HAVANA, July 23 (Reuters) - Cuba's President Fidel Castro has condemned as ``unfair and disgusting'' what he said were organised attempts from abroad to ``rob'' the island of its top baseball players by offering them lucrative playing contracts.
``There's a whole gang, a mafia dedicated to buying baseball players from our country,'' he said in comments broadcast on Wednesday night by state television.
``In the field of baseball alone, it's a tremendous offensive,'' he added. He was addressing members of Cuba's National Assembly during a parliament session in Havana.
Castro, himself a keen baseball fan, was referring to the defections over the last few years of top Cuban baseball stars, lured to the United States by multimillion-dollar contracts.
Cuban-American sports scouts and impresarios in the United States have been involved in these initiatives to recruit top Cuban athletes, including boxers as well as baseball players.
``Nobody is unaware of what they have done with our athletes,'' the Cuban leader said, adding: ``The robbery of athletes is one of the most unfair and disgusting things that can happen to this country.''
He acknowledged that Cuba, where national sport remains amateur but is state-backed and financed, could only offer its sports stars modest rewards in contrast to nations like the United States where professionalism was well established.
One recent prominent defection from Cuba was baseball star Orlando ``El Duque'' Hernandez, who fled the island by boat in December, landing in Bahamas. He was later allowed to leave a Nassau detention centre for Costa Rica and eventually signed a $6.6 million contract with the New York Yankees.
Three Cuban baseball players and a trainer who tried to follow in the footsteps of previous defectors like Hernandez were sent back to Cuba by Bahamas in May. Cuban authorities announced they would not be allowed to leave the island.
Earlier this month, they complained of being harassed by Cuban state security officials since their May 18 repatriation.
Castro said he was not discouraged by what he called these ``miserable cases of betrayal'' because he said most Cuban sports men and women remained loyal.
He cited the example of now retired Cuban boxing legend Teofilo Stevenson, whom he said had once turned down a large money offer to turn professional in the United States.
The Cuban leader also played down the impact on the national baseball squad of some of the recent defections, saying Cuba still had players who were better than they were.
14:45 07-23-98