El Duque's no-brainer

Orlando Hernandez -- various- ly known as brother of the World Series's most valuable player, Livan Hernandez, as Cuba's best baseball pitcher, and as El Duque (The Duke) -- has spurned a U.S. offer of political asylum.

A difficult decision? You decide. Mr. Hernandez could a) come to the United States with his girlfriend and a fellow ball player, but not with the five others who shared the raft escaping from Cuba; he also could participate in baseball's draft and get stuck with whatever major-league team picked him.

Or, he could b) go with all his friends to Costa Rica, where the entire group was offered asylum. From there, as a free agent, he'd be positioned to negotiate a multimillion-dollar contract with any team, including his brother's Florida Marlins. Option b, you would have to say, is the grand slam.

We should not begrudge Mr. Hernandez his good fortune. He was, after all, harassed by the Cuban government, banned from ever playing baseball there along with catcher and fellow rafter Alberto Hernandez (no relation) and shortstop German Mesa. This came in a rash of reprisals after a number of prominent players defected. Orlando Hernandez also took heat since Livan Hernandez, his half-brother, defected in 1995 and rose to stardom pitching for the Marlins. No doubt working as a physical therapist for $10 a month hurts when you're one of baseball's finest.

What saddens, however, is that so many Cubans equally oppressed in their jobs and lives never have the option of choosing between asylum offers. Some 70 other Cuban rafters who, like El Duque and his party, were recently picked up in the Bahamas still await their fate in a Nassau detention center. The Bahamas, which has an agreement with Cuba, repatriated some 120 rafters last year.

Alas, this is the heartache that Fidel Castro wreaks by holding 11 million hostages. In 1995, in response to a rafter crisis, the United States began repatriating Cubans who were intercepted by the Coast Guard at sea. The Herald supported this policy as the best among bad options. To do otherwise would be to encourage rafters to risk death, while Castro could threaten to open the human floodgates at whim. The United States offers 20,000 entry visas to Cubans yearly through its Interests Section in Havana, not on the open seas.

To its credit, the United States still grants rafters entry under exceptional circumstances. Such was the case with rafters who were stranded on Dog Rocks, a desolate Bahamian islet, in May. Several had in 1994 requested political asylum from the Belgian ambassador in Havana. Though they later obtained U.S. visas, Cuba denied their exit. After their ordeal, which claimed three lives, they were granted humanitarian U.S. visas. They didn't have to play baseball.