By Angus MacSwan
MIAMI, Oct 27 (Reuters) - In baseball's field of dreams, the amazing tale of Florida Marlins Cuban pitcher Livan Hernandez is, in his own words, "better than a dream.''
The Marlins' victory Sunday night in the World Series caps a sensational two years for the 22-year-old since he defected from Communist-ruled Cuba.
And his triumph was all more poignant as his mother was there to see it.
Granted permission Saturday by Cuban authorities to travel to the United States, Miriam Carreras arrived from Cuba just hours before Sunday's seventh and decisive game and took her place in club owner Wayne Huizenga's private box at Pro Player Stadium to watch. She had not seen Livan since his defection.
"The victory I give to her,'' Hernandez said after the game.
Mobbed by reporters as the team celebrated, he said in Spanish: "This is definitely the best day of my life. I'm very, very happy. I got to cry with my mother, talk to her a little bit, and then win a World Series. This is better than a dream.''
Last Saturday Hernandez became the youngest pitcher to win a World Series game in the Marlins' victory over the Cleveland Indians in Game 2. Sunday he was named Most Valuable Player in the Series.
U.S. Senator Connie Mack called him "an inspirational source of hope to millions of Cubans and baseball fans around the world.''
His success is especially savored by Miami's huge Cuban American community, who have embraced him as their newest hero and who mob him when he strolls through the streets.
But there is still not yet a happy ending to his tale.
Back in Cuba he is branded a traitor.
And his half-brother Orlando, who Livan says is a better pitcher than him, is currently working as a sports instructor in a Cuban psychiatric hospital. Known to Cuban baseball fans as "the Duke,'' Orlando was banned from playing baseball for life after he was accused of planning to flee too.
Hernandez defected in September 1995 while with the Cuban team in Mexico after he was approached by sports agent Joe Cubas, well known in Miami for luring away stars from Cuba. Hernandez dashed from his team's hotel in Monterey across the road to a waiting car.
In the United States, he was wooed by the Atlanta Braves and the New York Yankees but settled on Miami largely because of its Cuban community.
In Cuba, he had bicycled to the field, and on foreign trips bought ladies underwear to sell in his deprived homeland to raise extra pesos. In Florida, he has a $4.5 million deal, a luxury condominium with an ocean view, and a sports car.
But separation from loved ones clouded his life here.
"I didn't have anything and didn't know anybody,'' he told Baseball Weekly about his early days in Miami. "I arrived in this country blind. I didn't know what to do or how to go about doing it. I didn't speak the language. I missed my friends and my family most of all.''
His dream, he told the Spanish-language weekly Exito, was to bring his mother over to Miami and "build her a palace.''
He has also tried to avoid getting dragged into Cuban Miami's political fray.
"I am not political, I am not a communist, I am not anything. What importance has anything I have to say?'' he told Exito.
Asked on Sunday night if he had a message for the people he had left behind in Cuba, Hernandez said: "For those that follow me and that love me, I love them and I follow them and I support them.''
But any sadness was banished amid the joy of celebration.
"To all of Miami, I love you all, Latin American, American, everyone in Miami, I love you all,'' Livan said as he held the coveted MVP trophy aloft.
12:13 10-27-97