"Cuba has to budge"

ByPAULA LAVIGNE
February 8, 2014, 12:30 PM

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ANTONIO "TONY" CASTRO is quick to point out that he is a man without a title. One of nine confirmed children of Fidel, the Cuban revolutionary and former president, he holds no official government office and treads lightly on the Castro name. A practicing orthopedic surgeon in Havana, Castro, 43, typically responds to political questions about his father by politely steering the conversation in a different direction -- usually to baseball. As a vice president of the International Baseball Federation, a position he has held since 2009, Castro has been a fierce and outspoken proponent of a distinctly antisocialist concept: Cuban players' right to play professionally, earning money both in Cuba and abroad. At home, he uses what clout he has to grease the wheels of a hard-line sports bureaucracy that oversees the Cuban national team, which is facing financial hardship, equipment shortages and a rising number of player defections. And there are signs that his voice is being heard. In the fall, the Council of Ministers, which is headed by Castro's uncle Raul, approved a new rule that allows Cuban baseball players to play in professional leagues outside Cuba and earn a salary. The move is widely seen as the start of Cuba's opening its doors to the rest of the world. Yet because of the U.S. economic embargo, the new rule does not yet fulfill Tony's dream of seeing Cubans in the major leagues without defecting. During a candid interview in September at the historic Hotel Nacional in Havana, Castro explained why he'll continue to push for closer ties with Major League Baseball.