HAVANA (Reuters) -- Baseball fever gripped Cuba prior to Sunday's historic and controversial return of a Major League team to the sports-loving Caribbean island for the first time in four decades.
From the backstreets of Havana to the circles of power, impassioned debate raged over the game between the Baltimore Orioles and a Cuban national team at Havana's 55,000-seat Latinoamericano stadium."I can't say who will win, but I can tell you it is going to be a great game and an incredible, carnival atmosphere in there!" said one local fan, Juan Hernandez, during a lively discussion under the tall trees of a Havana park.
The exhibition game will be the first time since shortly after Fidel Castro's Jan. 1, 1959, revolution that a Major League team has played in Cuba.
The Cincinnati Reds and the Los Angeles Dodgers played each other in Havana in March 1959 before a crowd that included gun-wielding rebels from Castro's victorious guerrilla army.
Beyond the sporting connotations, Sunday's encounter has implicitly challenged the entrenched political hostility characterizing U.S.-Cuban relations for the past 40 years.
"If this initiative should contribute substantially to the improvement of relations between the two countries, nothing would please us more," said Orioles' owner Peter Angelos as he watched the boys' playing and laughing together.
"I don't know whether it will bring any drastic results, but it's a positive step."
On the Cuban side, officials have been officially playing down the game, insisting it should not overshadow the local championship, currently in its final stages. Privately, however, they admit there is a lot of national pride at stake.
Cuba's team does not include several stars involved in the culmination of the national championship. But it still included several of Cuba's best players, including infielder Omar "The Kid" Linares, pitcher Jose Ibar, and catcher Juan Manrique.
Veteran Cuban star Conrado Marrero, 86, who played in the with for the Washington Senators in the 1950s, will pitch the first ball.
And Cuban president Castro, 72, an avid player in his youth, is expected both to meet the U.S. players and attend the game, which starts at 1 p.m. (10 a.m. MST) and will be televised live both on Cuba's state-run television and the U.S. network ESPN.