Why isn’t the United States playing in the 2024 Caribbean Series?

From its inception in 1949, the Caribbean Series has featured the best professional teams that the diaspora has had to offer, in a tournament that has showcased consistently why many MLB team rosters today are laden with players from these countries. Yet, one team that doesn’t participate despite its geographical proximity is the United States and there is a good reason why.

What is the Caribbean Series?

In simple form, the Caribbean Series is an annual club tournament that is contested by professional baseball teams in Latin America. Traditionally played in February following the close of the various winter leagues, it has been staged since 1949 when it was created by Venezuelan baseball entrepreneur Pablo Morales and Oscar Prieto Ortiz. Morales, who had previously been the president of the International Baseball Federation went with Prieto to present the idea to representatives of Cuba, Panama, and Puerto Rico and so the tournament was born.

Of course, a great deal happened between those days and the present, including the dissolution of all professional baseball by Fidel Castro in 1961 which led to a lengthy hiatus. Yet, in 1970 the tournament returned with more teams to boot such as the Dominican Republic and Mexico. Cuba made a return in 2014 and except for 2020 when the team couldn’t participate due to visa issues, has been there ever since. Today, the Caribbean Professional Baseball Confederation - the governing body responsible for the tournament - consists of seven key members: Curacao, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Puerto Rico, and Venezuela.

So, what about the United States? Why don’t they play?

If it wasn’t already clear, Morales and Prieto - two Venezuelans - had the idea to create a tournament that would feature professional teams from Latin countries located in the Caribbean. As such, by the very nature of its conceptualization, teams from the United States were never even a consideration. That statute remains to this day such that no team from the U.S.A. has ever been invited to play in the comPetition.

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