Cuban Faced With Toughest Decision

The irony of the dilemma would make Luis Alvarez laugh if it weren’t so agonizing.

For the first time since he defected from Cuba nearly two years ago, Alvarez might have his best chance to wear a major league uniform. He could become a replacement player--and only the second Cuban defector to play in the big leagues--if the baseball strike continues through spring training and beyond.

Alvarez, a left-handed first baseman/outfielder who played with an independent minor league team last season after a brief stint at Mission College, said the Dodgers and two other clubs have shown interest in him as a minor-league player. That, in turn, could lead to a spot as a replacement player.

But to Alvarez, 25, this is the toughest decision of his baseball life.

“This is a difficult problem,” Alvarez said. “I’d have to think it over thoroughly.”

Under different circumstances, it would have been reason to toast with Cuba Libres . After all, that’s what prompted him to leave his homeland, to follow a dream denied to Cuban ballplayers controlled by the island’s rigid stance against professionalism in sports.

These aren’t normal conditions, however.

With no end in sight for baseball’s labor strife, major league teams are scrambling to identify prospective candidates to fill their rosters. Most of the replacement force will come from retired or released major leaguers, minor leaguers under contract and semi-pro players.

Alvarez, 6 feet 3 and 220 pounds, batted .356 with 19 doubles in 160 at-bats last season for the St. Paul Saints of the Northern League. The Saints were Alvarez’s most viable professional alternative after he was ignored by major-league clubs in last June’s amateur draft. He says some clubs questioned his age.

“They told me they didn’t draft me because of my age,” said Alvarez, who was traded to the Duluth-Superior Dukes of the Northern League in the off-season. “Before, I was too old to play but now it’s OK, I guess.”

The Dodgers, who gave Alvarez a private tryout last year, said they are interested in Alvarez for their minor-league system and not as a replacement player.

“Our interest would be as a minor-league player,” said Terry Reynolds, the Dodgers’ scouting director. “We have not gotten to the point of extending any kind of offer.”

To sign him, a major league team must buy Alvarez from the Dukes, who hold the option year of his Northern League contract. That could be arranged, but Alvarez most likely will have to work out his own deal to become a replacement player.

The Major League Baseball Players Assn. has threatened agents with decertification if they represent replacement players. Total Sports International, the Beverly Hills-based agency that represents Alvarez and virtually every other Cuban defector, is not eager to test the union.

“I don’t know an agent who is prepared to do that,” said Steve Schneider, a partner in the agency. The road to the major leagues was supposed to be smoother, or so Alvarez thought. He had heard about St. Louis Cardinal right-hander Rene Arocha, who walked away from the Cuban national team during a stopover in Miami in 1991 and reached the majors after only one season in triple A. He also knew other Cuban players who had defected after Arocha and were playing in the minors.

The more feedback he received back home about the first defectors, the more he wanted to take the plunge at the first opportunity. That came in July, 1993, when he traveled with a Cuban team to Curacao for a tournament. Soon after arriving, Alvarez and pitcher Osvaldo Fernandez flew the coup. But getting out of the small West Indies island about 60 miles north of Venezuela was another matter.

The two were stuck in Curacao for four months until they stowed away on a cruise ship to Puerto Rico and were granted political asylum. They arrived in the Valley and played a few games at Mission last season before deciding to look into professional opportunities in Latin America that never materialized. Alvarez had six hits in 11 at-bats, including two home runs, at Mission.

Last summer, the left-handed Fernandez was drafted by Seattle and pitched at Riverside of the Class-A California League. Alvarez waited by the phone for a call that never came. He joined St. Paul toward the end of the season.

Now, under the proposed parameters for replacement players set unilaterally by the team owners, he could earn a $115,000 prorated salary and $20,000 in termination pay if the strike ends during the season.

That’s a whole lot more than Alvarez earns as a delivery driver for a Valley auto parts store to help pay the rent on the North Hollywood apartment he shares with Osmani Estrada, another Cuban defector and an infielder in the Texas Rangers’ system.

Still, Alvarez has mixed feelings about becoming a replacement player.

“I have to wait until they call again and see,” Alvarez said. “Maybe this thing lasts a whole year and maybe it’s only 15 or 20 days and then what are you going to do? . . . If I play, I would be hated by the (major leaguer) players. But from a ballplayer’s standpoint, I came here to play baseball. I’d like to be with a major league organization.”