From George Vecsey’s column in The New York Times:
But first the Classic needs a gesture of diplomacy, or at least a quiet bureaucratic stamping of papers. The Bush administration has refused permission for Cuba, one of the great baseball powers in the world, to enter the United States to play in the tournament, as part of the longstanding American embargo on trade with Cuba.
The Castro regime has offered to donate any profits from the Classic to Hurricane Katrina victims, but the Bush administration is under intense pressure from Cuban exiles in South Florida to apply the ban against the Cuban team. The Treasury Department is reconsidering the application, while baseball officials nervously await the answer.
As athletes who never had a chance to play in a world competition, [Sadaharu] Oh and [Henry] Aaron seemed concerned that Cuba could be kept out.
“I don’t know anything about politics, but since it is called the World Classic, I hope Cuba will play,” Oh said through an interpreter.
Aaron said: “The world is not the world until it’s complete. I hope Cuba will play. I hope politics doesn’t get involved in this, the way it does everything else.”
This isn’t the worst thing the Bush Administration has done, or the stupidest, but it is certainly the most asinine. No justification for the denial other than catering to the Cuban vote in south Florida. Let Cuba play.