Questions Abound In Lead-Up To First World Baseball Classic

With an appeal to the U.S. Treasury Department concerning Cuba’s participation in the World Baseball Classic still undecided, THE DAILY offers a roundup of comments and opinions about the inaugural tournament, which is set to begin in just over seven weeks.

President Bush To Get Call From MLB’s Selig Soon?

LOOKING FOR THE W: In N.Y., George Vecsey wrote Cuba’s absence “would damage the tournament, perhaps irrevocably. ... Baseball needs a friend in a very high position.” President Bush, who once owned the Rangers, “knows the importance of Cuba in world baseball. A few words from the president — in the back channels, if necessary — could end this rude stalemate” (N.Y. TIMES, 1/8). When asked yesterday if he has contacted Bush concerning Cuba’s participation, MLB Commissioner Bud Selig said, “Not yet” (SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE, 1/11).

SHOULD CUBA PLAY? In an Op/Ed in today’s N.Y. TIMES, Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria, a professor of Hispanic and comparative literature at Yale who wrote a book on Cuban baseball, writes the arguments for Cuba’s participation “range from the puerile to the perverse. ... Are people so eager for a good baseball game that we are willing to overlook 47 years of totalitarian oppression?” (N.Y. TIMES, 1/11). ESPN The Magazine’s Dan Le Batard writes, “Communist China is in this baseball tournament too. Here’s the difference: an embargo exists against Cuba.” Cuban dictator Fidel Castro “loves his baseball team as he does little else, and he uses it as a political tool to symbolize his remaining strength.” The U.S. government “isn’t about to allow him to profit, financially or ideologically, from an American tournament” (ESPN THE MAGAZINE, 1/2 issue).

EFFECT ON OLYMPIC BASEBALL: In San Diego, Tim Sullivan notes that with the IOC scheduled to vote next month on “whether to revisit baseball’s 2012 exclusion from the Summer Games, politics and protocol have attained top priority in the global baseball community.” USA Baseball Exec Dir Paul Seiler: “It’s all connected” (SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE, 1/11). IBAF President Aldo Notari: “We’re trying to keep baseball within the Olympics after the 2008 Games, and this decision by the Treasury Department of the [U.S.] does not help us at all” (BUFFALO NEWS, 1/9).

PITCH-OUT: Blue Jays GM J.P. Ricciardi said of playing the tournament during spring training, “I think the concept is good; I think the timing is bad. And [P] Roy Halladay won’t be going” (MLB.com, 1/7). Former Red Sox GM Theo Epstein added, “As someone who’s unaffiliated and unemployed, I would freak out if my starting pitcher cranked it up from nothing” (BOSTON GLOBE, 1/8). In Newark, Dan Graziano wrote MLB gave teams “the perfect way to discourage their players from playing” by allowing teams to file petitions asking to exempt their players. As a result, “it ended up hurting the legitimacy of its own tournament” (Newark STAR-LEDGER, 1/8).

MLBPA Pleading With Players Like Matsui To Participate

PLAYER APPEAL: In a separate piece, the STAR-LEDGER’s Graziano noted the MLBPA “has been making personal pleas” to enlist players such as Yankees LF Hideki Matsui, P Mariano Rivera, P Chien-Ming Wang and 3B Alex Rodriguez. Because teams’ insurance policies on player contracts do not cover the WBC, some clubs “have been seeking additional coverage in places where baseball has not pledged to help out fully” (STAR-LEDGER, 1/8). MLBPA COO Gene Orza, after Matsui said he would not play for his native Japan, said, “You only hope the player who says no has a full understanding of the tournament and the consequences of his nonparticipation.” A source cited by NEWSDAY’s Ken Davidoff said that by saying “consequence,” Orza “referred to the overall WBC suffering without the presence of star players” (NEWSDAY, 1/8).