Monday, April 19, 1999; 8:23 p.m. EDT

UNION CITY, N.J. (AP) -- A New Jersey congressman and several Cuban groups plan to bring 1,000 protesters to a May 3 exhibition game in Baltimore between the Orioles and the Cuban national team.

``We want to send the message that the world should be more concerned about supporting human rights in Cuba than about playing ball with a dictator,'' U.S. Rep. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., said Monday.

Menendez and members of United Cuban Organizations said the protesters would be coming in 10 buses from New Jersey and three planes from Florida. Other people are traveling from New York, Connecticut and Maryland, he said.

The Orioles played an exhibition game against the Cubans on March 28 in Havana. Menendez, a Cuban-American and the fourth-ranking Democrat in the House leadership, has criticized the baseball series since President Clinton proposed it in his State of the Union address in January.

He asked the U.N. Human Rights Commission meeting in Geneva to condemn the Cuban regime's human rights record and its recent crackdown on Cuban dissidents.

A spokesman from the Orioles wasn't immediately available for comment Monday.