Major League Baseball has finally done something right.  After years of mismanagement and outright mistreatment of the fans, Bud Selig is right on the cusp of giving true baseball fans a true "World Series" that pits the best in the world against each other.  Billed for baseball what the "World Cup" is to soccer, the inagural "World Baseball Classic" to be hosted primaril in the United States could go a long way toward diplomatic relations of both Major League Baseball and the United States of America with the rest of the globe.  Of course, the only manager more inept than Bud Selig may ruin that chance.

 It could be argued that the last time a principled, rather than a political, decision made in relation to Florida came in 1999.  When Elian Gonzalez was rescued from the ocean that took his mother, the popular choice for the Clinton administration would have been to allow the child to remain in the U.S. and allow him to be adopted by his extended refugee family.  Except, Elian's father was alive and wanted custody of him in Cuba.  In most cases, the public would have rallied to allow such a child to be given back to his father, and if it had been an American father who wanted his son back from Cuba, there would have been calls to bomb the nation.  Though often accused of allowing polls to make his decision, Clinton went against public's wishes and returned the small child to his legal guardian, and the odds are that it cost the Democratic Party the White House in the 2000 election when Florida's high Cuban population voted against allowing the incumbent Vice President to succeed into the Oval Office.  Florida's electoral votes were eventually awarded to George W. Bush and he has since made sure not to make any mistakes that would offend those Cuban immigrants.

That is why it was not a big surprise when the Treasury Department refused to allow Cuba to participate in the tournament citing the standing economic embargo, an embargo in place since the Kennedy administration, with the country.  Whether the policy is still relevant, or not, the administration could have easily made a waiver for such a case.  They did so in 1999 when they allowed the Baltimore Orioles to play a home-and-home against the Cuban national team.  Now, with many more nations involved, the embargo is suddenly impenetrable.

Due to this judgement, alternate plans have been offered.  Venezuela, who is not exactly a Bush friendly nation anyway, wants to move the games out of the U.S. and into Canada in order to insure that Classic is not tainted by barring, perhaps, the most baseball-centric nation in the world from participating.  The odds of such a scenario are slim, however, since the underlying purpose of the event is to make money and that can be maximized by holding most of the games in United States venues.  Cuba, on their own, has tried to get around the embargo by forfeiting any economic benefit, instead donating their profits to Hurricane Katrina relief in the United States.  So, even if Cuba fails in its bid, it stands to win the public relations battle.

The underlying reasons for keeping Cuba out of the event, are themselves, perplexing.  Communism and Castro's friendliness toward the Soviet Union are no longer real threats to this country.  For one, the Soviet Union no longer exists and the nations that made it up are, for the most part, allies of the U.S. now.  Communism, itself, is no longer the threat that fueled the "red scare" that layed the groundwork for the "Bay of Pigs" and caused Cuba to lose trade rights with the us.  The economic strategy has failed countless times, and the only remaining communist superpower, China, really runs more of a pseudo-Communist system, and the Treasure Department has no problems dealing with them.

That leaves the Republican controlled government's desire to remain Republican controlled as the only real barrier to having a true World Classic.  Without the twenty-five electoral votes in 2000, Al Gore would have been President and without Florida's twenty-seven electoral votes in 2004, Bush would have been a one-term President.  With a large portion of the state's population being anti-Castro Cuban immigrants, whoever runs in 2008 will want that voting bloc's support.  By pandering to their desire to quash anything that would be good for Cuba, ignoring what is best for the United States,  Bush's administration is using baseball to score political points.

Personally, I frown on any government intervention in sports.  When congress called in athletes to testify on steroids, it reeked of the congressmen's desire to be sports talk radio hosts.  (I particularly enjoyed Jim Bunning using his time to complain about how stadiums are smaller than they used to be, so today's records shouldn't count...why is that Congress' business?)  I have no clue what business it is to Congress if the NCAA chooses to continue the BCS travesty instead of instituting a playoff.  And, I don't like the government interfering with the baseball World Cup I have been looking forward to my whole life.