HAVANA -- On the field and in the stands, Americans and Cubans came together yesterday, interrupting 40 years of official enmity for one brief and shining moment of the game they both love, baseball.
A stadium full of Cuban fans warmly welcomed the Baltimore Orioles, the first U.S. professional team to compete here since shortly after Fidel Castro took power in 1959 and diplomatic relations with Havana disintegrated.
Clad in his familiar olive drab military garb, Castro himself marched stiffly across the field before the game to greet the Orioles in their dugout.
"Fi-del! Fi-del!" the 50,000 fans chanted at Estadio Latinoamericano, a 53-year-old stadium with big outfield signs proclaiming "Socialist Cuba Sports" and "Sports for the People."
"Cu-ba! Cu-ba!" screamed the invitation-only crowd.
"He told me this was a good baseball town," Orioles manager Ray Miller said after his team beat a Cuban all-star team 3-2 in 11 innings. "He said not to worry, that we were playing in front of the greatest baseball fans in the world."
Castro watched the game from a plum seat, right behind home plate, a Communist between two capitalists, Peter G. Angelos, the Orioles' owner, and Bud Selig, commissioner of Major League Baseball.
But the day really belonged to the fans -- the Cubans who have long been denied seeing major-leaguers, and the sizable crowd of Americans who traveled here and found themselves moved by both the pomp and the "pelota," as Cubans call the sport.
"The sport won," Alfred Gomez Rodriguez, an economist, said after the game. "The union of our peoples, the Cubans and the U.S., won. We are friends."
"It was a game I never would have missed, even if I had to swim here," said Steve de Castro of Baltimore.
De Castro, who owns the Ruth's Chris Steak House downtown, had a particular reason to feel more goose bumps than most: He is from Cuba, having moved to the United States with his family as a 13-year-old. While some Cuban-Americans have vehemently protested the game, de Castro supported the O's initiative.
"It's been 40 years," de Castro said. "It's time to go forward."
While the game itself was surprisingly low-key -- especially compared to the raucous Cuban national championship games that were under way this week at Estadio Latinoamericano -- the day hit several emotional high notes.
Somehow, the stadium's bare-bones quality distilled the baseball experience to its pure core. Unlike U.S. stadiums, increasingly theme parks of baseball nostalgia, there is no Diamondvision here, no blaring, pump-up-the-crowd rock music and commands to cheer louder.
Left to their own devices, Cuban fans make their own noise with drums, air horns and rumba music and seem fully engaged in the moment -- perhaps because there are no replays, instant or otherwise. They cheer, and loudly, when given reason. Unfortunately, their team gave them precious few reasons yesterday.
As the day began, all roads seemed to lead to the stadium, with Cubans making their way by car, bus, bike and foot, like pilgrims converging on a shrine. Some carried their national flag, but if not, they were given a paper one upon entering.
Before the game, the Orioles and the Cuban players filed toward one another, each led by a player bearing his national flag. Then the scratchy sound system began playing the anthems, first Cuba's, then the United States'. So rarely heard side by side, the anthems resonated.
The crowd was there by invitation only, with tickets distributed through schools, clubs and workers committees. But, as Miller said, there's a vetting process of a different sort that goes on in the United States as well.
"I can tell you, in the U.S., it's not free either. It's $30 a ticket," Miller said.
Hopes of spring
In the stands, the good seats were taken up by VIPs, very much like in the United States. Celebrities from both countries were spotted in the crowd -- Cuban players such as German Mesa and actor Woody Harrelson and singers Lisa Loeb and Jimmy Buffett, in town for another hands-across-the-water event going on simultaneously, Music Bridges.
"It's a meaningful game," said Harrelson, the endearingly dim bartender on "Cheers." "I think reconciliation is imminent."
That was the hope of many in the stands.
"I would like all American teams to come here," said Luis Perez Bacallao, a waiter. "Baseball is my life. I like to see all baseball."
Bacallao admitted that he'd prefer that it was the New York Mets playing this historic game rather than the Orioles. Nothing against the O's, it's just that he is a school pal of Rey Ordonez, who defected and now plays for the Mets.
Elsewhere in the stadium, a group of men wearing blue badges sat together, mostly older and with a camaraderie that made them seem like veterans. In a sense they were -- their badges identified them as "atletas retirado," or "retired athletes," some of whom were among the last Cubans to play in the major leagues before Castro made them choose one country or the other.
The ones here, of course, chose Cuba, unlike Chicago White Sox outfielder Minnie Minoso, the O's own Mike Cuellar, Boston's Luis Tiant and other major-league stars who stayed in the United States.
Winning isn't everything
Old players, it turns out, can learn new tricks.
"We are trying to look at the level of this game," said Juan Delis, 71, a former Washington Senator who went on to manage in his own country. "and then after that, teach it to the little players in Cuba."
Wilfredo Sanchez was among this group as well. One of several brothers who starred in Cuban baseball, he was one of the country's great hitters. Yesterday, however, he was in the stadium as a fan. Of all baseball.
"It's not important who wins," he said with a smile before the game.
But then, at long last, it was time to play ball. And Cuban fans at long last could see the players they can follow only through unofficial channels. The state-run press largely ignores major-league baseball, but somehow the fans find out through gossip, passed-around foreign publications and the occasional picked-up radio station much of what's happening in the United States.
Some fans know U.S. players only by name, yet they have kindred feelings for them.
"I like [Charles] Johnson and Will Clark," Carlos Perdomo said, mentioning two new Orioles. As it turns out, he likes them because they are in an old computer game that he plays, as San Francisco Giants.
Little disappointment
While the outcome of this real game might have been disappointing, Perdomo shrugged it off.
"It's not the Cuban team," said Perdomo, a cabdriver who attended the game then stopped to pick up fares on the way home. "Also, the manager made mistakes."
Cuban officials also made the point that the players yesterday did not constitute the national team that will compete soon in international games but rather a team of those who happened to be available. With Cuba's national championships under way, players from powerhouse teams such as Havana's Industriales were not available to play the Orioles.
"The stadium is quiet today," observed Jorge Lopez, a college student and fan. "But if this were the Industriales "
Quiet, though, can be good.
"I suffer too much when I see them," the Industriales fan said, clutching his heart.
Fans, whether here or in the United States, take the game to heart. The season is long, the fan is longer-suffering.
"We are playing with wood bats for the first time," said Orestes Sosa, a history teacher who stood outside the players' door after the game and watched, amazingly, as stars like Omar Linares casually strolled through the crowd, still in uniform, signing autographs and posing for quick photos en route to their bus.
A long wait
"For many years, we have been trying to have this match," Linares said through a translator. "I really hope these will not be the last games."
"Nobody came down here looking to make history," said Orioles outfielder B. J. Surhoff, who carried the American flag onto the field for the national anthems and later gave his bat to the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. "Everybody came down here looking to play a baseball game."
"The next time," Sosa warned of the return match, May 3, in Baltimore, "Cuba will win."
Pub Date: 3/29/99