1970s Baseball Diplomacy between Cuba and the United States

Abstract

1970s Baseball Diplomacy between Cuba and the United States Justin W. R. Turner (bio) On any other day, the sight of fifty thousand fans filing into Havana's Estadio Latinamericano for a baseball game would have been unremarkable. What drew the crowd to the stadium on March 28, 1999, however, was the opportunity to see Major League Baseball in Cuba. The Baltimore Orioles, in town to play the Cuban national baseball team, were the first major-league team to play on the island in forty years. For the Orioles, the game was the culmination of a two-year endeavor. In reality, efforts at "baseball diplomacy," the nickname given to the sports exchange, began in the 1970s. The Orioles-Cuba game was not an original idea; it was simply the first time baseball diplomacy produced an actual game. Baseball diplomacy's failures prior to 1999 reflect the complicated relationship between Cuba and the United States. Earlier attempts could not overcome the political differences that separated the two nations. Political considerations overwhelmed baseball diplomacy, complicated the planning, and ultimately prevented a notable change in U.S.-Cuba relations. The shared love of baseball and the goodwill of athletic competition was an insufficient bandage for the lasting legacy of antagonism and mutual distrust between Washington and Havana. Prior to the revolution, both nations participated in a healthy baseball exchange. Cubans played in American baseball leagues and vice versa. After 1961, however, the simple task of organizing a baseball game, with its definitive rules of fair and foul, three outs per inning, and three strikes per batter, became an exercise in diplomacy. Baseball is one of the United States' most notable exports to Cuba. The game made its way to Cuba via Nemesio Guilló. A student, Guilló left Cuba in 1858 to attend Springhill College in Mobile, Alabama. When he returned home six years later, he brought a bat and ball with him and soon began organizing games with other classmates returning from the United States. The contests, played in public areas, attracted curious attention. By 1868, Guilló was a [End Page 67] founding member of the Havana Base Ball Club and the team's right fielder. That same year, the club traveled to Matanzas, where they played and defeated the crew of an American ship docked in port for repairs. Though not political in nature, this game can be loosely termed the first documented occurrence of "baseball diplomacy" between the countries. By 1878, professional leagues emerged and various clubs throughout the island played contests and competed for pennants. Cubans enthusiastically adopted baseball as a commoner's game, and playing and attending baseball games became a political act at the end of the nineteenth century, as Cubans shunned bullfighting—a reminder of Spanish rule embedded with class distinctions—in favor of the more democratic American game.1 Close ties between the United States and Cuba for the first half of the twentieth century, coupled with the sport's popularity in both countries, produced numerous interactions involving baseball. With its warmer climate, Cuba became a popular winter destination for American professional players looking to keep their skills sharp during the off-season. Such notable American big leaguers as Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, and Christy Mathewson played in Cuba at one time. Furthermore, a few American teams were regular visitors to the island. The Brooklyn Dodgers played several exhibition games in Havana in 1900 against the New York Giants and a Cuban all-star team. The Giants returned for an exhibition tour in 1920. The Dodgers also held their spring training camp in Cuba in 1941 and 1942. They returned again in 1947 as a strategy to allow Jackie Robinson, on the verge of breaking baseball's color barrier, to escape distractions while preparing for the season.2 The high tide of the U.S.-Cuba baseball exchange prior to 1959 was the Havana Sugar Kings. Based in Havana, the Sugar Kings developed from the Havana Cubans ball club, which had been a part of the Class B Florida International League since 1946. In 1954, the Sugar Kings joined the International League as the Class AAA affiliate of the Cincinnati Reds. The club's greatest success...