Organizers hope Tam High baseball, softball trip to Cuba will break through political divisions

For Tamalpais High School baseball and softball players, a road game typically means a jaunt to Novato or Napa. But in February, the teams hope to cross a continent, some 90 miles of ocean and decades of political divisions.

The field trip to Cuba would be the first for Tam High since the school sent a group of dancers, artists and musicians there in 2001, two years before President George W. Bush tightened restrictions on travel to the communist nation.

"It made it practically impossible for a high school group to go," Brian Zailian, a Tam High French teacher who organized the 2001 trip, said of the restrictions.

Zailian, who has organized numerous international field trips and exchange programs as director of a districtwide global studies program, said that when President Barack Obama eased Cuba travel restrictions in early 2011 his mind quickly turned to baseball.

"Both countries have a passion for baseball, and whether you have Castro or Bush in office ? both of whom loved baseball ? you can get two people in a game playing against each other, enjoying the sport together who might be on two sides of the spectrum politically."

The proposed field trip, which was approved unanimously by the Tamalpais Union High School District board Wednesday, would include three games each against Cuban opponents for the baseball and softball teams. The students would also visit museums, cultural sites and a sports magnet high

school in Havana, where the players would shadow Cuban students.

The trip depends on fundraising $3,250 per student and clearing numerous logistical and bureaucratic hurdles, but organizers are working with a company, Anthropologie Consulting LLC in Florida, that has approval from the U.S. Treasury Department, Zailia said.

Among the organizers is Aaron Pribble, a Tam High Social Studies teacher who once played baseball for Sir Francis Drake High School and later played professionally in France and Israel. Pribble said sports have been a vehicle for him to understand people of different cultures.

While the trip does not have political aims, Zailia and Pribble both said they see inspiration in the early 1970s' visit of an American ping-pong team to China, shortly before President Richard Nixon made a famous visit credited with opening relations between the two countries.

"To the extent that we are able to see each other as people instead of as labels, whether it is Chinese, Cuban, Christian, Muslim, Democrat, Republican, to the extent that we are able to break down those barriers and see each other as human beings, good things will come of it," Pribble said.

Contact Will Jason via email at wjason@marinij.com or via Twitter at http://twitter.com/willjason

Source: http://www.marinij.com/millvalley/ci_21538914/organizers-hope-tam-high-baseball-softball-trip-cuba?source=rss_emailed

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