Little David vs. Goliath Still!!
The 12-nation Under-23 Baseball World Cup continues until October 2nd-2021 in Mexico. Poor little Blockaded Cuba is competing although, like at the pre-Olympic event in South Florida earlier this year, anti-Cuban Counter Revolutionaries were waiting for the Cuban baseball players in Mexico. Cuba took 24 players to Mexico and as of today -- September 29, 2021 -- seven of them have defected...leaving Cuban manager Eniel Sanchez with just 7 pitchers and 10 position players. Yet poor little U.S.-blockaded Cuba has reached the Super Round in Mexico after beating the Dominican Republic 6-to-2 yesterday to improve its record to 4-and-1, with the only loss being to the host nation Mexico. In the Super Round tonight Cuba plays Venezuela.
Cuba's important 6-to-2 win over the Dominican Republic yesterday in Mexico speaks to the struggles between the two Caribbean neighbors from the 1950s till September of 2021. In the 1950s the U. S. backed Cuba's brutal Batista dictatorship and also supported the Dominican Republic's brutal Trujillo dictatorship, and during the Cuban Revolution, of course, Trujillo supported Batista and the United States. Despite their differences, Cuba & the Dominican Republic both are baseball meccas, with each nation routinely providing huge numbers of superstar players to the U. S. Major Leagues. But since the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959 over Batista and Trujillo, the USA's efforts to gain regain control of Cuba for the rich and powerful U. S. Cubans has included human-trafficking rules for Cuban baseball players while lavishly supporting Dominican Republican players. For example, everyone of the 30 U. S. Major League teams maintain lavish year-around baseball facilities in the Dominican Republic to wildly develop players with prime coaches, top equipment, and expensive stadiums/fields...while the U. S. at the same time devotes its starvation tactics against Cuba to include starving Cuba's baseball players...at least until they defect from Cuba and sign bonus contracts with U. S. Major League teams. During the Trump administration, the U. S. Major Leagues actually signed a legal deal with Cuban Baseball in which the Major Leagues in the U. S. treated Cuban players the same as other Caribbean players were treated. The prime thing that the U. S. Majors tried to accomplish with that deal with Cuba was to try to end the human trafficking of Cuban players that was enriching brutal agents and smugglers. Of course, with only extreme Counter Revolutionary Cubans like Marco Rubio from Little Havana allowed to make Cuban decisions in the U. S. Congress, that sane and decent baseball deal between the U. S. Major Leagues and Cuba Baseball was quickly squelched once Rubio learned about it. Of course, to this day the U. S. media has been obligated to lie about that baseball deal and, of course, for sure no one is allowed to ask RUBIO why he was so quick to help the human traffickers just to continue his effort to starve Cubans on the island to induce them to rise up and overthrow their government.
And so, as with so many other things, this week's U-23 World Cuba baseball tournament in Mexico reveals that a handful of only the most extreme U. S. Cubans are allowed to dictate the U. S. policies pertaining to Cuba. Thus, knowing that it was going to face blockade obstacles in Mexico, Cuba still sent 24 players to the event and already seven of them have defected, leaving Cuba with 17 players, at last count, as it takes on Venezuela tonight -- Sept. 29-2021 -- in the Super Round of the 12-nation event. To get its 4th win during the tournament {by beating the mighty Dominican Republic 6-to-2 yesterday} speaks to the turmoil involving the two Caribbean nations since the 1950s...from Trujillo's brutal dictatorship in the Dominican Republic and Batista's brutal dictatorship in Cuba. Regardless of how the depleted Cuban team fares in the rest of the U-23 World Cup in Mexico the 17 remaining un-defected players -- including some superstar teenagers -- will try their best to win tonight against Venezuela.
The Point I make is this: As with trying to get to the Olympics earlier this year in Japan, the Cuban baseball team had to deal with Blockade-induced defections and now this week the Cuban baseball team is also dealing with the Blockade-induced defections, 7 of them. Yet, in Japan, even without its baseball team, Cuba's other Olympic athletes finished 14th among the world's nations and so far the un-defected baseball players in Mexico this week are trying bravely to win their 5th game in the U-23 World Cup.
Yes, Cuba and the Dominican Republic are both super-producers of baseball players but, beyond co-existing as prime countries in the Caribbean, they are vastly different because of the different way the colossal to the north, the United States, has viewed them within the USA's economic parameters. In the 1950s the U. S. backed Trujillo's brutal Dominican Republic dictatorship and also backed Batista's brutal Cuban dictatorship. Since the victorious Cuban Revolution in 1959, the U. S. has tried to starve Cuba, including shutting down its vital tourism industry, while vastly helping the Dominican Republic's vital tourism industry, including lavishly supporting the Dominican Republic's baseball industry with billions of dollars year-around. All the while, Americans are programmed not to wonder how rich Cuba would be if its neighbor, the United States -- the strongest and richest nation in the world -- treated Cuba the way its has treated the Dominican Republic since the 1950s. And most of all, Americans in September of 2021 are programmed not to wonder how Revolutionary Cuba, with a population of 11 million, can still survive when its superpower neighbor, the United States with 340 million people, has strived mightily to starve it to death, or worse, since January of 1959. I don't SUGGEST that Americans contemplate how Cuba beat the Dominican Republic in baseball yesterday in Mexico, but I do SUGGEST that Americans contemplate how Revolutionary Cuba has survived for almost seven decades while facing arguably the most powerful foreign obstacles ANY LITTLE NATION has ever faced. Such contemplations, I believe, are worthwhile...as much for the sake of the United States as for Cuba, I think.
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