Cuba Libre

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I've always had a fascination with Cuba and Cuban baseball.  As longtime listeners know all to well (and to their annoyance probably) I've always felt the one way we could help breakdown the political barriers that separate us from the Castro regime would be to whip a little big league baseball on them.  On the surface very simplistic, if not stupid but, given the time and the power ,I'm comfortable with the notion having great success.

The story of Aroldis Chapman, the flame throwing lefty, who failed at defection by boat, was recently successful on a Cuban team trip to Amsterdam.  Someone failed to take his passport and he was "in the wind".

Chapman came out of the cold in an unusual place...Andorra.  Ah, Andorra...nestled in the Pyrenees mountains between Espana and France.   Why Andorra?  Something to do with tax shelters.  Pretty sharp for a former Communist.  Anyway, I'm excited for the young man from  the baseball perspective.  But there was one note in a piece by Jorge Ortiz of The USA Today that bothered me.  Chapman left behind a daughter.

Thank God I've never been in the shoes of someone who is truly oppressed.  I don't know what I would do.  I'm certainly not judging Chapman's decision. But as I have followed this story...the story af a ballplayer escaping the clutches of communism to ply his talents, perhaps, as a big league player...I have truly been excited for the guy.  Now it makes me a little sad.

Even if my idea of MLB in Cuba is a pipe dream...it's the kind of dream that would put a little girl back in the arms of her Daddy...the star pitcher of the Havana Sugar Kings of the National League's Eastern division.