Communism is Bad for Baseball

I was watching the World Baseball Classic today. It was Japan vs Cuba. Japan being a capitalist country and Cuba being a communist country made for some interesting comparisons.

First off, Japans best players leave Japan to play in American and make millions upon millions of dollars. In my opinion Japan's 5 best players are not as good as good as Cuba's 5 best players. Ichiro Suzuki is probably the greatest player to come from Japan. He recently signed a deal that will pay him around 12 million per year until 2012.

Cuba's national team's (their best players) average salary is $550 a month. That comes out to be about $6,000. They also get other perks of course. They have the opportunity to purchase a car and a home. They also get to by other imports and such. Really?? It is a perk to buy a car in Cuba!!!

The rest of the Cuban players get about $250 a month. In Japan, the average salary is $500,000. That's the players that are not good enough to play in the US.

US teams bid millions of dollars to just negotiate with Japan's best players. In order to sign a Cuban player a US team has to wait for him to risk his life escaping his country. He must leave his family behind and take the largest source of income the family has with him. Then he has to hope a team will sign him.