Pic of the Week

President Obama greets the players of the Tampa Bay Rays
before their exhibition game in Havana on Tuesday.
Cuban president Raul Castro looks on at center.

There were probably better photographs available this week, but the Cuba game was significant for more than baseball, and I chose this week to acknowledge that.

Something more than an exhibition game

Former Minnesota Twins catcher Rene Rivera, now with
the Tampa Bay Rays, talks Monday with 9-year-old Diego Lopez
 at Estadio Latinoamericano in Havana.

Today baseball stands at a rare crossroads of history, diplomacy and commerce. The Tampa Bay Rays will play an exhibition game in Havana against the (depleted) Cuban national team, with the presidents of both the United States and Cuba in attendance and broadcast back to the United States on ESPN.

The game serves as a centerpiece of President Obama's visit to the island nation and a symbol of the controversial thaw in relations. Baseball, the sport, may be our "national pastime," but it is also Cuba's obsession, and as such uniquely positioned for a role in the inevitable and necessary rapprochement between the two neighbors.

This is a baseball blog, not one on politics or foreign policy. But today they are intertwined. For baseball the business, Cuba is a source of talent tainted by moral complexities, with rumors of kidnapping and extortion accompanying the defections of athletes. Someday, perhaps, Cuba will also become a source of revenues, although that will require more significant change on the island that I expect to see in my lifetime. 

For baseball the game, Cuba is a source of love and enthusiasm. On that basis alone, baseball and its fans should embrace the change in the U.S.-Cuba relationship.

Changes with Cuba

President Obama on Tuesday announced changes in how the U.S. embargo on Cuba will be enforced, and one of those changes is specifically aimed at opening up American professional baseball to Cuban residents.

The new rules will allow Cubans to open U.S. bank accounts and allow Cubans living in the United States to earn a salary without establishing residency outside Cuba. The White House announcement specifically mentioned professional athletes, and baseball is the most obvious U.S. sport attracting Cubans.

This is one necessary step in wresting control of the athletes into the U.S. market away from the human traffickers and smugglers, a dirty and dangerous business. But it's only one step.

Major League Baseball is in talks with the Cuban government to let players sign directly with its teams, rather than flee Cuba and seek political asylum in the United States. Among the points of dispute apparently are how many players would come to American pro ball and whether they also could compete in the Cuban leagues.

The reality is that most of the best of Cuba's talent has already fled the island, The Serie Nacional, the top Cuban league, has been severely dented by the defections.

MLB has two reasons to want to control and limit the flow of talent from Cuba.: first, to depress the price of that talent, as it does with American amateur talent with the draft and othe restrictions; second, to encourage the development of future talent, 

It's uncertain how close MLB and Cuba are to an agreement. But the new financial rules appear to make such an agreement workable, 

What lies ahead for Cuban baseball?

Fidel Castro at the plate in 1962.

Baseball is big in Cuba. Cuban players -- including such stars as Yasiel Puig, Ardolis Chapman and Jose Abreu -- are big with major league teams.

But there is little reason to believe that this week's breakthrough in diplomatic relations will bring a flood of Cuban talent to American stadiums. Certainly not while the embargo remains -- and that is codified in federal law, with the incoming Republican Senate majority apparently intent on keeping it in place.

Ben Badler of Baseball America covers Cuban baseball for that publication and probably knows about as much on the subject as any American. This piece, posted Thursday, details why there will not be a land rush for Cuban talent.

In a nutshell, there won't be because:

• The Cuban government doesn't want that; and
• the commissioner's office doesn't want that either

It's all about the money, of course, which is why the embargo is a major impediment.

The Cubans don't want to wreck the Serie Nacional, their domestic league. MLB recognizes Serie Nacional as a foreign professional league, as it does the Japanese and Korean leagues, and Badler says the Cubans want a relationship with MLB that combines aspects of MLB's ties to the Asian and Mexican leagues.

Most notably, that would include a formal arrangement in which the Cuban teams are paid for Cuban players. That, as matters stand, would be a violation of federal law.

For its part, the commissioner's office has a deep distaste for seeing players get paid; that's the thinking that has brought baseball the draft and bonus pools. It probably would prefer a straight-up player draft, but that figures to be a non-starter with the Cuban government (as it has been with other Caribbean governments, which is why there still isn't an international draft). More practically, MLB will settle for the same kind of arrangement as the Cuban government wants -- something that will restrict player movement and keep at least some of the money out of the hands of the players.

Beyond that, there's a legitimate competitive division between MLB's teams. Some are deeply, if clandestinely,  involved in scouting Cuba, and others are not. The teams that aren't heavily involved in Cuban talent (and the Twins are probably one of them; they certainly haven't been known to be a contender for any of the primo defectors in recent years) will want the others restrained.

As for the notion of an expansion team in Havana: Not happening. The Cuban economy is nowhere near mature enough to sustain such a piece of  indulgent flippery.