Starting in the year 1868 baseball began to change in Cuba due to the outside influence of Spain. Prior to 1868 in Cuba, baseball was seen as a bonding activity, instead of professional players making millions, amateurs playing represented a neighborhood, or a local workers union. Nowadays baseball functions as an icon of nationalism within the country for Castro’s government and prosperity on a global scale for Cuba as a result of their worldwide achievements within the baseball community. After the first Cuban War of Independence, Spain banned baseball in order to promote Spain’s national pastime of bullfighting. Baseball became a symbol of freedom for the revolutionaries in Cuba. Towards the end of the revolution baseball had transformed