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By Frances Kerry
HAVANA, Dec 31
(Reuters) - The mother of Cuban baseball star Orlando Hernandez said on
Wednesday she felt the loss of his leaving but hoped that he would not be
returned to Cuba and could instead resume his lifelong passion: playing
baseball.
Hernandez, banned for life from the game by Cuban authorities a year ago
after being accused of planning to defect, was picked up by the U.S. Coast Guard
on Tuesday near the Bahamas on a raft with his wife Noris, fellow baseball
player Alberto Hernandez and five other defectors.
He is being held in a detention camp in Nassau. The U.S. State Department on
Wednesday held out a strong possibility it would allow Hernandez to go to the
United States from the Bahamas, giving him a chance to join major league
baseball.
Hernandez's mother, Maria Julia Pedroso, told Reuters her son left simply "because
they took away his hobby, his life,'' adding since the suspension he had been
like a "living dead.''
Hernandez, known to his fans across Cuba as "El Duque'' (the Duke) was
born virtually with a baseball in his hands and had always loved the game, she
said.
Asked how she would feel if her son was returned to Cuba, Pedroso said: "It
would be painful for me to see him returned to Cuba again, because it would mean
he couldn't achieve his goal, playing baseball.''
Hernandez is a half-brother of Livan Hernandez, a 22-year-old pitcher who
slipped away from a Cuban training squad in Mexico two years ago and shot to
fame when he helped the Florida Marlins to their World Series victory in
October.
Orlando Hernandez was suspended from the game for life in October 1996 when
he was accused of having links with a Cuban-American scout involved in
persuading Cuban players to defect.
Alberto Hernandez, who is no relation of Orlando Hernandez, was one of two
other players suspended for life at the same time and he defected with Orlando
Hernandez this week.
The scout, Juan Ignacio Hernandez Nodar, was tried and jailed in Cuba for 15
years on charges including bribery of players.
Hernandez's mother said with his suspension her son felt the way you do "when
someone takes away the thing you most cherish.''
Speaking at her small house on the outskirts of Havana, Pedroso said that
while she was sad that he had gone, she respected his decision and "we have
to face up to it.''
"I'm happy he arrived safely and is alive,'' she said.
"At the moment he will be viewed (by Cuban authorities) as a traitor
for having left the country illegally, but he has never said a word against the
system,'' she said.
Pedroso said she believed her son was the best pitcher in Cuba and added
that he could quickly return to playing since he had maintained training in the
past year.
Since his ban, Hernandez had worked as a sports trainer in a Havana
psychiatric hospital, earning about 200 pesos ($10) a month.
He has a career record of 129 wins to 47 defeats and played for the
world-conquering Cuban national team for nearly a decade before being banned.
Generous in praise of his half-brother, Orlando Hernandez told reporters in
October he still hoped the ban would be revoked. He insisted it was unfair
because while he had offers to defect from foreign scouts in the past, he always
said no.
He added that if he returned to play, he wanted it to be for Cuba. But his
chances of doing so seemed to have been definitively ended when he boarded the
raft with his wife and friends. REUTERS
18:55 12-31-97 |