DAVE SHEININ and JULIE KAY
             Herald Staff Writers

             The Baltimore Orioles will be the first major league baseball team to play in Cuba
             in more than 40 years, baseball officials announced Sunday.

             A deal between Major League Baseball, the U.S. State Department and the
             Cuban government was sealed late Saturday night. The Orioles will play the
             Cuban national team on March 28 in Havana. And sometime in April or May, the
             Cuban team will travel to Baltimore to face the Orioles in a rematch at Camden
             Yards.

             The announcement brought local activists to Fort Lauderdale Stadium on Sunday
             before a spring training game between the Orioles and the Florida Marlins. Dozens
             of protesters waved signs, handed out fliers and displayed American and Cuban
             flags.

             Twelve-year-old Armando DeZayas of Miami held up a sign with a picture of a
             bird that read, ``This Bird Won't Fly to Cuba.''

             ``I want to help out the Cubans,'' said DeZayas, who was accompanied by his
             Cuban-born grandmother and his cousin. ``Cuba is an unfree country run by a
             dictator. The Orioles should play here in the United States where they can play
             fair.''

             But Orioles and Major League Baseball officials consider the trip a goodwill
             mission.

             ``While I understand that people have all sorts of different human and political
             views here, I regard this as part of a sports and cultural exchange,'' said Baseball
             Commissioner Bud Selig, who will attend the game in Havana. ``The fact that
             baseball is playing a critical role is very meaningful.''

             According to the agreement, which was reached after all-night meetings, proceeds
             of the games will go to support baseball and other sports-related programs in the
             two countries, the Orioles said.

             Although the announcement is charged with political implications for South
             Florida's large anti-Castro Cuban population, the team insists the game has nothing
             to do with politics.

             `Ties of friendship'

             ``There is no political dimension to this trip -- on either side,'' said Orioles owner
             Peter Angelos, who worked for almost three years to arrange the games between
             his team and Cuba's. ``Through the medium of baseball, the national game of both
             countries, we will be able to establish ties of friendship and cooperation with the
             Cuban people. It's been a long journey but worth the effort.''

             About 40 protesters, mostly Cuban-born Miami residents from 10 Cuban political
             groups, including Mothers Against Oppression and the Alliance of Young Cubans,
             disagreed.

             ``For American baseball to try to clean up Fidel Castro's dilapidated, corrupt,
             decaying image is tragic,'' said Ana Carbonell of the Alliance of Young Cubans.
             ``This is creating a false impression that Cuba is an open society. It will forever
             taint sports history.''

             During the Orioles' Sunday morning team meeting, club officials asked the players
             to be careful with their comments to the media.

             Veteran third baseman Cal Ripken Jr. declined to comment. And veteran first
             baseman Will Clark said he is keeping politics out of it.

             ``The decision was made way, way above my head,'' Clark said. ``My political
             views are not involved. I am a ballplayer, and I will do my job.''

             The Orioles do not have any Cuban players on their team -- unlike the Marlins,
             who have four.

             Players have option

             Orioles left fielder B.J. Surhoff, who is the club's players association representative
             and who traveled to Havana with Angelos in January during negotiations with the
             Cuban government, said the team made it clear that any player who objects to the
             trip on moral grounds does not have to go.

             Still, Surhoff would not answer a question about whether he supports the Orioles
             playing in Cuba.

             ``I'd rather not comment on whether I'm for it,'' said Surhoff, who played against
             the Cuban national team in 1983 as a member of the U.S. national team. ``I'm not
             involved in politics. We as players don't make policies. If guys have reservations,
             they will have the opportunity to express them. For now, this is a private entity
             with a private initiative.''

             None of the four Marlins players of Cuban descent -- pitchers Alex Fernandez,
             Livan Hernandez and Michael Tejera, and catcher Jorge Fabregas -- made the
             trip from spring training headquarters in Melbourne to Fort Lauderdale for
             Sunday's game.

             Major league teams routinely travel with less than half their rosters during spring
             training.

             But all four players have been outspoken in criticizing Orioles management for
             going forward with the game in Havana.

             Support for the game

             Still, some fans who came to watch Sunday's game were largely unmoved by the
             cause.

             ``I don't think it's a big deal,'' said Warren Weber of Cincinnati, who flew in for
             the game. ``They should just play. It's a game, after all.''

             And Ken Klein of North Miami Beach said he thought the game was a good idea.

             ``It's good to allow the players to be exposed to foreign cultures,'' he said. ``The
             concept of isolationism and an embargo has not worked for more than 30 years.
             The Cuban community here has been out of touch with reality.''

             But for Leopoleo Aguilera of Miami, a Bay of Pigs veteran who came to the
             United States from Cuba 39 years ago, the trip to Havana is a bitter taste of a
             different reality.

             ``Forty years of suffering is enough,'' said Aguilera, who carried a Cuban and
             American flag Sunday because ``I carry both in my heart.''

             ``They are trying to make it appear that things are mellowing in Cuba. In this
             country, people just want to laugh, enjoy the good life. They don't want to care
             about politics.''

             This report was supplemented by Herald wire services.
 

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