FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- The Orioles may write the next chapter in the history of sports diplomacy when they visit Havana for an exhibition game on March 28, but their international goodwill mission isn't meeting with universal approval.

Soon after Major League Baseball officially announced yesterday that a deal had been reached to stage the home-and-home exhibition series with a team of Cuban all-stars, demonstrators representing several anti-Castro groups converged on the Orioles' Fort Lauderdale spring-training complex in an attempt to dissuade the club from visiting the communist nation.

It was a predictable response to one of the hottest hot-button issues in South Florida. The protests had been planned well before representatives of Major League Baseball, the Major League Baseball Players Association and the Orioles hammered out an agreement with Cuban sports officials and the U.S. State Department to play a game at Havana's Latin American Stadium later this month and a second game at Camden Yards sometime in April or May.

"If you give one penny to Castro, he'll use it to put more repression on Cuba," said Miguel Saavedra, president of the Cuban-American human rights group Vigilia Mambisa. "The United States, in good faith, wants to send [athletes] and musicians to Cuba, but Cuba takes it the other way."

Orioles owner Peter Angelos said he knew his team would face some political resistance if he succeeded in his attempt to schedule the trip, but he said yesterday that he is confident the true purpose of the exhibitions eventually will become apparent -- even to the Cuban exile community.

"The goal of the Orioles is to establish closer contact and ultimately a more positive relationship between the people of our country and the Cuban people," Angelos said yesterday. "There is no political dimension to this visit, I believe, on either side."

That's a tough sell in the Miami area, where anti-Castro sentiment is particularly strong. About 50 protesters representing at least six organizations assembled outside the main gate of Fort Lauderdale Stadium, displaying placards and handing out leaflets. They sounded skeptical of the potential benefits of the baseball exchange.

"Richard Nixon took a Ping-Pong team to China nearly 30 years ago," said Pedro Lopez of Agenda Cuba, "but China is still the same dictatorship. If it failed in China, why Cuba? This is not the way to show solidarity with the Cuban people."

The pre-game demonstration was peaceful, and many of the protesters attended the exhibition game afterward. There were no incidents in the stands during the Orioles' 6-1 win over the Marlins.

Still, the issue is so politically charged that many players, including high-profile stars Cal Ripken and Brady Anderson, chose not to comment after the announcement.

"Everyone is very aware that it is a sensitive issue," said outfielder B. J. Surhoff, who was part of the 14-member delegation that traveled to Cuba for four days of negotiations in January.

Club officials briefed the team about the trip before yesterday's game, but many of the logistical issues still need to be worked out. Presumably, the Orioles would fly into Havana on March 27 and return to Florida immediately after the game the next day.

The team intends to take a representative group of major-league players and club personnel, but players who feel uncomfortable making the trip will not be compelled to go.

"If anybody has a problem for one reason or another, whatever it might be, they would be within their rights not to go," Surhoff said.

Surhoff agreed to join the January delegation to represent the Orioles players in the negotiations. He also helped players union and major-league officials inspect Havana's Latin American Stadium to determine what changes needed to be made to bring it up to minimum major-league standards.

"I enjoyed my trip down there the last time," Surhoff said. "If it does happen, I look forward to playing against the Cuban players. I played against them in 1983 [as part of the U.S. national team]. I look forward to playing against them again."

Orioles catcher Lenny Webster knows something about the history of American baseball in Cuba. He is one of the players still allowed to wear retired uniform No. 42 as a personal tribute to Jackie Robinson, who passed through Cuba on his way to breaking the color barrier in baseball.

The last major-league team to play baseball in Cuba was the 1947 Brooklyn Dodgers, who held spring training in Havana to insulate Robinson from racial hatred in the South.

"I guess I'm kind of curious to see what it looks like and see how they handle it," Webster said. "You hate for it to be a political thing, but that's the way it is. I don't blame people who have been involved in that dictatorship for being hostile, but that's out of our control. You feel for them, but it's been decided; now it's our job."

Angelos has been trying to put together the goodwill mission for the past three years. He received preliminary clearance from the State Department to open the negotiations in January, but it took two days of intense negotiations in Washington this weekend to overcome the last obstacles to the deal.

The negotiations were bogged down for two months over the sticky issue of how to distribute the proceeds from the event. Angelos originally envisioned the games benefiting Catholic charities operating in Cuba, but the final agreement calls for any net proceeds from either game to support sports programs in both countries.

"I'm pleased that we've been successful and that through the medium of baseball -- the national sport of both countries -- we will be able to establish ties of friendship and cooperation with the Cuban people," Angelos said. "It's been a long journey, but if the purpose of the two games is achieved, it will have been worth the effort."

There remain a lot of details to work out, so another delegation of Orioles and baseball officials is expected to travel to Cuba later this week for more nuts-and-bolts negotiations, but the overall framework of the deal is in place.

The only major issue still unresolved is the date of the game at Camden Yards. It originally was scheduled for April 3, but probably will be played on a day off in May.

Pub Date: 3/08/99