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.

The partnership between UT and the US Department of State to engage women and girls from around the world through sports was named one of the nation’s ten best public diplomacy efforts of 2013. The Public Diplomacy Council ranked the US Department of State and espnW Global Sports Mentoring Program—the flagship component of the Empowering Women and Girls through Sports initiative—as the ninth best diplomatic accomplishment in 2013.

Anita L. DeFrantz has her bags packed for the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia — but heck, she's had her bags packed for athletic events around the world for the last 40 years, as a competitor and as a member of the International Olympic Committee (currently on the executive board) and the U.S. Olympic Committee (board member).

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.