US says NO PLAY BALL for CUBA

[slydog]

how stupis is this !!


U.S. Nixes Cuba for Baseball Classic By RONALD BLUM, AP Baseball Writer
9 minutes ago



NEW YORK - Cuba won't be allowed to send a team to next year's inaugural World Baseball Classic, the U.S. government told event organizers Wednesday.

The decision by the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control was conveyed to Major League Baseball on Wednesday, according to Pat Courtney, a spokesman for the commissioner's office.

A permit from OFAC is necessary because of U.S. laws governing certain commercial transactions with Fidel Castro's communist island nation.

Paul Archey, the senior vice president of Major League Baseball International, and Gene Orza, the chief operating officer of the Major League Baseball Players Association, issued a joint statement saying the organizers would try to have the decision reversed. The commissioner's office and the union have jointly organized the 16-team tournament, which runs from March 3-20 in the United States, Puerto Rico and Japan.

"We are very disappointed with the government's decision to deny the participation of a team from Cuba in the World Baseball Classic," Archey and Orza said. "We will continue to work within appropriate channels in an attempt to address the government's concerns and will not announce a replacement unless and until that effort fails."

Organizers had said the Cuban team likely would have included only players currently residing in Cuba and not defectors such as Jose Contreras, Orlando Hernandez and Livan Hernandez, who have become major league stars.

In the tournament schedule announced last week, Cuba was to play its three first-round games in San Juan, Puerto Rico, facing Panama on March 7, the Netherlands on March 9 and Puerto Rico the following day. If the Cubans advanced, they would also have played their second-round games in Puerto Rico.

"It is our policy that we do not confirm, deny or discuss licenses," Treasury spokeswoman Molly Millerwise said in an e-mail to The Associated Press. "Generally speaking, the Cuba embargo prohibits entering into contracts in which Cuba or Cuban nationals have an interest."

Rep. Jose Serrano (news, bio, voting record), a New York Democrat, said Tuesday that he is circulating letters to be sent to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Treasury Secretary John Snow asking that Cuba be allowed to play.

"Let's leave the politics out of this," Serrano said in a statement. "The World Baseball Classic should not be tainted by our grudge against Cuba's government. Cuba produces some of the finest baseball talent in the world and they deserve to participate."

At last week's news conference in Dallas announcing tournament plans, Orza sounded nearly certain about OFAC granting a permit.

"I do not think that is a serious impediment," Orza said, adding he was "very, very confident that the Cubans will play."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051215/ap_on_sp_ba_ne/bbi_classic_cuba_denied;_ylt=AsGg.2E1eq.gPFpHGU3kB ASs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3cm82NXAwBHNlYwM3NTU-

[asere]

I just read this myself. What a bunch of IDIOTS! How petty can the US be that they won't let athletes compete in a game.

The team played in the 1984 Olympics...didn't they? In LA? The team played the Orioles in, what, 1998? IN Baltimore?? And the Orioles played IN Cuba, too!

How ironic. It used to be that there was a policy relative to our national pastime that Blacks could not play in the major leagues. So, a Negro League was formed, until the color barrier was broken.

Curiously, however, players who were otherwise "Black" were being put onto rosters because they were "Cuban". And that made a difference and circumvented policy. Cubans, no matter the color of the skin, could play with white ballplayers...but "blacks" no matter the color of their skin could not simply because of their race.

Fast forward to today: professional sports, including baseball of course, feature all nationalities, all colors, all races, all religions, but we won't let someone play in the game because they're Cuban.

My, how far we've regressed under the current Administration policy...

[Meph]

And I was looking forward to seeing them play. :sad:
I hope the decision gets overturned.

[saborami]

****ing idiots... Cuba desreves to play...ain't nothing but a time warp. GET OVER IT BUSH!!!!!

[saborami]

Fast forward to today: professional sports, including baseball of course, feature all nationalities, all colors, all races, all religions, but we won't let someone play in the game because they're Cuban.

My, how far we've regressed under the current Administration policy...

see what i mean artie, hardly a member of CANF.

