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MLB undeterred in bid to
include Cuba
Officials to 'exhaust
all avenues' before denying WBC chance
By Barry M. Bloom / MLB.com,
December 16, 2005.
Major League Baseball will continue its
pursuit of having Cuba participate in the
inaugural World Baseball Classic in March
despite an adverse ruling this week by the
U.S. Treasury Department, MLB's top official
in charge of the tournament said on Friday.
"Right now, we're trying to get our
arms around the decision and address those
concerns," said Paul Archey, MLB's
vice president of international business
operations. "At some point, we'll apply
for another license and address the concerns
that [the Treasury Dept.] expressed."
Archey said that though time is getting
short before the start of the tournament,
which runs from March 3-20 in the U.S.,
Puerto Rico and Japan, MLB intends to "exhaust
all avenues to have Cuba participate"
before taking an alternate route.
If Cuba can't participate, either Nicaragua
or Colombia would replace Cuba in Pool C,
which also includes Puerto Rico, Panama
and the Netherlands. Cuba's first game is
scheduled against Panama on March 8 in San
Juan's Hiram Bithorn Stadium.
"There are other plans already in
motion," Archey said. "But we
won't even look at that until we exhaust
all avenues to have Cuba participate."
Two teams will reach the second round,
and those games will also be played in Puerto
Rico, which is a territory of the U.S. The
only instance in which Cuba would have to
travel to the U.S. mainland would be for
the semifinals and finals, which are in
San Diego's PETCO Park on March 18-20.
The Treasury Dept. ostensibly rejected
a license for Cuba to participate because
the long-standing economic embargo of that
island nation "prohibits entering into
contracts in which Cuba or Cuban nationals
have an interest," a spokesman for
that department told the New York Times
in Friday's editions.
But any financial remuneration gained by
the Cubans from the tournament would be
only to support the growth of baseball and
the organizations that support baseball
in that country.
By stipulation of the agreement reached
between MLB, the MLB Players Association
and International Baseball Federation (IBAF),
the IBAF and participating national baseball
federations will receive 52 percent of the
tournament's profits, with shares divided
and distributed to each federation based
on their performance in the tournament.
A minimum of 50 percent of the profits
distributed to those federations must be
devoted to grassroots baseball development
in their respective countries. The remaining
48 percent of profits must be divided among
the professional organizations involved
in conducting the tournament.
In the weeks ahead, MLB will work with
various departments of the government, including
the State Dept., before re-filing the license.
"I'm not really sure why [the Treasury
Dept.] is making these objections,"
Archey said. "That's what we're trying
to get our arms around."
Cuba is the last of the 16 countries and
territories that had yet to officially accept
an invitation extended this past June by
World Baseball Classic, Inc. Japan accepted
its bid after agreement came from the Nippon
Baseball Players Association on Sept. 16.
Recent statements made earlier this month
by Cuban president Fidel Castro seemed to
indicate that Cuba would participate.
"We will participate and demonstrate
that we know what to do in baseball,"
Castro told Panamanian reporters visiting
Havana, which will host next summer's Americas
Olympic Qualifying event in which the U.S.
is scheduled to participate.
Cuba is the preeminent baseball power on
the international scene and the winner of
three of the four Olympic gold medals since
baseball became a medal sport in 1992. It
was the winner of the gold medal at the
2004 Olympics in Athens, Greece, and the
2004 IBAF World Cup in the Netherlands.
The Cubans have won the latter tournament
25 times since its inception in 1938. The
IBAF World Cup is now played on a bi-annual
basis, and Cuba has won 12 of the past 13
gold medals dating back to 1976 (South Korea
won in 1982).
Cuba has never competed against MLB players
at the international tournament level. The
closest it came was splitting a pair of
exhibition games against the Baltimore Orioles
in 1999, losing in Havana and winning at
Camden Yards.
For that single game in Baltimore, the
Clinton administration allowed Cuba to play
in the U.S., but no financial consideration
was offered to the Cubans, Orioles owner
Peter Angelos told the New York Times.
Barry M. Bloom is a national reporter for
MLB.com. The Associated Press contributed.
This story was not subject to the approval
of Major League Baseball or its clubs.
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