US To Normalize Relations With Cuba

Liet doesn't give a fuck about the country and its laws.

Remember this is the same guy who said we should ignore the courts when they rule against something we don't like.

Liet is a goose-stepping butt boy. He just doesn't want to admit to it.

Excuse me sir those "cars" have been converted into boats, with varying degrees of success.

Definitely a good thing. The timing is odd though... I wonder if this is insurance in case relations with Russia get a lot worse due to their oil revenue problems.

What New US-Cuba Relations Look Like

Interesting question indeed. I suspect the Cuban leagues will end up with a similar circumstance to those in Mexico and the DR. Quasi-official minor league status, with most players not advancing to the Majors. As for the Rays or some other failed franchise moving there, I think Puerto Rico or Mexico are more likely destinations.

The OP article says tourist travel is still banned, but business and "educational activities" are on. I want to teach English in Havana!

Good move by the president. He gets one right this time

That makes some sense. In business, you take your chances and you roll your dice, and "educational activities," at least properly defined, are likely to help the normalization process, but allowing tourists before relations are normalized and an embassy established is problematic.

About damn time.

As a good faith move, the Cuban Federation should stop being asshats and let Ozzy play for the USMNT. He's not coming back to play for Cuba, he defected for a reason, is now a US Citizen and has a wife and family here. The only reason they keep him on their eligible list is to block him from playing in the US. Dicks.

Klinsmann:

[Alonso’s eligibility] is more like an administrative and governmental issue which we have no influence on it. I wish I could have brought him into January camp, and he knows that. Obviously, I’m in touch with Sigi and Adrian here all the time. He deserves a chance. He deserves a possibility, but it’s not in our hands, unfortunately. If Cuba is not giving a clearance, it’s not giving us a bit of help, FIFA is kind of strict in those matters.

[Alonso] has a role similar to Kyle Beckerman of Salt Lake. Those two guys as No. 6’s in the league have shown tremendous consistency and the highest quality … He would have been part of our January camp, but unfortunately, we can’t bring him in.

http://prosoccertalk.nbcsports.com/...team-jurgen-klinsmann-usmnt-seattle-sounders/

Thinking some more about this baseball question, as it matters quite a bit more than soccer, I guess not much changes in the short term. There's no indication that Cuban nationals will be free to emigrate. So it's back to leaky boats for the next Yasiel Puig.

Probably, but how they get there may be interesting to watch. We don't really know the level of play in the Cuban league, only that some very good MLB players have come out of there. Will Cuba try to retain its own league? Will there be something like the posting system we have between MLB and Japanese baseball put in place? If all the players suddenly become available to MLB teams, will they be free agents, will there be a special draft, or will the Cuban players be put into the regular draft?

I'd think Havana is more likely than either Puerto Rico or Mexico if the Cuban league gets relegated to minor league status. I'd expect the local population is much more into baseball and likely to support a team to the extent they can, but who really knows if they can or will? Perhaps by the time things are normalized enough for a team to settle in Havana baseball won't be quite as popular there.

The current rule is that any Cuban who is at least 23 with five or more years in a professional Cuban league is considered a free agent. I would think something similar would continue. I doubt very much that a posting system would develop.

Perhaps as some sort of diplomatic initiative, we trade them an MLB team for an annual allotment of cigars and rum? Sending the Rays might set relations back to 1961 levels of antipathy. I think an expansion team would work better, or perhaps the Rockies.

It's about time! Ever since he went "full retard" he's struggling to get back on track.
He's not that bad compared to Pauly Shore or Adam Sandler. Enough is enough!

That rule is in consideration of having one eligible Cuban appear at a time every couple of years on average, with no possibility of his Cuban team retaining him. If Cuba wants to retain its own independent league at a high level of play then something like the posting system will be necessary. If the Cuban league becomes an independent minor league you'll still need to deal with perhaps a dozen or more MLB caliber players hitting the market at once (perhaps not, of course), while if the Cuban league associates with MLB or gets folded into existing minor leagues associated with MLB then you need a way to distribute hundreds of players at a time.

Should be interesting to watch. I'm still not completely clear on how the Mexican League fits. I know it's officially recognized as AAA, but there are no affiliation agreements, and I've never been able to find information on how players move up from there. I envision something similar, though -- formal classification (AA, AAA?) -- but without a formalized path for players.

Nice to see that the New York Times is already speculating in detail about moving the Rays to Havana and about how this affects MLB and Cuban baseball more generally! They clearly had this article in the pocket for if-and-when this news broke, which raises the issue: did they know about the negotiations of the last year plus, or did they just have a an article on hand for years that they updated every so often?

Normal relations restored with Cuba?

Was he having abnormal relations?

Of course they did.

Oh, I agree that's almost certainly the case, and it's probably the conclusion I'd have arrived at eventually anyway, but it's just not something I was thinking about until I saw the article. It very much reads to me like an obituary for a former President, something that clearly was always on hand and just had to be touched up for publication. It amuses me to see such an article about a relatively trivial matter.

Baseball is anything but trivial.

I personally doubt anything meaningful will change as our reactionary theistic controlled Congress won't pass any meaningful reform.

Because that has worked so well in China?

Incrementally.

Sort of like the sign saying UNAUTHORIZED TRESSPASSING PROHIBITED.
Is there authorized tresspassing?

What garamet said. More people are seeing a better quality of life and despite the censorship measures still in place, there's still a lot more freedom than there was forty years ago.

Things don't change overnight. After all, it took a whole century after slavery for blacks (and other minorities by extention ) to get equal rights.

In what country?

"We ARE the Cubans!"

I'm looking forward to some prime beaches and diving just a hop from Miami.

You can already set your watch by the stream of private craft leaving Miami heading east towards the Bahamas on Friday afternoons. I wonder if some will be headed south now.

Not for a while.

However once the island opens up to tourism form the US you will see it.

They've already got a tourism industry in Cuba from all the Canadians (their number one destination in the Caribbean) and Europeans. Adding American cruise ships and tourists would be a snap.