Diplomatic game

Contest played in Cuba could help relations

It has been called everything from baseball diplomacy to a tacit support of Fidel Castro's regime, but after 11 innings of intense on-the-field competition, Sunday's game between the Baltimore Orioles and the Cuban national team ended as the same thing it was when it began: a baseball game. For the first time since the Cincinnati Reds played the Los Angeles Dodgers in March 1959, a professional American baseball team played a game in Cuba. The contest was suggested in a package of new initiatives towards the Communist island nation, proposed by President Clinton in January. The Orioles - who play their home games closer to the nation's capital than any other Major League team - downplayed the game's possibly contentious political significance in favor of stressing goodwill between the people of both countries: "Through the medium of baseball, the national game of both countries, we will be able to establish ties of friendship and cooperation with the Cuban people," Peter Angelos, owner of the Orioles, told reporters before the game.

Ironically, both the United States and Cuba - bitter political adversaries since Castro's revolution in 1959 - consider baseball to be an important part of their cultural heritage. Castro, who was a pitcher for the University of Havana, is an avid fan of the game and Sunday's international competition brought a crowd of 50,000 to Havana's Estadio Latinamericano. Despite the fact that dozens of Cuban players have defected to the United States to play for big money in the Major Leagues - an issue that will be on everybody's mind when the two teams play a re-match in Baltimore in May - the Cuban national team has long enjoyed the status of one of the world's premiere clubs, winning the gold medal at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. Sunday's extra-inning bout - won by the Orioles in the 11th - was an indication that the Cubans can hold their own with any team in America.

Beyond the playing field, many have tried to extract a political message from this controversial game. In the early '70s, when the U.S. national ping-pong team visited Beijing, many saw the competition as a lead-in to President Nixon's famous diplomacy with Communist China. The two situations are clearly very different, but some hold out hope that Sunday's game will be the herald of improved relations between the two countries. As Peter Angelos was quoted in The London Times: "If this leads to an improvement in relations between our two countries, and ultimately much greater contact between our two people, certainly the Major Leagues and the Orioles, and millions of Americans, would be delighted."

While it is unlikely that a baseball game will significantly affect U.S. foreign policy, any event that improves the cultural dialogue between the two countries and encourages Americans to further their understanding of our Caribbean neighbors will be a step in the right direction.

Cuba remains the last Cold War enemy of the United States and it has been the site of some of this century's most tense political moments. The importance of Sunday's game was largely symbolic, just as baseball itself represents so much to both countries involved. In Cuba, the game's political implications are hard to deny: in 1959, Fidel Castro's Barbudos (Beards) played a game against the West team led by Ernesto "Che" Guevara, after the two leaders had driven Fulgencio Batista from power. The recent death of Joe DiMaggio in America demonstrated how powerfully the game has left its impression on our collective consciousness and sense of national identity. As the Baltimore Orioles met the Cuban nationals in a spirited competition in Havana last week, one could almost perceive - if only for a brief, flashing instant - the transcendent mythology of baseball banishing years of raging international strife from its diamond-shaped borders.

04-01-99