Author name: moderat ereport

 Caribbean Matters is a weekly series from Daily Kos. Hope you’ll join us here every Saturday. If you are unfamiliar with the region, check out Caribbean Matters: Getting to know the countries of the Caribbean. While most of us who write and read here at Daily Kos are intensely focused on politics, according to polling data sports are still number one in terms of interest to the public. Interest in politics ranks lower, but sports and politics are intertwined and even more so in the age of President Donald Trump.  BBC sports editor Dan Roan raised the question of Trump’s impact on sports back in 2024 pointing out: Trump has promised the mass deportation of undocumented migrants, and to complete the building of a wall along the country’s southern border that was started during his first presidency. Such policies are set to heighten diplomatic tensions with Mexico, a fellow co-host of the 2026 World Cup (alongside Canada) and could lead to concerns among fans about travelling between the two countries. But Mexico isn’t the only concern. Cuba has been added to countries with visa restrictions for entering the U.S. which complicated things for the Cuban women’s volleyball team this month: The Cuban women’s national volleyball team was denied a chance to play in a tournament in Puerto Rico following the new visa restrictions imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump. The Cuban Volleyball Federation said last week that the team, comprising 12 athletes, a referee and several coaches, had their visa request denied and will be unable to attend the tournament later this month. […] Cuba was scheduled to play in the NORCECA Women’s Final Four tournament in Manatí, Puerto Rico. The tournament includes Puerto Rico, Mexico and Costa Rica and it awards ranking points toward qualification for the Volleyball Nations League. “We were focused on the competition because it’s right there,” said Dayana Martínez, another player. “Arriving at the embassy and being denied the visa affects us a lot because that competition gives us points to improve our ranking,” The story got me thinking about sports, international competitions, Caribbean competitors in the age of Trump, and ICE, and my thoughts turned to baseball. Though baseball is the United States’ second-favorite national sport these days after football, it is still the pastime that has the largest number of players from the Caribbean and Latin America.  There was a lot of attention in the mainstream media, like this NBC report, after the Los Angeles Dodgers’ response to ICE when agents showed up seeking access to the parking lot on June 19: YouTube Video Sports business writer Adam Minter, however, wrote a critique for Bloomberg about the response, or lack thereof, of Major League Baseball leadership. After all, not only are many baseball players from other countries, but Latinos are big fans of the sport. And up until the incident at Dodger Stadium, MLB had remained silent on the Trump administration’s immigration sweeps:  But the morning agents came, the Dodgers finally acted. The team denied them access to the parking lot and a day later announced a $1 million pledge to help immigrant families harmed by the ongoing raids. That’s a modest show of support for an organization worth an estimated $7.7 billion, and it hasn’t satisfied everyone. But satisfactory or not, it’s a clear indication of whose side the Dodgers are taking. […] In 2025, nearly 28% of MLB players are foreign-born, and it’s simply impossible to imagine baseball without stars such as Shohei Ohtani and Juan Soto. Those international stars, in turn, are leading a surge of interest in the game and the business of baseball. MLB is on track for its third straight year of attendance growth, and viewership in the US and Japan is surging in 2025. Of course, other factors are in play too, but does anyone seriously think a less international game would be as well-played, entertaining, and lucrative? Trump’s immigration policies put that success at risk. For example, under the terms of his recently enacted travel ban, the issuance of new visas to Cuban and Venezuelan nationals is severely restricted. Dozens of players from both countries — Hall of Famers like Tony Pérez and current players like Jose Altuve — have made prominent contributions to MLB for decades. The new policies will make it far more difficult for teams to bring new signees from either country to the US. But even if loopholes are found, the message to players and their families in these baseball hotbeds is hardly welcoming. So far, MLB has chosen to remain silent on these changes, just as it has clammed up over the deportations that are running through its Latino fanbase. Perhaps the league and its teams believe that quiet diplomacy is the best way to approach the Trump administration on immigration-related matters. But if so, there’s little public indication that doing so has achieved anything other than damaging relations between the Dodgers and their fans. Craig Calcaterra who writes a daily baseball newsletter, posted this to Bluesky: Every week there’s another sign that MLB is, eventually, going to have to stop pretending that it lives in a fantasyland world.  www.cupofcoffeenews.com/cup-of-coffe… [image or embed] — Craig Calcaterra (@craigcalcaterra.bsky.social) July 7, 2025 at 11:54 AM Baseball sports writer Michael Clair’s post to MLB.com with some numbers on internationally born players last season: The point is simple: Baseball is a global sport, and that’s reflected on every roster and at every ballpark. This year, a total of 264 players — nearly 28 percent of the league — representing 19 different countries and territories outside the United States were featured on 2024 Opening Day rosters, injured and inactive lists. That number is the fourth-most all-time on Opening Day rosters, trailing behind 2020 (291 players) which was played with expanded 30-man rosters; 2022 (275), which featured 28-man rosters; and is just a slight dip from last year when 270 international ballplayers made it onto Opening Day rosters. The league has been tracking this information since