Orlando ``El Duque'' Hernandez, the half-brother of Marlins pitcher and World Series MVP Livan Hernandez and a pitching sensation in his own right, fled from Cuba and requested political asylum in the Bahamas on Tuesday, several sources in Miami told The Herald.

Livan Hernandez, who signed a $4.5 million contract with the Marlins in January 1996, was playing golf at La Gorce Country Club on Tuesday when he heard the news.

``I knew nothing about it. I'm so happy I can't tell you,'' Livan said. ``They took away his job in Cuba and now he can chase his dream here. He'll be able to play baseball. The Marlins need to sign him. I want to pitch on the same team with him.''

``El Duque,'' whose age has been reported variously as 28 and over 30, was Cuba's best starting pitcher before the 1996 Olympic Games at Atlanta. However, because Livan defected in 1995, Cuban sports authorities removed Orlando from the team that eventually won the gold medal after beating Japan in the final game of the tournament.

The authorities' explanation was that Orlando had an elbow injury, but Livan and other sources on the team disputed that. Cuban authorities later banned Orlando from sports for life.

El Duque and seven others -- including the catcher for Cuba's 1996 Olympic team, Alberto Hernandez (not related to Orlando or Livan); Orlando's wife, Noris Bosch; Orlando's cousin, Joel Pedroso; and four people not immediately identified -- were spotted on Anguilla Cay near Cay Sal at 3:12 p.m. Sunday. They apparently arrived there by raft.

``One of our Coast Guard helicopters spotted them [Sunday] and we picked them up on the morning of the 29th,'' Petty Officer Bryan Oditt said Tuesday. ``We transferred them over to the Bahamas at about noontime today.''

Oditt said the group was brought to Nassau instead of South Florida, which would have been closer, because the area where they were picked up is in Bahamian territory. The Coast Guard patrols the area to help Bahamian authorities.

As soon as news of the defection spread, several baseball agents in Miami contacted the authorities in Washington and Nassau to help the Cubans gain political asylum and eventual entry to the United States.

``We have to put pressure right away, because if we don't, they'll be sent right back to Cuba,'' said Joe Cubas, the agent who helped Livan defect in Mexico in September 1995. ``The people from the [Cuban American National] Foundation are already interceding.''

The Bahamas has an agreement with Cuba to return Cuban rafters, but under the terms of that treaty Hernandez and the others would first be interviewed to determine if they qualify to remain in the Bahamas as political refugees.

Appealing to authorities

Ninoska Perez Castellon, a director of the Cuban American National Foundation, said her organization is appealing to federal authorities to facilitate the ballplayers' entry to the United States.

``I don't think their problem will be hard to solve,'' she said, ``because even if the government doesn't give them a [humanitarian] visa, whichever ball team hires them will negotiate'' a work visa -- granted in cases where an individual has exceptional skills in a trade or profession.

That would seem to apply at least to El Duque and Alberto Hernandez, who would be serious Major League Baseball prospects. Stars of the Cuban team considered the best Olympic team in the world, both have been languishing on the island since the arrest in Cuba of Miami exile Jose Hernandez Nodar. Hernandez Nodar, Joe Cubas' cousin, was tried and found guilty of conspiracy to assist in the defection of athletes from the island. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

The government implicated the ballplayers in the affair and ordered them banned from all sports activities.

At refugee camp

According to a telephone conversation between Orlando Hernandez and Perez Castellon, the Cubans arrived in Nassau Tuesday morning. Perez quoted Hernandez as saying the refugees were being held at the Carmichael Road refugee camp.

Carlton Wright, a spokesman for the Bahamian Immigration Ministry, declined to speculate on Hernandez's fate.

Early Tuesday evening, State Department officials appeared unaware of the situation. A Washington official who spoke on condition of anonymity said the U.S. Embassy in Nassau had not received any communication from Hernandez and knew nothing about his arrival in the Bahamas. But a source close to the defection who asked not to be identified told The Herald that American immigration officials had already interviewed Orlando in Nassau on Tuesday and will likely grant him parole today -- permitting him to come to the United States and plead his case.

Repatriation accord

That could be a big break for Hernandez. The prospects are not as certain if he remains in the Bahamas. In January 1997, the governments of Cuba and the Bahamas signed an immigration accord that provided for the forcible repatriation of Cuban refugees entering the Bahamas illegally.

But once in the Bahamas, officials from the United Nations agency for refugees interview each refugee to determine who has a valid case for political asylum. Those who do may remain legally in the Bahamas.

According to agent Cubas, the ballplayers could sign a contract with a major-league team after they establish legal residence in a third country. That was the procedure followed in the cases of Livan Hernandez and Osvaldo Fernandez, who settled in the Dominican Republic before signing with the Marlins and the San Francisco Giants, respectively.

Cubas left for Nassau Tuesday night to deal with the matter in person.

Herald staff writer Maria Morales contributed to this report.