I'm sorry for this. I don't like to mix politics with baseball, but this Cuba thing is starting to drive me crazy. There still hasn't been any resolution to the fact that the Treasury Department has rejected Cuba's application to participate. The only true resolutions are being offered up by Cuba and Venezuela. This whole thing is already taking a hit in the press. And I'm starting to feel like I'm defending a losing cause in supporting this Baseball Classic thing and thinking that Cuba's denial was just a technicality.
First off, the sheer hypocrisy of denying Cuba and allowing other teams with similar governments and arguably worse conditions for their citizens drives me batty. Cuba's already volunteered to donate any revenue they make from the Classic to the Katrina victims. Isn't that enough? Doesn't the Treasury Department have better things to do? Like those new dollar coins. Shouldn't they be in high gear making sure those look shiny?
If it was only the Cuba thing, I might be OK with this, but the shoddy way the Classic is being put together hurts my brain. How many World Cup style tournaments are there? You got your soccer. You got rugby. Cricket? Does cricket have one? I assume they do. Not to mention the Olympics, both winter and summer, and a host of other deals.
Couldn't we have hired some people that run those events and asked them what we should do? Wouldn't one of them have mentioned that the Cuba thing might be a problem? Wouldn't they have experience in properly marketing this to get true sponsors and television coverage? How are we going about this alone?
I just recently watched the HBO documentary about the U.S. women's soccer team. American sponsors and American fans in general were late to the party for that particular World Cup as well. World Cup style play has an excellent track record internationally and it pains me that a lot of America doesn't seem to see this as being a potentially good thing.
Maybe all this crap politicizing and slipshod preparation shouldn't get to me so much. I suppose I should just enjoy whatever we get while it's in its infancy and spend my time drumming up the bandwagon, but still... They aren't exactly making it easy to do.
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