[slydog]

Stephens
Sat Dec 17, 5:14 PM ET



It’s hard to know what was on Major League baseball’s mind when it sought to include Cuba and its baseball players in the World Baseball Classic that will take place next March in venues including Puerto Rico.

Not that it isn’t a wonderful idea; it is. But Cuba’s participation in the tournament depended on the Bush Treasury Department’s willingness to grant the players visas to enter the United States. And the chances of Team Bush granting the visas were somewhere between negligible and nil.

The Treasury spokeswoman, Molly Millerwise, stepped right up to the plate. She told The New York Times in an e-mail message that any "activities or contracts that could result in financial flows" to Fidel Castro and his regime "would effectively work against the objective of the sanctions and be inconsistent with current U.S. foreign policy towards Cuba."

The amen corner of the Congress–the Florida representatives who represent the ever-shrinking population of wildly conservative Cuban exiles–pushed the Treasury hard to throw the Cubans out of the game before they ever got a chance to hear the National Anthem over the P.A. system.

Major League baseball promises to push back, but if experience is any guide, the Bush administration is shameless in its role as couturier to the political whims of the Miami Cubans. It’s hard to imagine the Cuban baseball team ever taking the field.

There are larger lessons here worth remembering.

First, our sanctions–meant to isolate Cuba, economically and diplomatically–are unilateral, and in a globalized economy that means they cannot work. Excluding Cuban baseball players would never have brought the Castro regime to its knees in 1959, and that is significantly less likely now.

I just returned from Cuba and what most Americans don’t know is how deeply invested other nations are in Cuba; they are busy doing business in Cuba and making contacts with average Cubans. The Spanish, the Canadians, and the Chinese are drilling for oil off Cuba’s coast, and paying the government millions of dollars in fees for the right to enter into joint ventures. A Spanish firm I visited at the Port of Havana is working with Cuba to build an enlarged container facility–and committing $140 million in private capital–betting on greater and greater growth in the Cuban economy over the next decade.

Venezuela is providing Cuba with 80,000 barrels of oil each day, with unusually favorable financing arrangements, which keeps the Cuban economy going during these days of high oil prices. Canada and China are paying big bucks to participate in joint ventures for the extraction of nickel. Israel is involved–in agriculture and hotels –and the list goes on and on.

All we are doing with our unilateral sanctions against Cuba is punishing Americans and average Cubans–punishing Cuban-American families who are denied the right to visit their kin on the island, punishing American companies who are forbidden to participate in Cuba’s recapitalization, and punishing American values. It was, after all, our contacts, our visitors, our goods, and our influence which are credited with helping win the day in Eastern Europe when the wall came down and those newly independent societies had to choose a future path for their governance and their people.

The Bush administration preaches the faith of economic engagement everywhere else on the planet. Cuba is the only exception. The world is there, and average Cubans appreciate the economic stimulus and the opportunity to meet new people traveling to their island.

Second, this decision on baseball neglects the universally recognized healing power of sport. Thirty years ago, when Richard Nixon sought to open China to the west, he capitalized on a development called “Ping Pong Diplomacy.” As the Smithsonian says, “Blending statecraft and sport, table tennis matches between American and Chinese athletes set the stage of Nixon’s breakthrough with the People’s Republic.”

In the 2004 Summer Games, North and South Korean athletes marched together into the Olympic Stadium behind a common flag at the opening ceremony in Athens. Cuban athletes deserve similar recognition, and our nation and Cuba would benefit a great deal from being able to pursue peaceful competition on the baseball field. Sport has a unique capacity to do this. You’d think the former owner of the Texas Rangers would understand this as well as anyone.

