Baseball Diplomacy Act would eliminate the current requirement that Cubans give up their Cuban citizenship to play US pro baseball
What should happen if a Cuban citizen wants to become a Yankee, in both senses of the word?
Context
Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN9) traces his love of baseball and Cuban baseball players to a single moment in 1955. That year, a 5-year-old Cohen was stricken with polio, a disease subsequently eradicated in the U.S. in 1979 due to widespread vaccination but which killed and paralyzed thousands of Americans annually until then. Using crutches, Cohen attended a Chicago White Sox exhibition game in Tennessee and pitcher Tom Poholsky handed him what appeared to be his baseball.
Except the ball wasn’t really from Poholsky but rather All-Star leftfielder Minnie Miñoso, who was banned under Tennessee’s racist Jim Crow laws from handing the ball to the white Cohen directly.
Fast forward 66 years and Cohen is now a member of the House, proposing a new bill dealing with Cuban baseball players.
The status quo has long required Cuban baseball players to renounce their Cuban citizenship when they come to the U.S. to play professionally. Under a temporary three-year deal brokered between Major League Baseball and the Baseball Federation of Cuba, that provision would have been waived through October 2021.
But the Trump administration declared the deal illegal, saying a provision requiring American baseball teams to pay 25 percent of a Cuban player’s signing bonus to the Baseball Federation of Cuba ran afoul of U.S. sanctions on the country. The issue was whether the federation was considered an official part of the Cuban government. Major League Baseball argued it wasn’t, but the Trump administration determined that it was.
What the bill does
The Baseball Diplomacy Act would allow Cuban players to maintain their Cuban citizenship when they come to the U.S. to play the sport professionally. It would make the MLB-Cuba deal brokered in 2018 legal once again.
It was introduced in the House on January 5 as bill number H.R. 198, by Rep. Cohen.
What supporters say
Supporters argue that the legislation would help both Cuban players and American sports fans alike.
“Currently, the best Cuban players have to renounce their citizenship and abandon their families back home to play in our major leagues,” Rep. Cohen said in a press release. “That’s bad for them, bad for the fans and bad for the game. [The bill] would eliminate these unnecessary barriers and let the best ball players compete, improving U.S.-Cuban relations and transforming lives and livelihoods.”
What opponents say
Opponents counter that the MLB’s proposed deal — and by implication this bill which would render it legal — would constitute illegal payments to a country that the Trump administration added to its list of state sponsors of terrorism in its final days of office.
“The U.S. does not support actions that would institutionalize a system by which a Cuban government entity garnishes the wages of hard-working athletes who simply seek to live and compete in a free society,” National Security Council spokesman Garrett Marquis said. “The administration looks forward to working with MLB to identify ways for Cuban players to have the individual freedom to benefit from their talents, and not as property of the Cuban state.”
Odds of passage
The bill has not yet attracted any cosponsors. It awaits a potential vote in either the House Foreign Affairs or Judiciary Committee.
It’s also possible that President-elect Joe Biden’s administration could reverse the Trump administration’s decision on its own, nullifying the need for congressional legislation to do so.
This article was written by GovTrack Insider staff writer Jesse Rifkin.
Like our analyses? Want more? Support our work!
