MLB hopes to move ahead with Cuba exhibition next spring

NEW YORK (AP) Major League Baseball hopes to move ahead with plans for an exhibition game in Cuba next year

President Barack Obama announced in December his intention to restore diplomatic ties between the United States and Cuba.

U.S. teams played spring training games in Cuba before Fidel Castro's revolution, but none appeared there from March 1959 until the Baltimore Orioles played Cuba's national team in Havana in March 1999. MLB has not returned since.

''I'd like to say that we would do something in Cuba in the spring,'' baseball commissioner Rob Manfred said Thursday. ''I still remain optimistic about that.''