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 'Giving out smiles' Orioles hit the diamond upon arrival in Cuba
Posted: Saturday March 27, 1999 08:48 PM
HAVANA (AP) -- Most kids in the United States can't help grinning after getting an autograph and a handshake from a major league star. Children in Cuba apparently get a kick out of it, too. Thirty minutes after arriving in Cuba on Saturday, four Baltimore Orioles visited a collection of youths on a sandlot. Scott Erickson, Harold Baines, Scott Kamieniecki and Mike Timlin mingled with youngsters from the United States who had been playing against a team from Cuba. "Just signing autographs and giving out smiles," said Erickson, the Orioles starting pitcher in Sunday's historic exhibition game against the Cuban national team. Timlin, who is scheduled to pitch an inning, clicked away with a pocket camera at the sandlot before signing autographs and chatting with the kids. "I'm so excited, I'm basically speechless," said Kristin Lehner, 17, of Washington, D.C., as she tightly gripped a baseball with Timlin's signature. The Cuban boys didn't know the Orioles by name, but that didn't stop them from asking for autographs. One kid got his shirt signed by the four players; another had all four names scrawled on a small square of cardboard. Baines asked one of the Cuban boys for his take on Sunday's game. The diplomatic reply, through a translator, was, "The best team will win." So Baines quipped back, "You mean Cuba, right? We know who you want to win -- the home team." The baseball game is important primarily because it's the first of its kind in 40 years. Although the Orioles have no intention of losing, the significance of the contest stretches far beyond the final score. "We believe this is a very important part of the sports and cultural exchange between these two countries," baseball commissioner Bud Selig said at the airport. "Baseball is obviously the national pastime in both Cuba and United States, and so I think it is most appropriate that baseball serve as the linchpin to helping us work on a more constructive relationship," he added. Erickson said he plans to give some of the Cuban players some hats and batting gloves. He also hopes to exchange a few words with them, although he didn't expect the conversation to get too deep. "I'm not real fluent in Spanish, so I don't know if I can get a whole lot across," he said, "but I'll drop a few 'Holas!' on a few people." A week ago, Erickson wasn't overly enthusiastic about his role in the first major league exhibition between teams from Cuba and the United States since 1959. But after wading through a crowd of curious Cubans at the airport, he finally seemed to realize the massive interest that the game has generated. "The No. 1 goal is getting ready for the baseball season, but the game is becoming a little more important now that we're here. It's certainly a little bigger than your average spring training start," he said. "This is not going to be like the seventh game of the World Series, but we're not going to go out there and just mess around and play baseball. We're going to try to win the game." Both teams are at a disadvantage -- the Cubans must swing wooden bats instead of aluminum ones and the Orioles must get used to Cuban baseballs, which has a softer hide and larger seams. "That's OK, I'll get a little sweat and rosin on it and we'll see what it can do," Timlin said. The exhibition has attracted media from around the world and has created a stir on the streets of Havana, where many locals seem confident the home team will win. Regardless, there's always the possibility of a rematch next year. "Let's play this event tomorrow before looking ahead," Selig said. "Hopefully it will be as smooth and good as we think it will be. Then we'll worry about the future."
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