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St. Louis Cardinals’ Nolan Arenado takes batting practice Thursday, Oct. 6, 2022, in St. Louis. The Cardinals and Philadelphia Phillies were preparing to play Game 1 of a National League Wild Card baseball playoff series on Fri Oct 7, 2022 in St. Louis. Arenado will be playing for Team USA for the 2023 World Baseball Classic (AP News file photo)

Almost On the Road to Phoenix

March 8, 2023

By Lewis Rubman

OAKLAND–Major League Baseball should be congratulated on its honesty in admitting that “[c]ommercial, geographic and geopolitical considerations may … be applied to [the] process” of assigning teams to the four pools of the round one round robin. No one will be shocked to learn that MLB applies commercial criteria in its decision making.

Still, it’s nice to see that monopoly admitting that it isn’t a philanthropy, even if that admission comes wrapped in a fig leaf of “competitive balance.” It certainly is a change from the sanctimonious declarations that we hear about keeping politics out of baseball.

The declared main factor in the assignment of teams to and seeding within pools is the rankings of the World Baseball Softball Confederation, which describes itself as “the international governing body for baseball and softball.” This raises a few questions.

That’s not because the WBSC’s decisions are unfair but because it’s not always clear what constitutes a country or, for that matter, a t possession, a territory or a Territory. (It would be an excessive digression to go into the details of that distinction, but, believe me, it’s real, and it’s important).

Wars have been fought–are being fought this very instant–over the status of a particular piece of land. Think of Ukraine or the middle east. There are separatist movements that haven’t reached that advanced a stage of conflict Catalonia and Puerto Rico are just a few of the places that come to mind.

That last observation is particularly relevant to the question of membership in and ranking by the WBSC. Puerto Rico is considered a separate country for purposes of the World Baseball Classic and the Caribbean Series. It isn’t an integral part of the United States, but it’s not an independent country.

There is no such thing as Puerto Rican citizenship, and although Puerto Ricans are American citizens, they cannot, while residing on island, vote in federal elections for any position other than their non-voting representative before Congress.

The federal appeals court that hears insular cases is located in Boston, and this Caribbean island’s zip code is grouped with New England’s. Puerto Rico doesn’t control its own immigration laws, so Cubans, for example, can move from their country of birth to Puerto Rico and become naturalized as US citizens and vote in Puerto Rico or move to the mainland and vote in federal and local elections there.

There is considerable debate about whether Puerto Rico is US territory or a US Territory, with a capital T. In any case, the federal government claims full sovereignty of the island (actually, islands, but no one calls it that) subject to the terms of the compact between the two entities. In Puerto Rico, that compact is called in the constitution; on the mainland, it’s just a federal law. Puerto Rico is a member of both the WBSC and the Caribbean Baseball Confederation.

The Netherlands Antilles, of which Curaçao and Aruba had been members, was dissolved in 2010, and the islands became separate constituent counties under the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Both islands are represented in the WBSC, but neither belongs to the Confederation of Caribbean Professional Baseball.

Nonetheless, Curaçao, like Cuba, participated as a guest in this year’s Caribbean Series. Kenley Jansen, Xavier Bogaerts, and Jurickson Profar, and are among the Curaçao and Aruba born MLBers playing for the Netherlands.

To participate in The World Baseball Classic, a player must

• Have been on final roster at the start of a previous qualifier or tournament round or; • Be a citizen or permanent legal resident of the team’s country or territory or; • Have been born in the team’s country or territory or; • Be the child of someone born in the country or territory in question or a citizen of it or; • Would be granted citizenship or a passport if he applied for it and was not required to renounce his current citizenship.

Under these rules, Nolan Arenado. who was born in California but grew up in Cuba until he was six and who has a Queens-born Puerto Rican mother and native-born Cuban father, could play for Cuba, Puerto Rico, or the USA. He chose Team USA in 2017, after giving serious consideration to playing for Puerto Rico, and will be on the roster for the States this year as well.

Team Israel, playing in Group D, provides another interesting case. Jews who immigrate to that country automatically become Israeli citizens, as do their children and grandchildren and the spouses of their children and grandchildren.

In Asia, baseball has its own two China policy. Baseball is a popular sport on Taiwan, but it isn’t among MLB’s top ten teams, although they qualify for this round as a host country. The People’s Republic is no baseball powerhouse, but is participating in first round games in Tokyo. Is this the result of a geopolitcal consideration?

Lewis Rubman is a Major League Baseball beat writer for http://www.sportsradioservice.com