Cuban nationals cheer on the all-stars Monday at Camden Yards. (John McDonnell - The Post)

By Peter Slevin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 4, 1999; Page A1

BALTIMORE, May 3 – He may live in Maryland and be plenty fond of the United States, but the chances of Carlos Davalos pulling for the Orioles against Cuba during tonight's experiment in baseball diplomacy were exactly zero.

No offense to his adoptive country, but Davalos still feels for Cuba after all these years. And in a contest – won by Cuba, 12-6 – whose drama owed as much to Karl Marx as to Abner Doubleday, the Wheaton businessman paid more attention to political possibilities than to balls and strikes.

"It's a game, but there's a lot of politics behind it," said Davalos, 56, who left Havana in 1962, three years after Fidel Castro took power. "It's going to be a new era, a new beginning. It's time. We can do it."

Ideology competed with sweet memories of Havana afternoons tonight in the stands at Camden Yards as a Cuban all-star team played the Orioles in the second game of a home-and-home series, a game that ran until after midnight. Among Cuban Americans who talked angrily or softly of Cuba's pain, the game itself brought only fleeting, wistful pleasure.

Hundreds of protesters shouted anti-Castro slogans outside the stadium. Inside, where balloons – red and blue for Cuba, orange and black for the O's – bobbed on strings, demonstrators ran onto the field between the fourth and fifth innings and again with one out in the fifth. They were escorted off by police and were issued citations for trespassing.

Back in the stands, placards and T-shirts worn by demonstrators vied with buttons and other gear commemorating the historic match.

Little seemed like an idle May evening in the ballpark, at least until the starting pitching broke down and the two teams started trading extra-base hits. For many of the fans in the stands, born and raised Cuban, simply showing up meant taking a stand. Against Castro, in some cases. Simply for Cuba, in many others.

"I love this country, but I also love Cuba," said District haircutter Alex Davalos, Carlos's brother. "I'm not with any group. As I see this country moving toward Cuba, I want to be in on the move."

Galileo Bertot came to Baltimore to root for the Orioles because he, too, loves Cuba. Yet he came not to praise the Clinton administration's move, but to condemn it.

Silver-haired at 55, well-weathered and dressed in a Cuban flag T-shirt, Bertot erupted in smiles at the recollection of the ballgames of his youth. Almendares against Cienfuegos or Havana or Marianao. Hot sun, crowded stands, wooden bats, Hatuey beer, cheers, escape.

"Oh, God, that was the best time in my whole life!" said Bertot, an Arlington steam engineer who left Cuba in 1964 and became a U.S. citizen. "We were free. You could be happy."

He feels a measure of pride that Cuba's team is solid, but he was not pulling for Cuba's team today. In the political box score, by Bertot's reckoning, a Cuban win would mean an undeserved 'W' to Castro.

"It would be Castro's propaganda if Cuba wins. It would be propaganda forever," Bertot said before the game. But he admitted his choice troubled his soul. "I feel very hard in my heart. Because, remember, I'm Cuban."

Like Bertot, Ricardo Pastrana was wearing a T-shirt. His said, "No Castro, No Problem." With other Cuban emigres, Pastrana rode a bus from Newark to protest the Cuban team's presence in Baltimore. The only good baseball diplomacy, the way he sees things, is no baseball diplomacy at all.

Only the soft-hearted and the closet Castro sympathizers could pull for a Cuban win, said Pastrana, 60. "It's not my team. It's Castro's team." His fellow protester, Rigoberto Peguero, 57, opposes both Castro and Clinton. He complained that the two-game series – the Orioles won the first game in Havana – elevates an authoritarian leader who stifles public discourse.

"Clinton says this is a contest between people and people," said Peguero, an insurance broker from Newark who left Havana in 1969. "No. This is a political game. This is a contest between Castro and the economic interests of the Baltimore Orioles and the Communist Party."

As the Cuban players took the field, a boisterous crowd of schoolgirls screamed in Spanish, "Viva Cuba Libre! Abajo el Comunismo!" Translated, "Long live a free Cuba! Down with Communism!" The coach and head cheerleader was Havana-born Lourdes Orta, who brought the children from the Frederick, Md., Academy of the Visitation.

Orta said the Pope, who visited Cuba last year, inspired the expedition. "We want our country to be free. We want freedom of expression and freedom of religion," said Orta, who was using the trip as a lesson to the students, ages 10 to 15.

Luis Albisu, a Falls Church barber and real estate investor, sees the hurt, but he also sees possibility. He called Carlos Davalos barely three hours before game time, desperate for a ticket and kicking himself that he had waited until the last minute. He hammered himself: "How can you be so stupid, Luis! I'm a few miles away from where my home team is playing, and I'm not going."

Albisu is 54. He left Havana 37 years ago. His home team? Not the Orioles. He was talking about Cuba.

It did not seem unusual to Albisu – who said he once tried out as a pitcher with the St. Louis Cardinals – that he was hungry to tune in to the first game, when the Cuban team fought the Orioles into the 11th inning before losing 3-2. What startled him was how much he wanted Cuba to beat the American team.

"I was surprised because of all the hurt, of all that we have gone through," said Albisu, who left Cuba as a teenager in 1962 and said he still feels torn. "I adore Cuba. Cuba is my country. This is my country, too. I don't know which country I would defend more. Probably both of them."

Ticketless, Albisu finally decided not to go to Camden Yards. He would watch the game at home. Rooting for Cuba, cheering for change, dreaming once more of Havana. "It is a healthy thing," Albisu said of the game. "Anything like this is better than dropping bombs. We should show our human side to each other, and not our bellicose side."