Cardinals’ Morris Is Out for Season

Matt Morris, expected to be the ace of the St. Louis Cardinal pitching staff, will sit out the entire season because of an elbow injury that requires surgery.

Morris, 24, was 7-5 with a team-leading 2.53 ERA last season, missing all but one start in the first half because of shoulder surgery. He was bothered by arm stiffness this spring, threw two scoreless innings against Kansas City in his first start, then felt pain.

He returned to St. Louis for an MRI and was examined Sunday in Los Angeles by Dr. Frank Jobe, who pioneered elbow ligament transplants in 1974.

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Paul Wilson, who hasn’t pitched a major league game for the New York Mets since reconstructive shoulder surgery in November 1996, needs reconstructive elbow surgery and will miss this season and possibly a significant part of next year.

Wilson, a right-hander who turns 26 next week, was the top pick in the 1994 amateur draft. He partially tore the medial collateral ligament in his right elbow Friday while warming up for his first spring start for triple-A Norfolk.

He pitched anyway, giving up six runs and eight hits in three innings, but the pain didn’t go away the following day and he informed team officials.

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Rep. Bob Menendez wrote Monday to each player on the Baltimore Orioles urging that they not play exhibition games against Cuba’s national team.

“At a time when the Cuban regime is struggling to retain control and when the Cuban people are risking their welfare and personal freedom to be heard, it is not the time to play ball with Cuba,” the New Jersey Democrat wrote.

The Orioles are to play in Havana on Sunday, and the Cubans are to play a return game at Camden Yards in Baltimore on May 3.

Menendez, a Cuban-American and the fourth-ranking Democrat in the House, has criticized the baseball series since it was proposed in January.

ESPN will televise the game starting at 9 a.m. PST.

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California Gov. Gray Davis will throw out the ceremonial first pitch of the baseball season April 4 before the San Diego Padres play the Colorado Rockies at Monterrey, Mexico.