Imrem: Baseball game with Cuba a positive step

Riddle: When is a baseball game more than a baseball game?

No, not if the Cubs ever play in the World Series, as cosmic as that would be.

Answer: When the Tampa Bay Rays played Cuba's national team Tuesday in Havana.

I understand this was controversial and why some Cuban exiles are uncomfortable with U.S. President Barack Obama socializing in the box seats with Cuba President Raul Castro.

The Cuban people are a long way from fully having human rights and anything resembling democracy, but maybe this was the smallest first step toward those ends.

I almost always prefer engagement to estrangement in international politics.

Of course that's a bit naive of me. It's difficult to engage brutal dictatorships in anything but combat.

But combat stinks. Conflict stinks, too. Full-blown war really stinks.

Better we get together and play baseball, don't you think? Let's complement "make love, not war" with "more sports, less conflict."

I'm old enough to remember when Fidel Castro's overthrew the oppressive Batista regime in Cuba IN 1959.

Cubans were supposed to be liberated. Instead they became imprisoned in communism.

What did I know about Cuba back then as I entered my teen years?

Well, for one, White Sox outfielder Minnie Minoso was Cuban and one of my favorite players.

Maybe this is just my mind playing games with me, so to speak, but I also seem to recall watching telecasts of games from Cuba on Saturday nights.

Then there were the Havana Sugar Kings, a farm team of the Cincinnati Reds in the International League.

You might sense a theme … as a kid I was into baseball, baseball and more baseball.

I certainly knew more and cared more about baseball than about the Cuban missile crisis, Bay of Pigs or any other acrimony between the U.S. and Cuba.

Five decades later, engagement on a baseball field slightly and symbolically chipped away at the friction.

The Rays scored the game's first run, and our president accepted a handshake from their president.

American presidents have to be able to multi-task, like attending a baseball game while mourning and monitoring a terror attack in Belgium.

Obama will be criticized for being at a sports event when the world was on fire.

The president addressed the issue by saying we can't allow terrorists to make us afraid to go about our lives and our business.

Baseball's pace allows for conversation, so maybe the two presidents debated whether Cuban boxer Teofilo Stevenson would have whipped Muhammad Ali when they were considered the world's best heavyweights in the 1970s.

I tend to think if other people spend time around us, they'll like us and understand us and appreciate our values.

If only we could get ISIS to play ball with us instead of waging war against us.

There were more handshakes, this time between Obama and Cuban fans when he left in the third inning.

What a novel concept, trying to bridge gaps with friendly gestures instead of harsh rhetoric. After the Rays won, players from the teams exchanged jerseys and niceties.

Hopefully, diplomacy will lead to the Cuban people gradually elevated into freedom and the U.S. having a new ally in the hemisphere.

Another riddle: Any regrets over this baseball game in Cuba?

Answer: Yes … it's a shame that Minnie Minoso wasn't still alive to witness it.

mimrem@dailyherald.com