Today’s Impromptus is a typical potpourri, going from guns to Boko Haram to the Castros to Tiger Woods, and so on. I would like to publish a letter having to do with Cuba.

It comes from a retired high-school baseball coach who, some years ago, started a Christian ministry. The ministry is an unusual one: It collects sports equipment to be sent to missionaries, who then distribute it in their communities abroad. “God has allowed us to send equipment to over 40 countries, where it has gone to some of the poorest kids.” Our letter-writer himself has made a number of trips.

Last summer, he and a few others went to Cuba, but they were unable to bring a baseball team, as they had planned to. The Cuban government disallowed it.

The reason was given to us by a pastor who acts as the liaison with the government. He explained that he usually deals with the Ministry of Sport, but this time it was security forces that questioned him about our group’s intentions. (He referred to them as the old Soviet KGB.) He said they were convinced that we wanted to build relationships with Cuban ballplayers and then arrange their defections.
I laughed when he told us this. I said the government’s fears were silly. With their huge budgets, why would major-league teams or sports agencies pick some overweight white guys who can’t speak Spanish to come recruit ballplayers? The pastor smiled and nodded, and then said, “When you aren’t legitimate, you see ghosts everywhere.”
Doesn’t that explain so much behavior by the Castro regime and others?

Our letter-writer adds, “We had a great trip, and I have incredible respect for the common Cuban trying to make a life and raise his family under the yoke of oppressive government. I certainly hope to go back in the future and do my small part.”