(ATR) There are hopes in Havana that Barack Obama will throw out the first pitch an exhibition game between the Tampa Bay Rays and the Cuban national team.
The March 22 game is the first to be played in Cuba by a Major League Baseball team since a visit by the Baltimore Orioles in 1999.
The game is another step in the transformation of relations between the U.S. and Cuba launched by Obama more than a year ago.
Even more of a milestone than the baseball game will be the visit of the President to Cuba at the same time, the first trip to Cuba by a US president in more than 80 years.
Tampa Bay originally had planned to come to Havana a week later for two exhibition games. When the White House announced the dates for the Obama visit, the baseball schedule was adjusted to coincide with the March 21-22 visit.
While Obama and his White House team will have an agenda of diplomatic issues to discuss with their Cuban counterparts, the president’s appearance at the exhibition game will likely be one of the most reported events from his visit. He is expected to be accompanied by Cuban President Raul Castro. His 90-year-old brother Fidel probably won’t be there and will watch instead on TV from his residence.
"Here everybody says that Obama will throw out the first pitch," one of the workers in charge of remodeling the Latinoamericano Stadium told Around the Rings this week .
Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred and other officials from the league will be attending.
Yesterday managers of Major League Baseball and the Cuban Baseball Federation simultaneously released a statement officially confirming the friendly game that could reopen spring training of American clubs on the island. The practice ended in 1961 when Fidel Castro abolished professional baseball.
There is talk in Cuba that the visit by Obama could open the way for Cuban baseball players to join MLB teams without needing to desert. In 2015 as many as 150 baseball players are reported to have left Cuba in various ways.
And while the Obama visit as well as the baseball game will garner a good share of attention in Havana that week, there’s more. The spotlight will continue to shine when the Rolling Stones play a free concert March 25, the first appearance for the band in Cuba.
Written by Ed Hula with reporting in Havana by Miguel Hernandez.
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