Cuba, No! Yanqui, Si!

The Olympics have always been about politics. Oh, we say they are not, but every four years we turn it into a stage for espousing personal beliefs (something like a televised blog, I guess)which may or not be shared by others. In a sense, that's the beauty: other countries can choose to buy into the philosophy du jour or not. Someone always has something to say, but it rarely disrupts life as we know it. Many Americans were upset when we boycotted the Olympics (not the bureaucrats)...we might have been happy when the communists did the same (probably not their athletes), but in each instance, the result was lackluster. Without competing against the best, matching wits and feats of strength and skill with the lions of the sports world, it was not very riveting. The only exciting part of the Los Angeles games for me was watching that woman crawl the last 400 meters in the marathon. I felt bad for her until I looked her up and discovered she had beaten me at Boston that year by a couple of places. This year's World Baseball Classic has just fallen into the lackluster category. What was going to be a bang up affair pitting talented international teams in a "real" world series might now just be another made-for-TV reality show thanks to the Treasury Department.
You see, that is the governmental organization that is banning the Cuban team from the WBC because it would violate our boycott of all things Cuban. It's not enough that we've isolated Cuba from the rest of the modernized world and helped to make a shambles of their economy (Hemingway is dead, too, though some say he's still propped up in Havana somewhere), now we won't even let them play baseball with us. Taking a raft through dangerous waters or sending mercenaries to invade Fidel's Hideaway is OK, but meeting on a public stage is out of the question. I'd think we'd WANT them to play: all their best players would see our guys with bling and huge contracts and they would defect on the spot! El Duque can play for neither team: Cuba won't let him, and I don't think he's a citizen here yet unless there was a special dispensation arranged by George; he's got the cash, though, as well as the World Series ring which he can take to Arizona next year.
Of course, the ruling has been appealed, but I don't think it will bear fruit. Unless the Cubans get to play, I won't watch it. We'd probably add some country like Brunei(the Redcats)to replace them. No Cuba, no A-Rod, no Jorge Posada. No mas!
What next? No Taiwan in the Little League World Series?