But President Bush prefers “boomerang diplomacy” to “ping-pong diplomacy.” He would much rather stop Cuban and U.S. athletes from playing baseball together to keep the archaic and ineffective embargo against Cuba intact, than risk exposing our fellow citizens to an aspect of Cuba they would never otherwise get a chance to see. America gets nothing from punishing Cuba; the administration simply makes Castro’s ideological case against us: we end up isolated and looking unsportsmanlike all at the same time.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/20051217/cm_huffpost/012457_200512171714

[slydog]

on Sun, Dec. 18, 2005
BASEBALLLawmakers: Let Cuba play ballThe debate about which players should represent Cuba in the upcoming World Baseball Classic rages in Congress.BY FRANCES ROBLESfrobles@herald.comAt least 100 members of Congress have weighed in on the controversial U.S. decision to deny Cuba a license to play in the upcoming World Baseball Classic. Most of them want Cuba to play ball.
Eighty members of Congress signed letters to Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Treasury Secretary John Snow urging them ``not to take international politics to the ball field.''
Major League Baseball and the Players Association organized an international baseball tournament to be played by 16 teams this March. But Treasury denied Cuba a necessary license because making money in a baseball tournament would violate the U.S. embargo against Cuba.
''Let's just enjoy the game and put sportsmanship over politics,'' wrote the members in favor of a Cuba team.
New York Democrat José E. Serrano said through a spokesman Saturday that he expected to get another 20 members of Congress to sign the letter this weekend. In Florida, only Rep. Alcee L. Hastings (D-Miramar) signed it. ''The World Baseball Classic should not be tainted by our grudge against Cuba's government,'' Serrano said in a statement. ``Cuba produces some of the finest baseball talent in the world, and they deserve to participate.''
Another 12 members of Congress wrote Selig asking him to follow an idea proposed by U.S. Rep. Lincoln Díaz-Balart: allow Cuban exile ball players to represent Cuba at the games. That idea was quickly rejected by MLB, because the rules require teams to be represented by a national baseball federation.
''A team of free players, competing in a tournament with teams representing free peoples, is the best way to celebrate America's game on a world stage,'' the members wrote.
Among the Florida lawmakers who signed were: Republicans Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Mario Díaz-Balart, Tom Feeney and Connie Mack, and Democrats Kendrick Meek, Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Robert Wexler.


http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/breaking_news/13433582.htm?source=rss&channel=miamiherald_breaking_news

[slydog]

Soccer Event May Provide Clues on Cuba for Baseball

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By JACK CURRY
Published: December 17, 2005
Five months ago, a delegation of Cuban athletes obtained visas from the United States without any difficulty and played games in Seattle and Foxborough, Mass. They were soccer players, not baseball players, but the fact that those athletes were allowed into the country to play has intrigued Major League Baseball officials.


Discuss the Postseason Since the United States Treasury Department told league officials that the Cuban baseball team would not be permitted to participate in the inaugural World Baseball Classic, the officials have discussed ways to ensure that Cuba is included in the 16-team field. The tournament will take place March 3-20, with games being played in Tokyo, Puerto Rico and the United States.

If baseball officials need a precedent to support their belief that the United States should let Cuba compete here, they could cite the Concacaf Gold Cup. Cuba qualified for the tournament and played two games in Seattle and one in Foxborough last July.

Ted Howard, the deputy secretary general of Concacaf, the soccer confederation of North and Central America and the Caribbean, said the Cubans had followed "normal channels" in applying for visas in their country and receiving them through the State Department.

"There's nothing earth-shattering about it," Howard said.

Steve Torres, a spokesman for Concacaf, added, "This is the same as granting visas for Cuban athletes to participate in the Olympics."

Molly Millerwise, a spokeswoman for the Treasury Department, would not comment on why the Cuban soccer players were permitted to play in the United States and the baseball team was forbidden. She wrote in an e-mail response that any questions about visas should be answered by the State Department.

Even though the Treasury Department did not specify to baseball officials why Cuba was being barred from the World Baseball Classic, the officials said they believed it was because the Cuban team would have received American money for competing, which would violate the Cuban embargo. Baseball officials are planning to change their application so Cuba receives no financial consideration.

"We're working with the appropriate bodies to see if we can understand and address their concerns," said Paul Archey, baseball's senior vice president for international baseball matters.

