It was reported last month that the Red Sox and Orioles were interested in playing exhibition games in Cuba this spring. That’s not going to happen at this point, but in an interview with Brian Costa of the Wall Street Journal, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred expressed optimism that there will be a spring training game in Cuba in 2016.
With the two countries looking to normalize relations, Manfred said he’s encouraged by the feedback he has received from U.S. government officials.
No MLB team has played in Cuba since the Orioles played against the Cuban national team on March 28, 1999.
As Manfred says in the interview, it makes all sorts of sense for MLB to try to have an expanded presence in Cuba, as some of the game’s top talents have come from there in recent years. It’s worth noting that many of those players had to put their lives in the hands of smugglers in order to get into the United States. Hopefully those days are over for good. Manfred believes there will be an effort to “regularize the flow of baseball talent,” though he isn’t quite sure how the process will work yet.
