KISSIMMEE – Orlando “El Duque” Hernandez will tell you why he isn’t shy about throwing a healthy dose of breaking balls during his first start of the spring. He’ll tell you his thoughts on camp thus far and complain that he doesn’t like the food served in the clubhouse and on bus trips. “No Latin food,” he says with a smile.
He’ll even tell you, with a translator’s assistance, about making $8 a month playing for the Cuban National Team in 1995 and the 24-hour bus rides between games. He’ll also tell you how silly it seems that there’s so much interest in his progress this year when no one cared when he worked out in solitude in Costa Rica last spring.
And he’ll tell you that he’s living a dream, making millions pitching for the Yankees and owning a World Series ring. “I still can’t believe the turn-around in my life,” he said.
But there’s one issue Hernandez refuses to discuss. Don’t ask the Cuban defector anything about the Orioles agreeing to play a Cuban national team Sunday in Havana. It will be the first time in 40 years that a major league team will play there. But Hernandez wants no part of it.
“No Baltimore. No Baltimore-Cuba,” Hernandez said before reporters could question him after he pitched four exhibition innings yesterday afternoon against the Astros.
That Hernandez issues a polite “no comment” about the international exhibition underscores the reality that this is not just another exhibition game. It’s not just the “sports and cultural exchange,” that commissioner Bud Selig says it is, but a politically sensitive event that will be dogged by controversy and debate.
Hernandez still has family and friends in Cuba. The fear of saying something that might complicate their status as well as the status of his own family here in the United States is one reason why he declined to talk about the game. Another reason is the potential of being thrown in the middle of controversy.
Hernandez knows that there are Cuban exiles who are protesting the Orioles going to Cuba. They say baseball’s decision to play there symbolizes America’s growing support for Cuban President Fidel Castro and his Communist government.
“Going to Cuba under the current conditions there is a sign of insensitivity and lack of respect for human rights there,” said Huber Matos, a Cuban native who spent 20 years in prison on the island for opposing the Castro government. “It’s like taking part in the abuses that are going on there.”
“This is not a time to play ball with Castro,” said Sylvia Iriondo, head of Mothers and Women Against Repression in Cuba.
Whether Hernandez agrees with them or not, he can’t say. To endorse the game would create the perception that he is indirectly supporting Castro. To oppose the game publicly might endanger his friends and family still in the country. Even in America, Hernandez has lost his freedom of speech.
Baseball would like to low-key the trip, spin-doctor it as a goodwill mission. “If this produces the kind of human results that we’re all hopeful that it does, it could be something very big,” Selig said at Legends Field yesterday. “I’m proud of the role (major league baseball) will play in doing something really constructive that transcends baseball.”
If only the motives were that honorable. Let’s understand that somewhere behind all the flag waving is the possibility that an increased dialogue between the two countries with baseball as the impetus could ultimately lead to some type of agreement where Cuban players could be allowed to sign with major league clubs.
Such a notion seemed impossible this time last year when Hernandez defected and eventually signed with the Yankees. But with the Orioles going to Havana and the Cuban team coming to Baltimore in the home-and-home series, the first steps toward that possibility are in place. Imagine all the money that would be pumped into the Cuba economy by baseball teams searching for the next El Duque or Rey Ordonez.
Cuba once was a site for spring training camps before the communist revolution that brought Castro to power in the late 1950s. Surely, Castro must know that spring camps are now multi-million dollar enterprises that could generate income for his own country on a smaller scale.
Baseball will dance with the devil if it can get its hands on Cuban talent.
“I’ve heard from a lot of people who have different views on this subject. So I understand their feelings,” Selig said. “Given our government’s and the Cuban government’s view, we believe as part of the sports and cultural exchange, we hope baseball can be a very valuable asset in constructing some type of long term relationship that hasn’t existed.”
It’s sounds like a noble venture. But meanwhile, El Duque has lost his freedom of speech.