Visits to each country are part of a goodwill partnership
Players from Cuba and the United States played a game at the University of Hartford Monday, as part of the second leg of a partnership that's meant to introduce the culture to each other.
The group paying for parts of the trips is Teen Cultures Connect. The group took 70 people including baseball players for a trip to Holguin, Cuba last April, where the teams played for the first time.
Colleen Brennan was in CubaI in April and attended this first of four games. "It was really cool to hear the Cuban national anthem, Canadian national anthem and American played all together, it brought me to tears."
President Barack Obama announced last year that the United States would normalize diplomatic relations with Cuba, a country which the United States hadn't dealt with for decades.
The coaches of the teams see a future where trips like this become routine.
Rick Sanford is one of the Team USA coaches. “We know this is going to continue, so our expectation now is to bring the next group down to Cuba and to have the next generation, then next younger group of guys from Cuba come up to the US and it’s going to snowball into a big event.”
Julio Fernandez, one of Cuba's coaches, said the trip has been memorable. The team took in a Boston Red Sox game, which he said was better than in their dreams.
Local
“This is amazing, man."
