After over a half decade of tension and enmity, the United States and Cuba celebrated their mutual pastime of baseball in an exhibition game between the Tampa Bay Rays and the Cuban National Team. The Rays won the game 4-1 behind a three-RBI performance from first baseman James Loney, but what happened on the field was only a minor storyline.
In what would have been an almost unimaginable twist of fate just a couple of years ago, U.S. President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro attended the game together and sat side-by-side.
President Obama acknowledged baseball's ability to be a platform for social and political progress, saying, "It can change attitudes sometimes in ways that a politician can never change, that a speech can’t change."
The president also drew a parallel to when Jackie Robinson broke the MLB's color barrier in 1947: "All of those kids who started growing up watching the Brooklyn Dodgers, suddenly they’re rooting for a black man on the field and how that affects their attitudes laying the groundwork for the civil rights movement that’s a legacy that all of us have benefited from, black and white and Latino and Asian."
The game also marked a homecoming for Rays' minor league outfielder Dayron Varona. Varona has not seen his family since he defected from Cuba, but was reunited with them because of this "goodwill" game.
In an interview with ESPNDeportes.com, Varona said, "When I left Cuba, I never thought I’d be able to go back in such a short time and not only go back, but play baseball in Cuba again."