Chuck Blazer, a general secretary for Concacaf, said that the organizers had paid Cuba for travel, meals, lodging and other costs during the Gold Cup. Blazer added that the Cubans were not paid for participating in the event because that would have violated the Cuban embargo.

Jim Scherr, the chief executive of the United States Olympic Committee, said the baseball officials had violated State Department rules in organizing the World Baseball Classic. Scherr said he was hopeful that Major League Baseball and the State Department would agree to a compromise that allowed the Cubans to compete.

"Obviously, it's not a positive development for U.S. international relations, either for the Olympics or in general," Scherr said. "It's just not a good thing for the U.S. in international sports."

Scherr said baseball officials had not consulted the U.S.O.C. about how the tournament was arranged and how to deal with Cuba. Scherr said it was "much too early" to determine if blocking Cuba in baseball would influence a future Olympic bid.

"There is clearly a difference between the Olympics and this event," Scherr said.

Joe Kehoskie, an agent who represents about 15 baseball players who have defected from Cuba, said the Cuban baseball season had playoffs scheduled for March, which conflicts with the World Baseball Classic. He also expressed skepticism about Fidel Castro's feelings regarding the tournament.

"This is a lose-lose for Castro," Kehoskie said. "His team could lose to major-league-caliber players, and there's the potential for defection. It can't get any easier than this for them to defect."

Archey said that other countries, including the United States, had games in March and that teams realized they had to adjust for the tournament. Obviously, though, playoff games in Cuba are different from spring-training games here.

While Archey said there had been discussions with the Cuban authorities regarding security measures, all a Cuban player would have to do in the first and second rounds in Puerto Rico or in the semifinals and the finals in the United States is approach a police officer to seek political asylum.

"Can we give them assurances?" Archey said, referring to the prevention of defections. "No. We'd never do that. We can't do that."

Lynn Zinser contributed reporting for this article.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/17/sports/baseball/17cuba.html

[slydog]

12/16/2005 5:45 PM ET
MLB undeterred in bid to include Cuba
Officials to 'exhaust all avenues' before denying WBC chance
By Barry M. Bloom / MLB.com

http://mlb.mlb.com/images/2005/12/16/s8CxOxr4.jpg

On May 3, 1999, the Cuban national team played an exhibition game at Camden Yards. (Doug Mills/AP)
MLB Headlines



Major League Baseball will continue its pursuit of having Cuba participate in the inaugural World Baseball Classic in March despite an adverse ruling this week by the U.S. Treasury Department, MLB's top official in charge of the tournament said on Friday.
"Right now, we're trying to get our arms around the decision and address those concerns," said Paul Archey, MLB's vice president of international business operations. "At some point, we'll apply for another license and address the concerns that [the Treasury Dept.] expressed."

Archey said that though time is getting short before the start of the tournament, which runs from March 3-20 in the U.S., Puerto Rico and Japan, MLB intends to "exhaust all avenues to have Cuba participate" before taking an alternate route.

If Cuba can't participate, either Nicaragua or Colombia would replace Cuba in Pool C, which also includes Puerto Rico, Panama and the Netherlands. Cuba's first game is scheduled against Panama on March 8 in San Juan's Hiram Bithorn Stadium.

"There are other plans already in motion," Archey said. "But we won't even look at that until we exhaust all avenues to have Cuba participate."

Two teams will reach the second round, and those games will also be played in Puerto Rico, which is a territory of the U.S. The only instance in which Cuba would have to travel to the U.S. mainland would be for the semifinals and finals, which are in San Diego's PETCO Park on March 18-20.

The Treasury Dept. ostensibly rejected a license for Cuba to participate because the long-standing economic embargo of that island nation "prohibits entering into contracts in which Cuba or Cuban nationals have an interest," a spokesman for that department told the New York Times in Friday's editions.

But any financial remuneration gained by the Cubans from the tournament would be only to support the growth of baseball and the organizations that support baseball in that country.

By stipulation of the agreement reached between MLB, the MLB Players Association and International Baseball Federation (IBAF), the IBAF and participating national baseball federations will receive 52 percent of the tournament's profits, with shares divided and distributed to each federation based on their performance in the tournament.

