Baseball Diplomacy

February 12, 2006 7:44 PM

By now, we know the story: first the U.S. Treasury department wouldn't let Cuba participate in the upcoming World Baseball Classic, only to change their mind later. Whether to play ball with Cuba or not has been debated since at least 1975, when then-commissioner of baseball Bowie Kuhn contacted Henry Kissinger about plans to arrange a game between U.S. and Cuban teams, prompting this now-declassified exchange (made available through George Washington University's National Security Archive.) Indeed, sport and politics are often intertwined in the Case of Contemporary Cuban Baseball.
posted by .kobayashi. (5 comments total)

That's George Washington University's National Security Archive.
posted by sdrawkcab at 4:28 AM on February 13, 2006

Yes, it is. Silly silly mistakes. Jessamyn or Matt, please feel free to change.
posted by .kobayashi. at 7:59 AM on February 13, 2006

That's going to be some tournament. Venezuela is going to be the team to beat, their pitching staff just smokes: Santana, Garcia, K-Rod. That will make even the Cubans nervous.
posted by Ber at 1:36 PM on February 13, 2006

Please. The whole tournament is a joke . Especially with pitchers being severely limited to pitch counts.
posted by Gungho at 1:53 PM on February 13, 2006

The baseball likely won't be spectacular -- I'm going to see South Africa vs. Canada, and likely won't be blown away -- but what really interests me are the geopolitical logistics involved in bringing this whole thing together. To me, the Kuhn-Kissinger exchange really highlights this.
posted by .kobayashi. at 6:54 PM on February 13, 2006