Major League Baseball just missed a great opportunity to seed new markets, build its brand and address growing anti-Asian sentiment in the United States. Instead of moving its all-star game from Georgia to Colorado, it should have taken this summer’s game farther afield to a surprising new venue: Taiwan. READ MORE
Cricket or baseball? Can these two bat-and-ball sports, and the nations that support them, find a common language and work toward common goals — not just in sport, but in loose alliance? Four countries that are big into cricket and baseball are also working together trying to keep the world safe for democracy.
India and Australia are cricket nations. Japan and the United States are all about baseball. Together, the four nations are known as the “Quad” — “Quadrilateral Strategic Dialogue” — and they are invested in securing the Indo-Pacific region. That’s the vast swath of land and sea from the Pacific Ocean to the Indian Ocean.
At the same time that the 60-game Major League Baseball season is in playoffs, high-level Quad political representatives met face-to-masked-face in Tokyo. Their goal? Figure out how to play ball together and keep China from winning the game of global competition. READ MORE
Baseball is a colorful sport where bleacher bums spend entire games browbeating umps for making early-inning bad calls. President Trump has made a lot of bad calls during the past two years, but none is likely to incense the general public more than his decision to dump the Major League Baseball Cuban player agreement.
Well, maybe healthcare.
Unbelievably — and unceremoniously — Trump just struck out with both American and Cuban baseball fans. For Miami, it’s bad enough that the Marlins are dead last this early in the season. What’s worse is that POTUS just shut down the deal that would have brought a few more gifted, big-bat Cubans into the league. As Marlin Stadium habitués might put it: “Throw the bum out!” READ MORE