Throwing Cuban players a lifeline

Uh, make that written a book and sold a movie. The print version of Cubas' life has passed before the eyes of editors at a half-dozen publishing houses, and the first volley in the bidding war is expected at any moment. Meanwhile, in Hollywood, Antonio Banderas already has signed to play Cubas, and Cuba Gooding Jr. would play El Duque in a motion picture that could begin filming before the end of the year.

Dressed in dark slacks and a white button-up shirt, his slicked-back hair and neatly trimmed beard streaked with gray, Cubas, 37, looks every bit the power-breakfast type.

The Cubans have long referred to Cubas as el gordo, "the fat man," but that's a misnomer. Cubas is stocky but solid, not soft. When he fixes his sharp brown eyes on you and argues his points with conviction, it's easy to sympathize with the many major league general managers Cubas has tangled with at the negotiating table.

Yet for all the accolades he has earned and the respect he has won ("You've got to give him a lot of credit," says Al Avila, the Cuban-born director of Latin American operations for the Marlins), Cubas is surprisingly thin-skinned when it comes to slights, perceived or otherwise. I had to wait nearly a week for my audience with Cubas, but when we meet he tells me I'll get only an hour of his time. Unhappy with the line of questioning, Cubas cuts that to 45 minutes. Calls for follow-up interviews go unanswered.

Yet I am lucky. Although Cubas says Iglesias once was a close family friend, he hasn't spoken to him since Livan Hernandez switched agents.

And it goes without saying that whatever controversy he has engendered has, in Cubas' mind, always been the other guy's fault. Some agents have complained about Cubas' dealings with foreign governments. Others, such as Dominguez, claim Cubas' aggressive tactics put the players and their families at grave rise

Cubas angrily denies such charges. "Has there ever been one instance of a life being jeopardized?" he says. What's the first question. The answer is no. Second of all, of the (players), has any of those not made it? Has there been a snag? Has there been a problem? No."

Still, it's true that Cubas' most recent big-league client escaped Cuba in a raft, as did four other players who followed weeks later. And during their time at sea, the lives of those players were very much in jeopardy.

But competing agents aren't the only ones angry at Cubas.

The Blue Jays still are smarting over how he handled the negotiations for Fernandez. "Some of the guidelines that were told to us," G.M. Gord Ash says, "in the end weren't exactly how it unfolded."

The Dominican Republic, which once quietly welcomed those fleeing Cuba, recently signed an agreement with the Castro government pledging to repatriate refugees after Cubas based two high-profile training camps for defectors there. The Baharman government, which has traditionally paid little mind to its repatriation treaty with Cuba, cleaned out the Carmichael Road Detention Center shortly after Cubas' visit caused a riot there in March, and Costa Rica, which warmly welcomed a Cubas entourage as recently as January, refused the agent's request for help with another group of defectors in March.