When the Orioles traveled to Havana in 1999 to play a goodwill game against a team of Cuban All-Stars, it had been nearly 40 years since a major league team had set foot in the tiny island nation.
Little did anyone suspect at the time that it would be another 17 years before another big league team would do the same, but the Tampa Bay Rays will arrive in Cuba this week to play the Cuban national team against a much different geopolitical backdrop.
Relations between the United States and Cuba have eased to the point that President Barack Obama on Sunday will become the first sitting American president to walk on Cuban soil since Calvin Coolidge visited the country in 1928.