By Thomas Boswell

                  Wednesday, January 6, 1999; Page D01

                  As if Cuba hasn't got enough problems, with poverty, hurricanes and a
                  dictator, now the destitute island may get a visit from Albert Belle during
                  spring training. No international incidents, please.

                  The thought of the new Orioles free agent being introduced to Fidel Castro
                  is just delicious. Albert, Fidel. Fidel, Albert. What a cage-match stare
                  down!

                  All sorts of Havana-moonlight foolishness was buzzing through baseball
                  yesterday as word spread that Baltimore might play a pair of
                  home-and-home exhibition games against Cuba this spring.

                  In the tradition of ping-pong diplomacy with China, the idea of a game
                  between the island's legendary national team and a major league club has
                  been a dream for decades. As long ago as the '70s, when I visited Cuba to
                  report on the nation's fanatical passion for sports, the most frequent topic
                  of discussion was the possibility of seeing "Great Leaguers" play games in
                  Cuba.

                  On Monday, the White House announced that President Clinton has
                  approved a loosening of the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba, including
                  letting the Orioles play those two games. The only apparent hitch is a
                  proviso that the proceeds go to an appropriate charity, not Castro's
                  government.

                  However, before we fantasize about a Cuba-Orioles showdown, we
                  should acknowledge two difficulties. Don't be too sure these games will
                  happen. Plenty of Cuban exiles will fight the idea. And Castro himself,
                  upon reflection, may be too savvy to allow these apparently innocent
                  exhibitions; in retrospect, they may someday be seen as a distinctly
                  subversive influence in undermining his authority.

                  "Castro took enormous amounts of property from many people who'd
                  worked for generations," points out my friend John Fitzgerald, an Orioles
                  season ticket holder whose family was driven from Cuba when he was 12
                  with only the possessions they could carry. "I hate these cutesy ideas.
                  There should be no contact with Castro. Let them play games after they
                  return what they stole from us."

                  Ironically, the goals of Cuban exiles might actually be served by an Orioles
                  game in Havana. People everywhere are drawn powerfully, almost
                  magnetically, toward what they do not have, but deeply want. It's now a
                  commonplace of Cold War history that the more the Soviet Union's
                  population learned about the West's culture, the weaker the Soviet regime
                  became.

                  Don't underestimate the power of something as apparently trivial as a
                  sport. Not if the game in question is baseball and the country is Cuba.

                  Nothing in Cuban society evokes more passion -- or gives more
                  consolation against decades of privation -- than the island's fabulous
                  baseball tradition, including teams packed with fine players in every Cuban
                  province. Twenty years ago, the intensity of Cuban crowds -- there's no
                  admission fee, workers arrive carrying their machetes, and cows
                  sometimes wander through the stands -- was almost scary at times.
                  Baseball was more than a release. It was sustenance.

                  Every night during sugar-cane cutting season, workers return home to
                  watch the game of the night in the top Cuban league on TV. The screen
                  doesn't go blank until the last out has been made in the last game on the
                  island. Few Americans can imagine what baseball means to Cuban national
                  pride. Supremacy in international baseball events sometimes seems like the
                  island's only reason to smile.

                  Since then, the Cuban economy has crumbled further. Then, cars were 20
                  years old but functional. Now, they are comically ancient. Then, there were
                  shortages. Of what? You name it. I never saw a room that had light bulbs
                  in more than half its sockets. Now, in many cases, there is nothing.

                  Castro desperately wants much that the Clinton administration is offering in
                  the name of humanitarianism. Resumption of direct postal service.
                  Permission for U.S. firms to sell fertilizer, pesticides and agricultural
                  equipment to independent farmers. And, perhaps most important,
                  authorization for any U.S. citizen -- not just family members -- to send as
                  much as $1,200 a year to needy recipients in Cuba. Those dollars are gold
                  to a desperate economy.

                  What Castro does not want, what he has resisted for many years, and
                  what he will probably try to duck out of this time, too, is allowing his
                  people to see Cal Ripken on the field at the Stadio in Havana. Ripken, and
                  every other Great Leaguer in an Orioles uniform, is a symbol of the
                  freedom, the wealth and the possibility for open-ended self-fulfillment that
                  America has long represented to people under totalitarian control.

                  Even Albert Belle -- perhaps especially Albert Belle -- captures the reason
                  that Cubans should despise their lot under Castro. Freedom counts only if
                  it extends to those who seem -- to the majority -- to deserve it least. To
                  many, Belle has been the consummate bully. Yet, in American baseball, he
                  is allowed to flourish. Only his own self-destructiveness oppresses him.

                  In Cuban baseball, in stark contrast, it is absolutely forbidden that authority
                  of any kind be disputed, whether it be the manager, the umpire or, of
                  course, the state. Long ago, I saw the best player in Cuba at the time --
                  Wilfredo Sanchez -- called out at second base. Sanchez leaped three feet
                  in the air in rage. Yet, by the time he landed back on Cuban soil, he had
                  composed himself completely and showed no hint of protest at the
                  incorrect call.

                  What Cubans will see in the eyes of the Orioles, if Castro lets them play,
                  will not be decadent dollar signs -- though plenty of Orioles love a buck.
                  They will recognize deeper expressions than that -- ones that all people
                  understand. They'll see the energy and high spirits that come along with
                  pursuing happiness. They will sense the complete absence of fear in the
                  American players -- their relaxation, self-confidence and ability to express
                  themselves freely. In some cases, maybe the Cuban fans will even sense
                  that the Orioles have the freedom to make fools of themselves or defy
                  authority. Plenty of 'em did that last year, yet not one had to flee the
                  country in a fishing boat.

                  The Cuban and American players on that field will come from utterly
                  different worlds. From Brady Anderson's Elvis strut to Will Clark's smirk
                  to Mike Mussina's studious Stanford stare, every Cuban fan will sense the
                  gulf between Havana, Cuba, and Baltimore, Maryland. And they'll want
                  desperately to close that distance.

                  Fitz, root for the Orioles to go to Cuba. It won't help Castro. Trust me on
                  this one.

                           © Copyright 1999 The Washington Post Company