Cuban pitcher Jose Contreras greets fans in the outfield at Camden Yards. (AFP)

By Michael E. Ruane and Scott Wilson
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, May 4, 1999; Page A9

BALTIMORE, May 4 (Tuesday) – Cuba's national baseball team played the Baltimore Orioles on Monday night in a historic game involving a sport that both countries claim as part of their culture and that organizers hoped might bridge a 40-year chasm of hostility.

The game was played before a crowd of 47,940 on a gray, damp evening whose chilly air carried the smell of cigar smoke and the odor of roasting pigs. The red, white and blue flags of both countries were ever-present, waved by fans and rippling side by side from flagstaffs in the outfield.

When it was over, after midnight, the Cubans had beaten the Baltimore team, which was coming off one of the worst starts in its history. The Cubans' 12-6 win gave one victory to each team. The Orioles had won 3-2 in an extra-innings game in Havana on March 28.

The first pitch was thrown at 7:47 p.m., but play was delayed by rain for almost an hour a half-inning later. The game ended a festive day that saw vendors hawking souvenirs vying for attention with groups of rival demonstrators, all kept in line by truncheon-carrying Baltimore police officers and their German shepherd dogs. Inside the stadium, barbecue stands featured Cuban-style pork sandwiches, and beer stands served Cuban cerveza. Two 200-pound pigs were roasted in a picnic area beyond the center field fence.

Demonstrations marked the game, too. Demonstrators ran onto the field between the fourth and fifth innings, and again after one out in the top of the fifth. The first time, there were four of them, one carrying a sign resembling a Cuban flag. The crowd cheered, and the demonstrators were rounded up by police.

The second time, a man ran onto the field and was tackled by the second-base umpire – a Cuban. The fans, their patience seemingly lost, booed.

That brought police to stations along the right- and left-field walls, and the game continued.

But baseball was not forgotten. In English and in Spanish, there was talk of bateadors and jardineros – batters and fielders. There was the wearing of Orioles orange and the crimson of Cuba. The sport both nations love seemed to overarch the day.

Jorge Gonzalez, dapper in white pants, double-breasted blue blazer and cowboy hat, left Cuba 20 years ago. He arrived on the noon flight from Miami wondering if he could put a bet down on the Cuban team. He was joined by his friend, Jose Rodriguez.

"The politics aren't a part of this," said Gonzalez, initially reluctant to give his name because he feared a backlash from the anti-Castro lobby in Miami that has condemned the game as a show of support for the socialist regime.

Asked if he supported Cuban President Fidel Castro, Rodriguez interrupted: "I support the Cuban team. No politics, please."

But it was impossible to escape politics. The day began with a press conference hosted by the head of the Cuban sports ministry, Humberto Rodriguez Gonzalez, at the stadium.

Gonzalez spoke of the fraternity of baseball – and of people-to-people cooperation – but he was peppered with questions about past player defections and the lure of big-league money for his team.

Asked about the absence from the team of German Mesa, a star player who was left off the roster and in the past was suspected of planning to defect, Gonzalez said that there were "technical parameters" in deciding who would play and that "discipline is a key factor" in Mesa's absence.

At noon, the Cuban delegation traveled to a private school in northwest Baltimore where Cuban Vice President Jose Ramon Fernandez and other officials joined in a cheer to begin two informal baseball games between Cuban youth who made the trip and Little Leaguers from the Washington-Baltimore area.

Luis Martinez, 32, a sports instructor and radio journalist, said that friends in his hometown of Holquin in eastern Cuba were intensely interested, not just in the game against the Orioles but also in everything about the delegation's trip.

"It was a great honor to be chosen," he said. Asked who he thought would win the game, he said, "Baseball will win. And friendship."

As game time neared, rival groups of demonstrators massed, kept apart by Baltimore police. Oscar Ochotorena, 72, arrived with the Cuban Workers Alliance, which sought an end to the U.S. embargo of Cuba.

He described himself as a member of the proletariat, a former lawyer and a history professor who left Havana in September 1980 for Miami. His daughter, two grandsons, and sister still live in Havana, and Ochotorena departed Miami for Baltimore on Sunday, riding in one of two rented vans for a chance to see his country play baseball and to lobby for an end to the trade embargo.

"We fight for the reunification of families in the United States and Cuba," he continued. "This begins the conversation."

The alliance was one of several groups present outside the stadium gates lobbying vigorously for an end to the trade embargo on Cuba, which – unlike the sanctions approved recently to squeeze Serbia – even bans the sale of food and medicine. Hats, banners, T-shirts and pamphlets carried the message.

Meanwhile, the mood was light at Max's at Camden Yards, a restaurant just a block from the stadium. Juan F. Diaz, 41, a stern-looking protester from New Jersey, chuckled at a sign over the pub's entrance that offered a "free crabcake with every defection." Diaz thought the offer was so hilarious he took a picture of it.

Then he remembered why he came to the game: "I'm anti-Castro, and I've come to protest," Diaz said. "All that the team is going to see, the parties they are going to go to, the people of Cuba can't afford any of that. It's a terrible situation, life for them."

Back at the main gate, brothers Orestes Padilla and Rene Padilla held red signs denouncing Castro as "Cobarde, asesino trardor a Cuba" which translates as "Coward, assassin and traitor to Cuba." The brothers defected in the 1960s to Miami. They had driven to Baltimore to protest the game with their granddaughter, who interpreted for them.

"This is a mini-way for the American government to start having ties with Castro," said Orestes Padilla, 81. "This will allow him to reinforce his regime and continue what he's doing."

As the Padillas grew louder, an Orioles fan dressed in orange and black from head to toe screamed, "It's about baseball! No politics – just baseball for people who love baseball."

Staff writers Jefferson Morley and Susan Saulny contributed to this report.