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March 8, 2004

El Duque Agrees to Return to Yankees

By Ronald Blum, AP Sports Writer. Sat Mar 6.

TAMPA, Fla. - Orlando Hernandez is returning to the New York Yankees (news).

El Duque, recovering from a shoulder injury that caused him to miss last season, reached a preliminary agreement Saturday on a one-year contract that guarantees him $500,000.

The deal is subject to Hernandez passing a physical, which is scheduled for Monday. He could arrive at the Yankees' spring training camp as early as Sunday afternoon, according to his agent, Jeff Moorad.

"The chance to come back to the Yankees was an opportunity he did not want to pass up," Moorad said.

Hernandez's deal includes bonuses of $3,000 per day on the active roster, $45,000 per start and $12,500 per relief appearance.

El Duque, who made $4.1 million last year while on the Montreal Expos (news)' disabled list, had surgery May 12 to repair a small tear in his rotator cuff. It's estimated the right-hander, believed to be 38, needs two or three more months to get into shape to pitch in the major leagues.

"Billy Connors believes at the latest June," Moorad said, referring to the Yankees' vice president of player personnel.

Hernandez, if healthy, would give the Yankees additional pitching depth. Their projected rotation includes Mike Mussina, Kevin Brown, Javier Vazquez, Jose Contreras and Jon Lieber, but Contreras has been slowed by lower back stiffness and Lieber by a tight right groin.

The Yankees say both injuries are minor, and Contreras was scheduled to pitch Sunday against Boston. Lieber could get in a game by next weekend.

After defecting from Cuba, Hernandez joined the Yankees for the 1998 season and helped them to three straight World Series (news - web sites) titles and four AL pennants in five years. He was 53-38 with a 4.04 ERA in the regular season and 9-3 with a 2.51 ERA in the postseason.

New York traded him to the White Sox on Jan. 15, 2003, for right-handers Antonio Osuna and Delvis Lantigua, with the Yankees paying $2 million of Hernandez's salary. Chicago then dealt him the same day to Montreal with right-hander Rocky Biddle and outfielder Jeff Liefer for right-hander Bartolo Colon and infielder Jorge Nunez. Montreal paid Hernandez the $300,000 minimum, with Chicago picking up the other $1.8 million.

Hernandez became a free agent Dec. 20 when the Expos declined to offer him a contract. His addition raises New York's payroll to $181.4 million.

Give Me Your Hand (Dame la Mano)

Ronnie Scheib, Sun Feb 29. Variety.com

Joyous, exuberant docu, "Give Me Your Hand" is about Cuban expatriates in New Jersey and the music that sustains them: the rumba they credit with everything from curing breast cancer to maintaining erections at age 83. Latest entry in the impressive oeuvre of Dutch helmer Heddy Honigmann, who was the subject of a recent retrospective at New York's Museum of Modern Art, "Dame La Mano" builds to a half-hour musical climax that sends auds dancing out of the theater. Warm, thoughtful, well-crafted pic could attract theatrical play, particularly in Hispanic areas, before comfortably settling in for a long cable run.

As Honigmann tracks several Cuban emigrants, she effortlessly establishes an intimacy that gently but insistently leads her subjects to reveal themselves. Sixty-one-year-old Leonardo Wignall, who works alone in the bowels of a building as an operating engineer, proudly displays the ledger that lists his over-150 hours of overtime a week. He admits to an addiction to capitalism that has him buying a $250 mini-television that just sits in his drawer, unused, along with 30 pairs of dancing shoes and three gold watches.

Rafaela Valdes at 62 lithely rumbas around the kitchen preparing huge pots of food and describing her job in Cuba, hand-cutting and rolling cigars, in vivid gestures and with an infectious laugh (almost aspiring to Jayne Mansfield (news)'s inimitable squeal in "The Girl Can't Help It") as she seasons her Cuban chicken with Coca-Cola.

Some youngsters and performers have found ways to reconcile their work and their passion. Young pianist/composer Lisandro Arias finds energy in his cab driving forays into the streets of the Bronx, his music enriched by contact with blacks from other cultures who like Latin music. Felix "Pupy" Insua limbers up his 56-year-old body, soon thereafter donning a skirt to teach women the ruffled intricacies of the rumba's erotic, aggressively flounced advances and retreats.

Most older interviewees miss Cuba and the families they left behind, finding their solace, strength and apparently eternal youth only in music, specifically in the many variations of the rumba.

Every Sunday night the entire cast of characters shed their workaday existences, spiff themselves up --- the women in blond wigs and silk dresses and the men sporting two-tone shoes --- and converge on La Esquina Habanera, a restaurant and favorite gathering place for Cubans in New Jersey.

The astounding virtuosity on display, from amateurs and professionals indistinguishably, is magnificently interactive; everyone encourages everyone else to greater heights, as a dancer goes one-on-one with a drummer or carries the rhythm into the streets. As the music swells, so too does Honigmann's flawless montage in an improvisational set piece that sums up the whole film, culminating in a rendition of "Dame La Mano," pic's titular leitmotif.

Tech credits are first rate.

(DOCU - NETHERLANDS)

A VPRO/Pieter van Huystee production. Produced by van Huystee.

Directed by Heddy Honigmann. Written by Honigmann, Ester Gould. Camera (color, 24p), Gregor Meerman; editor, Mario Steenbergen; sound (Dolby), Piotr van Dijk; sound designer, Hugo Dijkstal. Reviewed at Dance on Camera Festival, New York, Jan. 23, 2004. Running time: 120 MIN.

With: Karim Novoak, David Oquendo, Tony Sequera, Rafaela Vals, Leonardo Wignall, Pedro Domench, Felix "Pupy" Insua, Lisandro A. Arias, Alex Hernandez.