Despite the politics of the last decades, baseball clearly played a very crucial role in shaping up and strengthening the common bonds between the US and Cuba separated by only 90 miles. The recently announced restoration of diplomatic relations between the two countries marks the start of a new era for the two peoples. 

Down a dirt road in a back corner of a vast Tehran sports complex, several dozen young men recently took part in tryouts for Iran’s national baseball team.  These ballplayers, some of them fasting for the holy month of Ramadan in the scorching July heat, are part of a small but growing number of Iranians taking up America’s pastime despite long odds.

The Worcester Bravehearts, the city's Futures Collegiate Baseball League team, will host the Taiwan national team later this month, but it's more than just a game. It's also about building educational and economic relationships with the country formally known as Chinese Taipei. 

"I've got a near-torn Achilles," Henry Kissinger said outside the door of his apartment building. "Like Kobe Bryant," said Samantha Power, the United States ambassador to the United Nations, as she helped him into the van. "Who?" he asked as he settled into the seat for the ride to Yankee Stadium.

Despite Cuba’s track record of culling baseball talent, players on the island still make about as much money as an average construction worker. So it’s not surprising that one of their best players, 26-year-old center fielder Rusney Castillo, has defected from his home country in the hopes of signing with a Major League team in the U.S. This comes just months after Cuba’s recent change in policy allowing its players to sign with foreign leagues. But with the U.S.

Balls and strikes, not politics, ruled the day Wednesday at a baseball diamond in Havana, as last year’s college championship team from the University of Tampa played an exhibition game against a Cuban youth squad. The visitors scraped out a hard-fought 2-1 win, but the encounter was more about bridging the vast gulf between these neighboring nations that disagree on just about everything except their shared love of the game.