The end of progress?

There will be many debates in the coming months over the admissions and omissions from the 2012 and 2016 Olympic games but one sport that appears dead in the Olympic water is Baseball. As an individual sport this is not a major problem, the World Baseball Classic has pretty much got international baseball down pat, however there is a greater issue that is given rise to by this exclusion.

Time hasn’t been kind to the relationship between the United States and Cuba, as time has gone on old wounds have festered and grown deeper and more painful. Whatever your views on the constant troubles since Fidel Castro took control and JFK authorised the Bay of Pigs invasion, the two countries so close together geographically could be so far apart.

Whilst the participation of baseball in the Olympic arena may not have benefited the game anymore than it not being there it did do one thing; brought the U.S and Cuba together over something which both countries feel so passionately. Whilst the political relations remain cold the competition provided on the diamond provided the closet thing to togetherness these countries could possibly hope to experience. Since the Barcelona Olympics of 1992 Cuba has one three gold medals and two silver, the U.S has won one gold and two bronze medals, now these two great baseball nations have no hope of competing again in the near future, the fans also have no chance of seeing these great players play together. There are thirteen Cuban players playing professionally in the MLB, all banned from playing in, or for, the Cuban national team. These players defected to the U.S leaving family and friends behind in the hope of finding better lives for themselves in the back of their own God given talents.

It would seem that the one thing bringing these two nations together has now been taken away from them by the International Olympic Committee, how long now until Americans and Cubans will gather together in search of one common goal?