U.S. government vetoes Cuban team playing in MLB tournament

By KEVIN BAXTER and FRANCES ROBLES
frobles@herald.com

Cuba's hopes of playing in the World Baseball Classic next spring have been dashed ---- the U.S. Department of Treasury denied Major League Baseball the license required for the island's team to participate, the Herald has learned.

The move came after Cuban-American members of congress urged Treasury to veto the license applpication and asked Major League Baseball to drop the Cuban team from the tournament.

''There's always the option of an appeal. Major League Baseball's official position is: we want Cuba to play,'' said Ronaldo Peralta, who runs Major League Baseball's office in the Dominican Republic.

The first-ever World Baseball Classic is an 18-day, four-round international tournament established by Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Association. To be held in March, it will feature 16 teams of professional players from North America, Asia, Europe, Australia, Africa and Latin America.

Games will be played in Tokyo, Puerto Rico, Florida, Arizona and California.

But since the participating teams will reap financial benefit from the tournament, the Cuban team needs a special license from Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), which enforces the U.S. embargo against Cuba.

Congress members on all sides of the political spectrum have waded into the issue.

New York's Democratic Rep. José Serrano, had urged the Cubans be allowed to play. ''Let's keep politics out of this,'' he said in a statement.

Miami Republican Rep. Lincoln Díaz-Balart wrote letters urging Major League Baseball to allow Cuban defectors already playing in professional teams to form a Cuban team and play in the tournament.

''I sincerely hope that Major League Baseball now authorizes free Cuban players, who are currently in the major and minor leagues, to represent Cuba in the tournament,'' he said in an email Wednesday.

In a letter last week to MLB Commissioner Bud Selig, Díaz Balart wrote: ``It is difficult to believe that major league baseball would have invited a team from apartheid-era South Africa to participate in a tournament.''

And in a letter to Treasury Secretary John Snow, Díaz-Balart said letting Cuba play in the tournament would ``allow a state sponsor of terrorism to use U.S. currency to finance its machinery of oppression.''

MLB representatives earlier this week told the Herald they could not confirm that their bid on Cuba's behalf for the OFAC permit had been denied. Peralta said the news came late Tuesday.

Baseball officials in New York could not be reached for comment Wednesday morning. The Department of Treasury also refused to comment.

Paul Archey, vice president of MLB International and the point man for the World Classic, has said that the next option is replacing Cuba with either Nicaragua or Colombia, with Nicaragua the most likely choice.

But there are some two dozen Cuban defectors who have played in the majors who are ready to take Cuba's place, an idea the league has shunned because the players would need a national baseball federation representing them.

''We're probably the only players in the world who can't play ball for their own nation,'' said Chicago Cubs pitcher Eddy Oropesa. ``We had to desert our countries and leave our families just to play baseball, and now we're in limbo.''

The league, several Cuban players and agents said, has ignored the Cuban defectors' plea to join the classic.

Cuban leader Fidel Castro ''uses entertainment, athletics, academia, all facets of Cuban life as part of his propaganda. That is why so many athletes have defected to the U.S. whenever possible,'' congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen said in an email to the Herald Wednesday. ``Everything under Castro is political, even baseball.''

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