By Michael E. Ruane
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, May 2, 1999; Page C01

They have fled in rafts, in military jet fighters and on foot. They have slipped away from hotel rooms, zipped through fast-food drive-up windows to cover their tracks and leaped over fences in distant countries.

There have been scientists, soldiers, musicians, boxers, dancers, acrobats and cyclists -- biding time, swallowing fear and often leaving families behind. Two weeks ago, a top government security official joined their ranks.

They are Cuban defectors, who over the years have fled the threadbare Communist country in ones, twos and, sometimes, in droves. When the Cuban national baseball team arrives in Baltimore to play the Orioles tomorrow, observers think there could be more.

Twenty-five top players, accompanied by Cuban officials -- and, critics contend, Cuban security police to deter defection -- were to arrive today in Baltimore to play what is believed to be the first such game on U.S. soil.

Meanwhile, the Reuter news service quoted Cuban state television as saying last night that a last-minute visa controversy threatened to delay or suspend the game. Reuter said an official Cuban communique cited "difficulties . . . due to the delay in visas for all the members of the delegation." A U.S. State Department spokeswoman said visa requests submitted before April 27 that met requirements were issued but that it was not possible to process late submissions.

Speaking of the possibility of defections, Rep. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) asked, "Will it happen?" Menendez, the son of Cuban emigres and an outspoken critic of Cuban President Fidel Castro, said, "It depends. I believe if somebody can give them the slip, and the opportunity exists, it will happen. No question, the urge will be there. They will be looking for the opportunity."

Defections from Cuba have a long and dramatic history -- indeed the act more and more seems like a relic of the Cold War -- but they have achieved a much higher profile in recent years with the often spectacular flight of dozens of the Caribbean country's top baseball players.

The New York Yankees won the World Series last year with the help of Cuban pitcher Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez, who defected in 1997 by sailing on a small craft to the Bahamas.

His half-brother, Livan, who helped the Florida Marlins win the 1997 world series, had defected two years before by leaving his Cuban team during a tour of Mexico.

Cuban defectors also play, and often star, for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, New York Mets, San Francisco Giants and a host of minor league clubs.

An estimated 30 Cuban baseball players -- along with hundreds of other sports, cultural and scientific figures -- have defected since the early 1990s, many on overseas trips like this one.

According to the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, the agency granted asylum to 2,538 Cubans between 1990 and 1996, the last year for which statistics were available, with the numbers almost tripling: from 229 in 1990 to 634 in 1996.

For tomorrow's game, Baltimore police say they will have extra officers on duty who have been briefed on procedures should someone approach seeking to defect. The immigration service, which would handle such requests, will have agents on hand, too.

But game organizers and U.S. officials have tried to play down the notion that there could be defections.

"I would hope that none of that occurs," said Orioles owner Peter G. Angelos, one of the chief architects of the game. "It would, in a sense, sully the goals of the effort. The goals are to bring Americans and Cubans a little bit closer together through the medium of baseball.

"We're not interested in enticing any of the Cubans to remain in the United States, thereby rejecting their country," he said. "That's not part of our agenda. It's not desirable, obviously, that that happen.

"I don't think [defection] would destroy the effort," he added. "It may somewhat taint it. The goals here are much bigger than what some individual player will do."

A senior State Department official said the government is making no special arrangements for the game.

"We're going to handle this, in terms of defection, exactly as we would handle any other international sporting event in the United States," he said. "Absolutely standard procedures. Nothing special is being done in the case of this game."

Besides, he noted, generally people don't defect publicly. "They just melt into the population," he said. "They don't necessarily go through the formal act of turning themselves in."

He added that he was not aware that any of the roughly 300 visas being issued to the Cuban delegation were for Cuban security police.

Scott Armstrong, the Washington author, former journalist and baseball fan who has worked for years to arrange the event, said Cuban baseball figures recently have not been defecting on trips.

After the departure of the Hernandez brothers, Armstrong said, the Cuban government boosted the meager incentives players get and moved to better support the athletes. It was "not a lot," he said, but apparently it was enough. Cuban players reportedly receive a few hundred dollars a year in pay, and battered Russian-made cars.

Armstrong also said the Cuban team regularly plays outside Cuba without players defecting. "These guys plays 50 games a year out of the country," he said. "They can defect at any of these."

In addition, he said, the team members are relatively young, are heroes in their own country and probably have had a pep talk from Castro, which many will take to heart.

"A lot of these guys will think, 'I'm not going to embarrass my country on this trip,' although they still might harbor the desire [to defect] later."

Two weeks ago, a man identifying himself as Lazaro Betancourt, a high-ranking member of Castro's personal security detail, defected to the U.S. Embassy in the Dominican Republic during a visit by Castro there. A U.S. government official confirmed the event last week, adding, though, that it was not clear how high the man ranked.

For sports stars, the lure of freedom can be matched by that of money.

Joe Cubas, a Miami sports agent who has made a business of tracking and wooing Cuban ballplayers, landed a $6.6 million contract with the Yankees for "El Duque" Hernandez, and an $8 million contract with the Marlins, for Livan, whose defections he smoothed.

The Miami-based Cubas, reached in Baltimore on Friday, declined to discuss his plans for the Cuban team's visit. "I will not have or get into a discussion as to what I will do or attempt to do . . . with these players," he said.

Asked if he planned to attend the game, he said, "Yes, I will be at the game."