As ping-pong diplomacy helped pave the way for a relationship with communist China, baseball may help ease the rapprochement between the United States and Cuba. The final score won’t matter in an exhibition game between the Tampa Bay Rays and the Cuban National Team.

What will matter is the symbolism of the United States and Cuba sharing their national pastimes with a Cuban defector playing for the American team—and other Cuban-born major league players being cheered as returning heroes in Havana.

President Barack Obama said in Tuesday’s speech he came to Havana “to bury the last remnants of the Cold War.”

56 years of enmity cannot be erased in a two-and-a-half day presidential visit. Or a nine-inning baseball game. But it is a start.