ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, July 29, 1996 TAG: 9607290101
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: ATLANTA
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK STAFF WRITER
THE UNITED STATES rallies late, but falls to powerful Cuba 10-8 in an Olympic baseball preliminary game.
For a while on Sunday afternoon at Atlanta Fulton County Stadium, it might have taken the ballpark's regular inhabitants to beat Cuba.
Then, a bunch of college kids almost did it.
In the land of the free and the home of the Braves, Fidel Castro's country again proved it has the best team in international baseball.
In a battle of Olympic unbeatens, Cuba jumped out to a 10-2 lead, then held off the Americans 10-8 before a capacity crowd of 51,223.
If the teams from unfriendly neighboring nations meet again in Friday night's gold-medal game, Virginia right-hander Seth Greisinger figures to be on the mound for the Americans.
"The thing is,'' Greisinger said, "they know they're good, and they are.''
His assignment would be to beat a club that has won 126 or 140 in a row in international play, depending on who's counting.
World Baseball magazine, the official publication of the Olympics-sanctioning International Baseball Association, says the streak is 140.
Whatever, the only one longer and more impressive belongs to Cal Ripken Jr.
"When you play baseball in Cuba, there is always pressure,'' said Cuban coach Jorge Fuentes. "It is a passion.''
In one of the few political passion plays left in the Olympics, Cuba just kept swinging, then showed how the loss of defected pitchers can lead to defective pitching. Cuba has a 6.84 ERA in the Olympics.
If the U.S. ever ends the trade embargo against its socialist neighbor, Bill Clinton should ask Castro for some hitters, not cigars.
"They're aggressive hitters,'' said Greisinger, who pitched well in his one start, a no-decision, against Cuba in the pre-Olympics exhibition series. "They love to swing.''
Cuba may keep losing in one arms race to the U.S. - Rolando Arrojo was the most recent pitcher to defect, just before the Atlanta Games - but the islanders are talented at the plate.
In six Olympic games, Cuba is averaging more than two runs per inning and has 23 homers. The team batting average is .418. Fuentes' lineup Sunday had only two batters below .368.
Arrojo, Livan Hernandez and Osvaldo Fernandez figured to be at the top of Fuentes' starting rotation for these Games. Instead, Hernandez is at Class AAA Charlotte, Fernandez is with the San Francisco Giants and Arrojo is waiting for major-league bidders after his defection last month.
The U.S. has won six of its past nine exhibitions against Cuba, and the Cubans struggled to win three of five in the pre-Atlanta series. What's that matter?
When it counts, the U.S. hasn't beaten Cuba in a recognized international tournament since Aug. 15, 1987, a 6-4 Pan American Games victory in Indianapolis.
However, the late rally gave the U.S. some confidence. "We know we can play with them,'' Greisinger said. "We've played them so many times we're not awed by them.''
What the U.S. can't afford is to get into a hitting contest with the Cubans. It was no surprise that Sunday's game was reflective of a tournament played in the "Launching Pad'' with metal bats.
Entering Sunday night's Nicaragua-Australia contest, the eight Olympic teams had combined to average 16.9 runs per game - and more than a few games have been halted early with lopsided scoreboards.
Seven Billy Koch pitches into the game, Cuba led 4-0 on back-to-back, one-out homers by Luis Ulacia and Omar Linares, who is considered the world's best amateur player but at 28 is running out of time if he's ever going to leave home for big bucks.
The New York Yankees offered the third baseman more than a $1 million bonus to sign last summer. He refused.
Warren Morris, who keeps batting ninth and keeps slugging momentous homers - as he did to win the College World Series last month for Louisiana State - ripped one in the bottom of the fifth to trim Cuba's lead to 4-2. He hit another in the eighth.
Between those blasts, however, shortstop Miguel Caldes sent a three-run, no-doubter into the left-field seats in the sixth. It gave Cuba a 7-2 lead and sucked most of the emotion from a flag-waving, "USA, USA'' chanting crowd.
"This is not a Dream Team, but a good team,'' Fuentes said. "The U.S., Japan and Koreans are at about the same level. There's not a 30-point difference, like in basketball.''
Maybe that's only because once it reaches the seventh inning in the Olympics, there's a 10-run slaughter rule.
Meanwhile, besides Cuba (6-0) and the U.S. (5-1), the only .500 club in the eight-team Olympic pool is Nicaragua, which Cuba meets today. The last qualifying round foe for the U.S. is the Netherlands, on Tuesday morning. The Americans probably will play Nicaragua in one medal-round semifinal Thursday.
The U.S. didn't win a medal four years ago in Barcelona, losing to eventual champion Cuba, and then to Japan for the bronze medal. The Americans would love to win a gold, but they want something else, too.
"We'd really like to play them again,'' Greisinger said.
LENGTH: Medium: 99 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. United States pitcher Billy Koch fires the ballby CNBtoward the plate during the baseball game against Cuba on Sunday
afternoon.