A Little League team from Vermont and New Hampshire will play baseball on the Caribbean island this summer.

RUTLAND, Vt. June 2, 2008, - In a rare occurrence since the U.S. embargo of Cuba, a Little League team from Vermont and New Hampshire will play baseball in the Caribbean island this summer. The 14 members of the Connecticut Valley South Little League All-Star team plan to play at least a dozen games in the Havana area during a 10-day trip in August, said coach Ted Levin of Thetford. .It took 20 months to obtain a travel license from the U.S. Treasury Department after the team's application was turned down numerous times., Levin said and added, . The trip is not sanctioned by the Little League International headquarters based in Williamsport, Pa.. The only similar trip by youth players was in 2000 by a California team, the Lost Coast Pirates, Little Leaguers from Southern Humboldt County, since the United States imposed restrictions on travel to Cuba nearly 50 years ago, said John Carey, a coach and Dartmouth College professor who is a Latin American expert. On a side note, in September 2003, two high school football teams from San Diego traveled to Cuba to play the first organized game of American football there since 1958. Bonita Vista beat La Jolla 31-22 in the game, played in Havana. Levin credited Vermont's congressional delegation, Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie, and Florida businessman John Parke Wright IV, who had organized the sale of Vermont cattle to Cuba, for helping to get the travel license. "I believe it will lead to a better and more secure world and I believe it's through grass-roots connections of people-to-people and baseball teams playing one another that we expand our understanding," Dubie said. Calling themselves the Twin-State Peregrines, the team is starting to raise the $45,000 needed for the 10-day trip. Levin expects them to learn much more than baseball. "They're not only going to learn some great baseball and have fun playing baseball but I'm a naturalist so they're going to hear a lot about Antilles evolution and bird life there," said Levin ."And John (Carey) is a Latin American scholar so they'll hear about the colonization of Cuba by the Spanish and America's relation to Cuba through the years."

Union Tribune and Boston Herald Newspapers News posted on 6/9/2008 2:23:52 PM

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