Page 17 - Aruba Today

SPORTS A17
Tuesday 22 March 2016

FIRST PITCH

In this April 5, 2010, file photo, President Barack Obama, wearing a Washington Nationals jacket and a Chicago White Sox hat, delivers a ceremonial pitch before
the Washington Nationals home opening baseball game against the Philadelphia Phillies at Nationals Park in Washington.

Associated Press

As Obama watches Rays in Havana, Cuban baseball in crisis

PETER ORSI Stadiums and fields are run — reforms partly prompted ministration implemented pete in the United States
Associated Press down, and experts and by Obama’s detente. a policy to let Cubans earn without abandoning their
HAVANA (AP) — When fans say quality of play is Major League Baseball is salaries in the U.S. as long as homeland.
President Barack Obama too. The national team in talks with both nations’ they don’t pay special tax- “They could go work there,
watches the Tampa Bay hasn’t won a major interna- governments on a poten- es back home. Those regu- they would give us work
Rays play Cuba’s national tional tournament in nearly tial deal that could make it lations specifically mention permits, the money can
team Tuesday, it will come a decade. easier for Cuban ballplay- athletes, along with artists be brought back to Cuba
at the deepest moment of “It’s going through a bad ers to play in the United and performers. — that is what we want, for
crisis in more than 50 years period,” said Ismael Sene, States without having to Victor Mesa, a retired Cu- our baseball players to be
for the island’s famed state- a Cuban baseball historian. sneak away at interna- ban baseball legend who’s able to play there,” Mesa
run baseball league. Now authorities are consid- tional tournaments or risk managing the team fac- said.
A flood of high-profile de- ering once-unimaginable high-seas defections with ing the Rays, said he has
fections to the U.S. has gut- changes to save the social- human smugglers. dreamed of a day when Continued on Page 19
ted the country’s teams. ist country’s national game Last week the Obama ad- Cuban players could com-