The 2023 World Baseball Classic is now a week away. It starts for 20 baseball-loving nations on March 8th. Many of the teams are loaded with Major League superstars...especially the U. S. and Dominican Republic teams!! The U. S. has even eased its six-decade-old Embargo/Blockade enough to allow Cuba to have a few Cuban Major Leaguers next week when it begins play in Taiwan against the Netherlands.
Today -- February 28th, 2023 -- the great baseball writer/scout Ben Badler at Baseball America has a long article about Cuba's World Baseball Classic entry this year.
The Ben Badler article today, as shown above, begins with remembering Cuba's long history of loving baseball and producing a plethora of Major League superstars...but also has to deal with massive and unending sanctions by the superpower United States since the 1959 victory of the Cuban Revollution.
Starting next week {March 8th-2023} Team Cuba will have a competitive lineup although the U. S. and Dominican lineups have nothing but Major League superstars and many believe that Japan will actually be the overall favorite because it has superstars from its own powerful Major League teams and some Japanese superstars from the U. S. Major League teams. But Team Cuba, as shown above, also has some Major Leaguers from both the U. S. and Japan...led by two great Cuba-born players in their prime from the Chicago White Sox -- switch-hittinng third baseman Yoan Moncada and brillant centerfielder Luis Robert. And starting next week the 2023 World Baseball Classic is being anticipated eagerly by millions of baseball fans, especially those in 20 baseball-loving nations!!!!!!!
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