On March 27th of this year Congressman Steve Cohen reintroduced The Baseball Diplomacy Act for the third consecutive Congress, the bill was also introduced in 117th, 118th and 119th Congress by the representatives from Tennessee without any success in getting it passed.
The bill states that it wants to eliminate barriers to Cuban athletes entering the U.S. on non-immigrant visas during the baseball season and then returning home when the season ends. The measure would allow players to retain their Cuban citizenship and return to Cuba with their earnings, rather than having to renounce their citizenship and abandon their families to play baseball in the United States.
What Mr. Cohen doesn’t know or conveniently omitted is that the US didn’t ban Cubans from returning to their homeland after deciding to defect, that was Cuba that banned their reentry to the country for seven years and labeled them traitors. The only US requirement to play in MLB is that they establish residency in a third country to satisfy an OFAC regulation as part of the US Embargo on the communist island. Another fallacy is that a Cuban loses their nationality if they defect.
As per the nation’s law all Cubans must reenter the country with a valid Cuban passport. No Cuban has ever been called to the carpet or denied reentry to the US after being allowed to return to Cuba by the regime. All roadblocks preventing the return of any national playing outside its territory have been done by the nation’s government. Yuli Gurriel is still not allowed to enter the island due to his defection during 2016 Serie del Caribe.
Congressman Cohen made the following statement about the bill:
“We all know that some of our greatest baseball players are from Cuba or learned the game there, including my childhood hero, Hall of Famer Minnie Minoso, ‘The Cuban Comet’ of the Chicago White Sox. Under current law, the best Cuban players have to renounce their citizenship and abandon their families back home to play for our major league teams. That’s bad for the players, bad for the fans and bad for baseball. The Baseball Diplomacy Act would eliminate these unnecessary barriers and let the best ball players compete, while improving U.S.-Cuban relations and transforming lives and livelihoods.”
Although Congressman Cohen’s intentions come from a good place, he’s either complacent with Cuban government or ignorant to what happens on the island to not only its players but to the citizens who live in Cuba. This act that has very little chance of making it to Donald Trump’s desk, due to the fact that Congress is Republican controlled and will also more than likely get vetoed by the US president as he did with the 2018 agreement between the MLB and FCB.
Cuba has never had any intention of letting its citizens play professionally since it closed it doors to that realm of competition in 1961. A drove of defections of the years caused the country to change its stance in 2013 by finally allowing players to sign in professional leagues, but only under the control of the country’s federation and with it acting as the player’s official representative in contract negotiations.
Why would Cuba want to reinsert itself in a league that it once called “slave baseball”? It only has one explanation if Cuba doesn’t change its ways it will lose all its players to the US. The country just recently allowed MLB players to join it World Baseball Classic team for the first time during the 2023 edition of the tournament bringing to light another one of Cuba’s lies, that MLB doesn’t allow its Cuban players to play with the country. Another thing that Congressman Cohen fails to see because he is not Cuban is how the island sees its players as propery and not human beings. Also on how the 2018 agreement was based on a lie that the FCB is independent from the island’s government and how this bill would lend a lifeline to one of two dictatorships still active in the western hemisphere.
Hurdles the Baseball Diplomacy Acts needs to clear to become legislation:
- Clear a House of Representatives Committee
- Pass the House
- Pass the Senate with 60 votes. (Republicans hold 53-45 majority)
- Be signed into law by President Donald Trump. (A veto is very possible)