SANTA CLARA, Cuba -- Junior Olympics phenom Michael Jova dreamed of the American big leagues when he and other baseball players climbed aboard a boat headed for Florida two months ago.

This week he got a trip home instead. The 17-year-old star shortstop is uncertain whether Communist officials will ever let him play baseball again.

``They have not told me yet what I will be able to do,'' the tall, muscular teenager said Tuesday in his home in the central city of Santa Clara. ``My mother is dead and my father cannot support me. I don't know if I will be able to work.''

Jova, two other baseball players and a coach were among a group of 65 Cubans the Bahamas deported Monday, in the first deportation since December.

Hundreds of refugees flee Cuba by raft or boat every year -- either because they oppose or fear the Communist government or want better economic opportunities. Nearby countries including the United States are increasingly cooperating with Cuba, however, in repatriating boat people, rather than granting the automatic political asylum of the past.

Lured by the prospect of big-dollar contracts, the baseball players have much to lose by being repatriated. Pitcher Orlando ``El Duque'' Hernandez signed a $6.6 million contract with the New York Yankees after he defected to the Bahamas in December and was granted asylum by Costa Rica.

Exile groups say the players also face persecution. The Cuban government refers to athletes who leave the island as traitors and mercenaries.

The Bahamian government said it could no longer afford to house a growing refugee population. George Stewart, director-general of foreign affairs, said the Bahamas would not be used ``as a stop-off place for players wishing to leave Cuba.''

The players were being recruited by Florida-based sports agent Joe Cubas and a rival agency, KDN Sports Inc., but neither had yet found a country that would take them.

Requests for political asylum were denied after the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees determined they were not persecuted in Cuba.

``Actually, the officials have acted well with me since I came back,'' Jova said. ``They really cannot do much to me because I am still a boy. But it may prove to be harder for the others.''

The others -- catcher Angel Lopez, 25, second baseman Jorge Diaz, 23, and pitching coach Orlando Chinea, 41 -- avoided reporters.

Jova and the other three, along with first baseman Jorge Luis Toca, 23, fled Cuba by boat in March and were rescued by a Bahamian fishing crew. Toca, married to a Japanese citizen, was granted a Japanese visa.

Jova still has not forgotten his dream of the big leagues.

``If given the chance, I would do it again,'' he said.