Baseball above it in Cuba

While Fidel Castro’s decision to step down after nearly five decades atop the Cuban government has left the communist country’s political future in doubt, at least one crown jewel of the revolution -- baseball -- figures to be unaffected by the transfer in power.

“This announcement is a formality, is no surprise in Cuba, and should not affect baseball at all,” said Peter Bjarkman, a pro-revolution author who maintains a website devoted to baseball on the island. “What this will mean is an attempt to open the economy a bit but no other major changes.”

Under Castro, sports in general, and baseball in particular, have flourished. The national baseball team, long considered the best amateur team in the world, has won 10 consecutive Pan American Games titles, three of the four Olympic gold medals awarded in baseball and 18 World Cup championships.

And the government has used each of those victories to validate its communist ideology.

But despite its propaganda value, baseball isn’t something the new government has the luxury of worrying about right now, said Pedro Gonzalez, director of La Nacion Cubana, an independent Cuban American newspaper based in Miami.

“Cubans have three principal concerns today: breakfast, lunch and dinner,” he said. “Sports in general is something that . . . they don’t forget about it. But they have other needs.”

Cuba’s baseball program underwent its own change at the top five months ago when former national team manager Higinio Velez, a hard-line conservative, succeeded Carlos Rodriguez as commissioner. Rodriguez, whose 10-year reign ushered in several popular reforms, was pushed aside as part of a larger shake-up after the September defection of national team star Alexei Ramirez.

That also has put a damper on hopes some Major League Baseball officials had of reaching out to a post-Castro government in Cuba. Last spring, the New York Times reported MLB was working on a plan for signing Cuban players should they become available, but a baseball spokesman said Tuesday such thinking was “way premature.”

“We are not doing anything differently and are not prepared to discuss anything right now,” said spokesman Pat Courtney, who added that baseball is continuing to follow the lead of the U.S. State Department, which has forbid most business relations with Cuba since Castro came to power.

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kevin.baxter@latimes.com