If Felix Savon had not already convinced you that a Cuban can throw a punch with the best of them, you must have missed Round 2 of the set-to between the Baltimore Orioles and Fidel Castro's Caribbean fiefdom.

In the fifth inning of Cuba's 12-6 ritual Bird slaughter on Monday night, an anti-Castro fan sprinted onto the field holding a sign that read, "Freedom--Strike Out Against Castro." Cuban second base umpire "Julio" Cesar Valdez took exception, to say the least.

Valdez charged, intercepted the fan in short center, lifted him over his head and body-slammed him into the grass. Anyone who has been to a goodly number of baseball games has seen this usually harmless baseball drama play itself out before.

Fan runs onto field. Fan gets wrestled to the ground by a large man in a teal T-shirt and a white hat. Fan gets dragged off the field by similarly- attired, usually even beefier men.

The other faithful add a few chuckles to their beer, the outfielders get a few minutes to congregate in center and discuss the evening's "get some" plans and the offender receives a stern warning and a slap on the wrist in the bowels of the stadium.

Of course, none of this ever gets televised. The camera shows the tarpaulin or, worse, the faces and cheap suits of the announcers, who either pretend nothing is happening or offer a moralistic diatribe about "these idiots who needlessly extend the game to unmanageable lengths."

This time was different.

Having already disabled the fan, Valdez swooped in for the kill, punching the man in the head several times before being restrained by Orioles' left fielder B.J. Surhoff.

Said Surhoff, no doubt echoing the sentiments of many in attendance, "I thought he was just going to hold him for the security people. Next thing you know, he was throwing haymakers."