A minimum of 50 percent of the profits distributed to those federations must be devoted to grassroots baseball development in their respective countries. The remaining 48 percent of profits must be divided among the professional organizations involved in conducting the tournament.

In the weeks ahead, MLB will work with various departments of the government, including the State Dept., before re-filing the license.

"I'm not really sure why [the Treasury Dept.] is making these objections," Archey said. "That's what we're trying to get our arms around."

Cuba is the last of the 16 countries and territories that had yet to officially accept an invitation extended this past June by World Baseball Classic, Inc. Japan accepted its bid after agreement came from the Nippon Baseball Players Association on Sept. 16.

Recent statements made earlier this month by Cuban president Fidel Castro seemed to indicate that Cuba would participate.

"We will participate and demonstrate that we know what to do in baseball," Castro told Panamanian reporters visiting Havana, which will host next summer's Americas Olympic Qualifying event in which the U.S. is scheduled to participate.

Cuba is the preeminent baseball power on the international scene and the winner of three of the four Olympic gold medals since baseball became a medal sport in 1992. It was the winner of the gold medal at the 2004 Olympics in Athens, Greece, and the 2004 IBAF World Cup in the Netherlands. The Cubans have won the latter tournament 25 times since its inception in 1938. The IBAF World Cup is now played on a bi-annual basis, and Cuba has won 12 of the past 13 gold medals dating back to 1976 (South Korea won in 1982).

Cuba has never competed against MLB players at the international tournament level. The closest it came was splitting a pair of exhibition games against the Baltimore Orioles in 1999, losing in Havana and winning at Camden Yards.

For that single game in Baltimore, the Clinton administration allowed Cuba to play in the U.S., but no financial consideration was offered to the Cubans, Orioles owner Peter Angelos told the New York Times.

Barry M. Bloom is a national reporter for MLB.com. The Associated Press contributed. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

http://mlb.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/news/article.jsp?ymd=20051216&content_id=1283233&vkey=news_mlb&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb

[juanki]

I was really looking foward to buying some of those world baseball gear that was going to be offerd and really wanted for cuba to prove to the world that cuban baseball is legit.:thumbsup:

[asere]

Cuba has proved that year in and year out in international competition...they also played the Baltimore Orioles, and beat them in 1 game.

[mellisas]

Sunday, December 25, 2005

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/images/2005/12/25/20051225_baseball.jpg

Bush a ‘fool’ to keep Cuba out of Baseball Classic: President Castro

HAVANA: Fidel Castro said the government of US President George W Bush was wrong to prevent Cuba from playing in next year’s World Baseball Classic.

“He is very much a fool,” the Cuban president said of Bush on Friday. “He doesn’t know who the Cuban baseball players are, or that they are Olympic and world champions. If he knew, he would know something about this country’s government.” Castro mentioned the ongoing dispute during the second day of regular sessions of the island’s National Assembly.

The US Treasury Department last week rejected the application for Cuba to play in the 16-team tournament scheduled for March 3-20, evidently because of concerns that Castro’s government could enjoy financial gain by participating. Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Association, which are organising the tournament, reapplied Thursday to the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control. OFAC’s permission is required under US laws and regulations governing transactions with Cuba, which has been under an American trade and financial embargo for more than four decades.

In an attempt to eliminate a major concern of the US government, the Cuban Baseball Federation announced on Thursday that any money gained by the national team would be donated to Hurricane Katrina victims. Cuban baseball “would be willing for the money associated with participation in the classic to go to those displaced by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans,” said the statement read on state television by baseball federation president Carlos Rodriguez.

Cuba is scheduled to play first-round games in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and would remain in San Juan if it advances to the second round. Antonio Munoz, a businessman who agreed to pay millions of dollars to bring the games to Puerto Rico, thinks the Treasury Department will reverse its decision. “All efforts are being made to get Cuba to come and participate and I think we will succeed,” Munoz told The Associated Press by telephone from New York.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2005%5C12%5C25%5Cstory_25-12-2005_pg2_17