Yet another example of the US denying free travel to Cubans.

http://www.periodico26.cu/english/sports/denial012006.htm

Yoanka Gonzalez Perez, Yumari Gonzalez Valdivieso and their trainer Leonel Alvarez Diaz should be in Los Angeles for the third phase of the Track Cycling World Cup on January 20-22, but Washington has denied them entry visas.

[Judi Lynn]

24. One more example of Bush's contempt for fair play. From the article:

“This act once again violates the obligation of all organizing committees of international sporting events to guarantee the entry to the host country of all invited athletes, trainers and sports officials,” said Pelaez, who recalled that this is a norm of the International Olympic Committee as well as the International Cycling Union.

The official noted that the Track Cycling World Cup in Los Angeles, to which Cuba has been excluded, is a qualifier for the World Cycling Championship. He said the arbitrary decision goes against the principles of the Olympic Charter and is part of the absurd policy of the US government against the island.
(snip/)

This surely never happened under any Democratic President. He's a hateful, petty, ugly little man.

[Mika]

25. But, Bush respects the sport of cycling.

Yeah. Right. :puke:

[leesa]

21. Oh well, baseball, now THAT'S important!

[Clutch Cargo]

26. Well, important in the sense

That sports can be a "universal language" used as a bridge between cultures. And this sport is a cultural product of the U.S. and we should be proud of our culture to share it for the benefit of all!

[Judi Lynn]

27. A little perspective might help.

1791 Baseball in Pittsfield, Mass.
By The SABR Office

SABR member John Thorn's discovery of a 213-year-old document believed to be the earliest written reference to baseball has got people talking.

In an announcement that has been widely reported in the media, Pittsfield, Massachusetts city officials released an authenticated document revealing that a 1791 bylaw was created there to protect the windows of a new meeting house by prohibiting anyone from playing baseball within 80 yards of the building.

According to Thorn, who is also part of SABR's Nineteenth-Century Research Committee, this document makes it clear to him that not only was baseball played in 1791 Pittsfield, it was rampant enough to have an ordinance against it.

Thorn, with the assistance of Ball Four author Jim Bouton and others were able to uncover this document. They hope this effort will stress the importance of preserving Pittsfield's rich baseball legacy that includes Waconah Park. Efforts made by Bouton and others to preserve this legacy are illustrated in Bouton's latest literary work: Foul Ball: My Life and Hard Times Trying to Save an Old Ballpark.

In a discussion on SABR-L, SABR’s members-only listserv, Thorn reiterated that the actual assertion, clearly articulated at the press conference, is that the 'Pittsfield Prohibition' is North America's first recorded mention of a game called "baseball" (not base or barres or prisoners' base or other games that more resembled tag than baseball; the other Pittsfield-prohibited bat-and ball games, wicket, cricket, and bat-ball, are distinct games and not baseball). In his comments Thorn added, “Of course we knew about Jane Austen and Mary Lepell and John Newbery, and in an interview last night with the BBC I was confronted with the old assertion that baseball of course was a British game deriving from rounders. While I was obliged to be polite, I am no longer sure that baseball may not have preceded rounders as well as cricket, and that stool ball is the mother of all English-based bat and ball games.”

To help understand where the 1791 Pittsfield document stands in the development of the game, here is a timeline put together by John Thorn and Thomas R. Heitz:

Chronology of Early Bat and Ball Games

2000 B.C. - A.D. Ancient cultures—Lydians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Egyptians—play primitive stick and ball games for recreation, fertility rites and religious rituals.

1500 B.C. Wall inscriptions in Egyptian royal tombs depict games using bats and balls.

900 A.D. Mayan Indians play stick and ball games in ceremonial courts in Chichen Itza, Mexico

1085 Stool ball, a primitive stick and ball game, and a forerunner of rounders and cricket, is mentioned in England’s Domesday Book.

1200’s-1300’s Primitive bat and ball games are used in Easter religious observances in France.

1598 “After dinner all the youthes go into the fields to play at the bal…. The schollers of euery schoole haue their ball, or baston, in their hands: the auncient and wealthy men of the Citie come foorth on horsebacke to see the sport of the young men, and to take part in the pleasure in beholding their agilitie.” From John Stow's Survey of London, first published in 1598.

1621 (Christmas Day) Governor Bradford finds the men of Plymouth Plantation, Massachusetts, “frolicking in ye street, at play openly; some at pitching ye ball, some at stoole ball and shuch-like sport.” (Of Plimouth Plantation, Memoirs of William Bradford, 1620-1647, first published in the Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society in 1856.)

1672 In his memoirs, the Rev. Thomas Wilson, a Puritan divine of Maidstone, England, states: “Maidstone was formerly a very profane town, in as much as I have seen morrice-dancing, cudgel-playing, stool-ball, crickets, and many other sports openly and publicly indulged in on the Lords Day.”

1700’s Variants of stick and ball games in England and North America include “Prisoners’ Base, “Abbot’s Bases,” “Cat,” “Courts Base,” “Prison Bars,” and “King of the Mark.”

1744 John Newbery’s A Little Pretty Pocket-Book, published in England, contains a wood-cut illustration showing boys playing “baseball” and a rhymed description of the game.

1748 Lady Hervey (Mary Leppell) describes in a letter the activities of the family of Frederick, Prince of Wales: “....diverting themselves with baseball, a play all who are or have been schoolboys are well acquainted with.”
(snip/...)

http://www.sabr.org/sabr.cfm?a=cms,c,739,34,0

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Cultural tunnelvision can be limiting.

[Clutch Cargo]

28. In fact I look forward to the day

when we can have a true World Series, where countries world wide can particpate, on a professional level in the game that the U.S. created and proudly calls our "national pastime." How cool would that be!

[Flanker]

29. Baseball can be traced to the UK

Earlier than it can be traced to the US.

[HuffleClaw]

22. only because, in the ever so sugar coated words of msnbc

"International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge said this week that any future U.S. bids to host the Olympics would have to ensure there would be no restrictions on participating nations."

(the truth is that this silly bush idea was going to screw the US's chances of hosting the olympic games for a long time to come)