This week Major League Baseball re-applied for a license that would allow the Cuban team to participate in the World Baseball Classic. As we reported in July, this world cup of baseball will host teams from 16 countries, Cuba among them if the U.S. government allows the Cubans to cross the blockade.

It looks like the Cubans will get no closer than 90 miles to the U.S., so no cigar. Last week the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control denied a permit for what it characterized as a “transaction.” Because Cuba’s team would receive money for the match, allowing it to play would violate the U.S. embargo on Cuba. Both the Cuban government and baseball commissioner Bud Selig refused comment, but the IOC representative said that this decision could shut the U.S. out of hosting the Olympic Games.

Today the New York Times reported that Lincoln Diaz-Balart, a South Florida Republican congressman who had “implored the Treasury Department to deny a license for Cuba, is trying to help assemble a team of Cuban players who are currently in the United States to represent the country.”

While this Vichy team might represent pre-Castro Cuba, we are certain that it would not satisfy the IOC’s interest in having this Communist nation participate in the MLB Classic — nor would it pit the country’s excellent ballplayers against the U.S. team. Sports fans everywhere can only hope that the U.S. Treasury Department comes to its senses — and we will hold our tongues on the obvious comments that might follow that statement. Then again, 90% of the world’s population won’t give a second thought to the MLB World Baseball Classic as they all look ahead to the actual World Cup this June.