Seriously, how stupid is our government. Supposedly, the aim of these policies is to get rid to the Castro regime. How on earth does anyone in government imagine that cause is advanced by handing Castro a propaganda victory like this.

Idiots.

(Of course, we all know that getting rid of Castro isn't really the objective. Winning votes in Florida is.)

Talk about cutting off one's nose to spite one's face. Of course, Congress hasn't had a nose in quite some time...

So now what, if the Cubans can't come and the "Cuban-American" idea falls through? Who'd take Cuba's place?

The Colombians? (Who'd play SS, Edgar Renteria or Orlando Cabrera?)

The Nicaraguans? (Vicente Padilla is the only one I can think of)

Come on...this is a terrible decision.

If we are going to eliminate Cuba because of the "repressive government", maybe we should eliminate the U.S. because of their torture and illegal war...

Oh wait...that belongs on a different blog...

cuba could beat and bottom 5 teams in the mlb. let them in so we can see the next great defector.

Perhaps it should be renamed the World "according to US government" Baseball Classic?

Arrrrggghh. Part of the whole point of this WBC was to see how the Cubans performed when they were playing against real competition instead of chumps. Cutting off nose to spite face is true indeed... we could finally prove that Cuba's much-vaunted baseball dominance is a sham, and a few more defections are always good.

If Cuba did not plan to send a team due to defection concerns, it lessens the "World" concept slightly. This would hurt initial marketing of the event, at least in the minds of nervous marketers.

If there was someone in our federal government that wanted the chance to help his friends in Major League Baseball and take a shot at the Cubans to improve his brother's standing among anti-Castro Cubans in Miami, that theoretical person could ask the Treasury Department to pre-emptively prevent Cuba from participating and make it look like there would be a true "World" event if only the Cubans were allowed to attend, shucks gee.

I'm really turning into the town conspiracist, aren't I?

I just heard an interview w. Kevin Baxter of the Miami
Herald, who knows a lot about Cuban ball. He says he
never thought Cuba would've ended up participating
anyway--would've come up with some excuse, & Inter-
national Olympic rules could've played into it. Of course,
the gov. shouldn't have stepped in in this manner. As
long as people at all levels consume themselves with
what appears on the surface, the real problems will
continue to grow unimpeded.

With all the high-powered people involved in the World Baseball Classic, did it not occur to even one of them to check with the government about whether a Cuban team coming to the United States would be a problem? This seems like incompetence on a grand scale, which of course is about what you'd expect from the people running baseball.

While I'm wearing the Tin Foil Batting Helmet, here's the reason I think Cuba wouldn't want to send a team: it'd be damned embarrassing to send a AA team to take on the world's best players. It's one thing to beat a horrible Os team; it's another to take on the (nominal) best of the best.