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Vinas Happy To Leave Cuba Behind
Don Wade
March 09, 2000
JUPITER, Fla. -- Fernando Vina tells the story in broad strokes. He says that his mother and father, Olga and Andres Vina, left Cuba for the United States in 1969, or thereabouts.
He can be forgiven if he's a little hazy on some of the details. For at the time in question, Fernando was just beginning to take form. He was still smaller than the fielder's glove he now wears to play second base for his new team, the St. Louis Cardinals.
His mother was six weeks pregnant. And she remembers leaving Cuba exactly: Aug. 13, 1968. Liberation Day.
"I never forget, no," she says. "We had a visa to come but because of the Bay of Pigs (in 1961), we got stuck there. Once they know you have decided to leave the country, they make you quit your job. You have to go to work on the farms."
Fernando, of course, knows this story. His father, he says, had to work in the sugar cane fields for seven years.
"The Cuban police come and put me in a truck with a whole bunch of people," Andres says through a thick accent, telling you how he was always cutting his hand on the machete.
Fernando tells you that his mother and father coming to the United States was "rough." He says they had "just a few suitcases."
Those suitcases carried their dreams for their children, but little else. The Vinas left behind blood, sweat, tears and most of their possessions.
"They kept my house, my car, my TV," Andres says, and he is actually laughing about the Cuban government's take because, now that they live in a new home bought by their millionaire son, life is good.
"We were lucky we didn't have that much."
Really, all they had was each other. That, and their hope. So the Vinas, including Fernando's older brother and sister, flew to America, flew into the unknown.
"It was sad to have to turn my back on my mama," says Olga.
It was, as Fernando put it, rough -- more than a little rough.
The Vinas didn't speak the language. They didn't know how they would make a living. They just knew this was the chance they had to take.
Those seven years Andres spent swinging the machete in the sugar cane fields, the family prayed for its assigned number to be called: 105,243, another detail the mother can never forget.
"He won the lottery," the father says of his baseball-playing son. "And he don't know."
Fernando Vina is 30 years old now. He has been in the majors since 1993. His career is established.
In 1998, Vina was a National League All-Star for the Milwaukee Brewers when he batted .311 with 39 doubles, seven triples, seven home runs, 45 RBI, and 22 stolen bases.
These are the numbers of his life, numbers that determine how many millions of dollars he will be paid, not if or when he will be allowed to chase his dreams.
That lottery from so many years ago keeps paying off.
"Fernando say he is half-and-half: made in Cuba, born in the United States," says Andres, laughing.
If Fernando does not recall all of what his mother and father went through, he does understand that his life could have ended up much differently.
So does his older brother, Jorge, a lefthanded pitcher who quit the game in junior college. Jorge, 36, now works for Sacramento County in California, where the family settled, and he looks at his little brother's success and says, "At least somebody in the family made it, you know?
"If we were still there we wouldn't have anything. We have to work for it (in this country), but there you can work for it and still not have anything."
Yet, in an entirely different context, you can say Fernando has had to work for it in baseball. He struggled as a rookie with the Seattle Mariners. In the field, his footwork was tangled. On the bases, he made mistakes no one could outrun.
He spent the '94 season with the New York Mets, came to the Brewers in '95, and at this time last year the buzz was that Milwaukee and St. Louis were going to make a deal.
But after the Cardinal starting rotation was devastated by injuries, the club had nothing to trade. Vina remained a Brewer, then endured a lost injury-plagued season batting just .266 in 37 games.
After the season, the Cardinals and Brewers finally got together, with pitcher Juan Acevedo the key part of the trade for Milwaukee.
Ideally Vina, who bats left-handed, will do two things for a Cardinal club that figures to contend for the N.L. Central title:
Give them a dependable leadoff hitter and improve the infield defense.
"Delino DeShields was out-standing at the top of the order," Cardinals manager Tony La Russa says, recalling his leadoff man from the 1997-98 seasons. "If Fernando plays to that level, we're in tremendous shape."
Last season, the Cardinals never found the right fit at the top of the order. Nor did they have a true second baseman, just a bunch of guys who could play there, did play there.
"There were times when double plays weren't turned and probably should have been," says pitcher Kent Bottenfield.
Andres, 62, who played semi-pro baseball in Cuba, taught Jorge and Fernando all he could, but he was first concerned with keeping everyone clothed, fed, and finding a way to pay for baseball basics: like the glove he never had.
Fernando's father worked 27 years as a maintenance man for College Town Apartments in Sacramento.
His mother, who was a school teacher in Cuba, worked 18 years at a factory, and now works at the apartment complex.
The Vinas became as much a part of that community as their own neighborhood. And everyone knew little Fernando -- still just 5-9 and 170 pounds. Some even called him "Rickey" in honor of his base-stealing talents at a time when Rickey Henderson starred for the Oakland A's.
This summer, Fernando will play his baseball for the Cardinals. And, back home, his father will be watching.
"To tell you the truth, that's about all he does now -- follow Fernando," Jorge says. "He bought a satellite dish, gets all the games, and he can sit in front of the TV all day and not worry about anything else."
This TV, the government's not taking away.
Total Sports, Inc.
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