So what exactly did the 73-year-old president and Baltimore Orioles owner Peter Angelos talk about for all 11 innings Sunday?
``He was asking questions with respect to salaries and how the game operates,'' Angelos said. ``He knows about some of the stars of the game. It was a very interesting experience.''
And, perhaps, a surprising one. The Orioles, with a payroll of more than $80 million, held on for a 3-2 win over a Cuban all-star team in which players earn about $10 per month.
Though several Orioles previously said this would be just another spring training game, it was obvious it meant far more as soon as Castro stepped on the field about 20 minutes before the first pitch.
``Fi-del! Fi-del!'' the 50,000 fans chanted at Estadio Latinoamericano at the sight of the former University of Havana right-hander. ``Cu-ba! Cu-ba!''
Albert Belle, Brady Anderson and the rest of the Orioles gathered around Castro to shake hands, curious to see how he looked up close in his olive combat fatigues. Manager Ray Miller talked to Castro through an interpreter.
``He told me this was a good baseball town,'' Miller said. ``He said not to worry, that we were playing in front of the greatest baseball fans in the world.''
Castro watched from a front-row seat behind home plate, flanked by Angelos and major league commissioner Bud Selig. The night before, Castro and Selig spoke at a reception.
``He talked about his career,'' Selig said. ``But in all honesty he didn't build himself up.''
While Castro knew about big league stars -- Cuban defectors Orlando ``El Duque'' Hernandez, Livan Hernandez and Rey Ordonez, among them -- he hadn't seen any big league teams for a long time because none had visited the Communist island since 1959.
``Nobody came down here looking to make history,'' Orioles outfielder B.J. Surhoff said. ``Everybody came down here looking to play a baseball game.''
Still, Surhoff carried the U.S. flag onto the field for the national anthems and later gave his bat to the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y.
``For many years, we have been trying to have this match,'' star Cuban third baseman Omar Linares said through a translator. ``I really hope these will not be the last games.''
Another Cuban team, this one probably even stronger, will visit Baltimore's Camden Yards on May 3.
``This will open the door so there might be more games between the U.S. and Cuba,'' said Joel Valdez, 26, a scientist.
By local standards, this Cuban crowd was rather tame until the late innings.
Tickets were issued on an invitation-only basis -- instead of the 10 cents they normally cost -- ensuring the stands would be packed with loyal Castro supporters. But that left out many of Cuba's most passionate ``pelota'' fans.
Missing were the drums, sirens, air horns, singing, dancing and rumba music that enveloped the ballpark from the first pitch during Saturday night's playoff game between the Havana Industriales and Santiago.
No cheerleaders in black spandex jumped on top of the dugouts, no ballgirls served coffee to the umpires during the fifth-inning break. No one smuggled in Havana Club rum, and no beer was offered inside, either.
Even the 53-year-old stadium was spruced up -- gone were the wild dogs that usually roam the concourse, hoping for bits of the pork-leg sandwiches sold at concession stands.
There was the traditional first ball. Former Washington Senators pitcher Connie Marrero, 88, threw four of them, then three more to Anderson when he led off the game.
Charles Johnson's two-run homer off Cuban ace Jose Ibar in the second kept things quiet until the home team started its comeback. Castro grinned when Linares' RBI single in the eighth made it 2-all.
``He was delighted when the game was tied,'' Angelos said.
The teams played beneath big outfield signs that proclaimed ``Socialist Cuba Sports'' and ``Sports for the People.'' The billboards that preach ``Remember the Revolution'' and ``Antimperialistas'' are on the road the Orioles took in from the airport.
When the game ended, Castro made an ``oh, well'' gesture with his hands and later congratulated the Cuban players.
``I thought he was a little disappointed,'' Angelos said.
Once a Triple-A hotspot when the Havana Sugar Kings ruled, the Caribbean island had not seen a major league club since March 21, 1959, right after Castro took power. On that day at the very same ballpark, guards strolled with machine guns while Sandy Koufax pitched Los Angeles past Cincinnati 2-1.
Since then, it's been a blackout and blockade for Cuban fans trying to follow big league ball.
The 1963 Trading With the Enemy Act forbid most Americans from spending money in Cuba. Despite Angelos' efforts for several years -- he said he was driven by sportsmanship -- only President Clinton's recent relaxing of restrictions against Cuba made this game possible.
The American government, however, has stressed that these two exhibitions are not a matter of sports diplomacy, such as the table tennis matches with China in the 1970s. Rather, these are considered ``people-to-people'' contacts, much like those conducted with Cuban artists and academics.
Even so, these games drew opposition in the United States. Several members of Congress spoke out against them, and Florida Marlins owner John Henry joined a protest outside the Orioles' spring camp in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
Orioles pitcher Juan Guzman, who was born in the Dominican Republic and employs several Cuban domestics at his home in Miami, asked out of the trip.
Johnson said there were ``issues that are above my head that I can't even discuss.''
Linares, considered Cuba's best player at 32, was not concerned, for good reason.
``I'm not aware of any criticism,'' he said.
© Copyright 1999 The Associated Press