ADRIAN SAINZ
Associated Press

MIAMI - A 1935 Havana baseball team jersey worn in a game. A payroll detailing how a young Tommy Lasorda made about $1,400 for four months of pitching in the Cuban Professional League. A silver coffee pot given to Leo Cardenas for the 1968 All-Star Game. Sandy Amoros' spikes.

These and other items are not available for sale, but they do make up part of an unrivaled collection of Cuban baseball memorabilia owned by a Miami body builder-turned-cop - and potential millionaire.

Orestes Chavez's collection of hundreds of pre-Fidel Castro memorabilia and more modern collectibles are tucked away in a bank, the perfect place for his costly collection. But he has plans for the future.

"It's not so much the money," said the 41-year-old Chavez. "This stuff belongs in a museum."

Sports agent Juan Iglesias is also a collector. He was part of a group of collectors and businessmen that offered Chavez about $1 million for his collection.

Chavez declined the offer because he says he didn't agree with the group's plan to auction off the collection in parts.

"Maybe I'm stupid, and that's why I'm not a businessman," Chavez said. "I'm very sentimental and I fall in love with stuff. It took me almost 20 years to build this and they wanted to break it up? I couldn't sleep at night. That's a lot of money."

The tradition of baseball in Cuba is long and distinguished. The sport was brought to the island by American sailors who stopped in the Caribbean island's ports in the mid-1860s.

Armando Marsans and Rafael Almeida were the first Cubans to play in the majors in 1911. Many followed, though greats such as Martin Dihigo were forced to play in the Negro Leagues because they were black. American Negro Leaguers such as Oscar Charleston, Cool Papa Bell and Josh Gibson also played in Cuba.

Cuba was a winter training ground for many major leaguers - from Ty Cobb to Don Zimmer to Bob Allison - who played in Cuba during its four-month professional season, from October to February. Babe Ruth visited the island as part of a barnstorming tour in 1920, and the Brooklyn Dodgers - with Jackie Robinson - held part of spring training there in 1947. Club teams played year-round and employed the island's best players.

But when Castro took power in 1959 and he began building his communist government, he disbanded the Cuban Professional League. Players stopped flocking to the United States, and major leaguers stopped coming to Cuba in the offseason.

As years passed, the remnants of Cubans baseball glory disappeared, or were just misplaced, scattered throughout the island and other countries as Cubans left Castro's regime. As the economy worsened, uniforms and jerseys of classic Cuban teams were used as everyday clothing, Chavez said.

"There is no museum in Cuba," he said. "If that ever gets fixed over there, perhaps the government would want to do something."

A native of Cuba who arrived in the United States in 1967, Chavez began collecting baseball cards of Cuban players. But soon his interest expanded to jerseys and uniforms, and later to all types of Cuban baseball collectibles.

Chavez, a stocky, affable sort, began making friends with former players, from speedster Angel Scull to the former Chicago White Sox Minnie Minoso. Players sold him some memorabilia, and his connections with others helped him build his vast collection.

"They'd rather make a few hundred dollars. To them, this is garbage. To me, this is a treasure," Chavez said.

He also scoured the Internet, kept in contact with people who make regular trips to Cuba and communicated with collectors through e-mail and telephone calls to create his amazing collection.

He has reams of black-and-white photos of team after team, with rare images of legends such as Dihigo, a member of the Hall of Fame and considered the greatest Cuban player ever to grace a diamond, Adolfo Luque, member of the 1919 Cincinnati Reds world champions, and Al Lopez.

Chavez owns old contracts, disciplinary letters, laundry slips, programs and game-used bats. There's even a menu of the fare offered at a celebration dinner for the 1941 professional league championship, signed by several players.

Truly unique stuff, said sports agent Iglesias.

"It's really unprecedented," he said. "Since it was all pre-Castro, it's unbelievable to obtain that size collection."

But his prize possessions are the game-worn uniforms, which range from the four Cuban professional teams - Havana, Almendares, Cienfuegos and Marianao - to club teams to major league jerseys worn by former San Diego Padres manager Preston Gomez, batting champ Tony Oliva and Montreal Expos pitcher Livan Hernandez, a close friend of Chavez.

Most of the early Cuban uniforms are heavy wool and still bear their original maker's tag. The 1935 Havana uniform is repaired with a piece of a sugar sack, the serial number still visible on the patch.

Once he purchased a uniform or jersey, he would wash it - the most delicate ones by hand - and add it to his bounty.

"Every jersey tells a story," Chavez says.

Memorabilia authenticator David Bushing said there is a potential market for Chavez's collection, but suggests that it belongs in a museum in Miami. He said not many collectors know about Cuban baseball history.

"I've never heard anybody even specializing in Cuban ballplayers. As a collection it's unique," Bushing said. "The value is there, but the collecting public has to get an education. If you educate people about it, the collecting fraternity will follow."

Chavez realizes that he's sitting on a gold mine. He's declined offers of as much as $15,000 for one uniform.

He works off-duty police jobs to save the money to add to his collections, while at the same time supporting his parents from their modest home in west Miami-Dade County. He finds himself competing with millionaire collectors.

Chavez is holding on to his collection for now. He knows the scarcity of the items he's collected and the large market for any kind of sports memorabilia increases the value of the collection almost daily. He's sure to make more than the $1 million he once turned down if he ever sells it to a museum.

But for Chavez, it goes beyond money.

"I want to see this all in one place," he said, "where everybody can go and visit."