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Vina Gets Work Ethic From Devoted Family
By Drew Olson of the Journal Sentinel Staff
April 29, 1998
The abrasion on Fernando Vina's right arm begins near the elbow and traces a broken purple path that ends a few inches away from the wrist.
The gash on his right knee, closed by three stitches less than 24 hours earlier, is covered by a gauze bandage soon to become a sweaty, gooey mess.
As he got ready for a game Tuesday night against Los Angeles, Vina didn't even seem to notice the painful souvenirs he acquired during a home-plate collision the previous evening.
After singling to right field and then stealing second in the top of the 13th inning, Vina dashed in to score on Jeromy Burnitz's two-out base hit. The reward for his 180-foot sprint was the winning run in what became a 3-2 victory over Los Angeles.
The cost was a bone-crunching collision with Dodgers catcher Tom Prince, who spiked Vina in the leg.
"He got me pretty good," Vina said. "But I had to do it. I had to make sure I got in there."
Vina could have taken a safer, easier approach and tried to score in the conventional, feet-first manner. In fact, Brewers manager Phil Garner would have preferred it that way.
"It always scares me when guys go into home plate like that," Garner said. "Maybe Fernando was a little afraid to slide because he broke his ankle last year. I don't know, but it makes me nervous to see that."
As he barreled toward the plate, Vina wasn't thinking about his leg. He wasn't thinking about taking the easy way out, because he never does.
That's not the way his father taught him to play the game or live his life.
Andres Vina is a short, trim man heading into his middle 60s. Raised in poverty in Cuba, he spent part of the strife-torn 1960s trying to get to the United States.
"After the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis, I got my papers in the embassy and they said I couldn't leave," Andres Vina said, apologizing for his thick accent.
"From 1961 to 1968, I was working the sugar cane and they didn't pay me one penny."
Andres Vina didn't give up. When the paperwork finally cleared in 1968, he and his wife, Olga, packed up their toddlers -- Jorge and Ana -- and headed to the U.S. There, they were to meet Andres' brother, who had fled Cuba in 1961 and -- after spending two years with relatives in Spain -- had settled in Sacramento, Calif.
Olga didn't know it at the time, but she was three weeks pregnant with her final child, Fernando.
"I had to give away everything before we left," Andres Vina said. "It was tough. We didn't have anything. We came to America and found out she was pregnant three weeks. She told me, 'It's all your fault. It's all your fault.' "
With help from his brother, Andres got a job working at a lumber company. "They paid me $1.70 an hour," he said. "It was tough."
A short time later, he got a job at California State University-Sacramento, working as a maintenance man at the university-owned apartment complex. His starting salary was supposed to be $5.35 an hour, but a supervisor kicked it up to $6.35. For a family of five, the money didn't go far.
"Sometimes I got the check to pay the rent. Sometimes, I got the check to buy the food," said Andres Vina, who is still working at the apartments after 26 years. "It wasn't easy."
Andres Vina, a semi-professional baseball player in Cuba, passed his love of the game to his sons. Jorge, who at 34 is a year older than Ana (33) and five years older than Fernando (29), was a promising left-handed pitcher who gave up the game at the junior college level.
"He was good," Fernando said of Jorge, who now works for Sacramento County. "He could have played at a university, but he got frustrated. He started working with my dad. He started making some money. He just shut it down. But he could have been good."
Jorge won awards throughout his childhood and Fernando followed.
"I've got a movie, an 8-millimeter, and Fernando is just 2 years old, hitting the ball from the left side," Andres said, laughing.
"You could see that he was going to be a good player.
"When Fernando was in tee-ball, they called him 'Non-stop.' He hit the ball to the outfield, they'd throw the ball to second base and miss and he'd keep going. All the time. Home run."
Though he didn't coach his son's teams, Andres Vina spent as much free time as he could spare teaching them the game.
"He was always really involved," Fernando said. "We just grew up with the game. He hauled me around to different games and tournaments and, when there wasn't a game, he always took me out by myself and hit grounders to me or pitched to me. He'd always be around, doing things. It made us a close family."
Despite his work schedule, Andres Vina almost never missed one of his son's games. When the boys needed a new piece of equipment, he did what he could.
"Fernando would always say, 'I need this,' and I would tell him that we didn't have the money and he'd have to wait for the check," Andres recalled, laughing. "I ended up with bad credit for about six months."
Fernando understood. "I tried not to ask for much, because I knew my parents came over here (to the U.S.) with nothing and had to raise us kids. I could see the situation. If I couldn't get something, my dad would get it for me. Put it on Visa or whatever he needed to do.
"I really appreciated that. It meant everything to me."
When Fernando signed a three-year contract extension worth nearly $5 million last season, the thing that made him happiest was that he could finally take care of his parents' financial needs.
"He's a very good boy," Andres said. "He remembers the tough times. I used to buy everything. Now, he pays for it." Fernando was a standout at Valley High in Sacramento and went on to play at Sacramento City College. "He won so many awards there, they used to tell me to bring a wheelbarrow to pick them up," Andres recalls.
Fernando was drafted in the late rounds by the New York Yankees in 1988 but decided to play at Arizona State.
"I figured that was the best move for me," he said, "because some big-time scouts would get to see me."
While playing at ASU did help him on the field, it also represented a big adjustment. For the first time, Vina was separated from his family.
"I thought about going home a bunch of times," he said. "I was homesick, big time. My parents had always been there for me.
"I look back now and I know I grew up a lot that year. If you haven't left home when you're young, you don't know what it's like. People can say it's no big deal. But it is."
Near the end of his stint at ASU, Fernando's girlfriend, Brandy, became pregnant. He also was drafted by the Mets in the ninth round of the 1990 draft. His son, Jordan, was born just before Fernando left for his first minor-league camp. Fernando and Brandy never married, but they remain cordial, and Fernando helps to raise Jordan, who is now 7.
"I want to be involved," said Fernando, who lives with Jordan for much of the winter and during selected home stands in the summer. "I know it's important for him to have a father. I want to be there for him."
Jordan Vina has definitely picked up the family baseball genes. Before the Brewers' games in San Francisco last weekend, he dressed in a full uniform -- complete with spikes and wrist wraps -- and played catch with his father.
So far this season, Vina has been one of the Brewers' best players. He's batting .336 at the top of the lineup and is playing his usual solid defense.
Undoubtedly, one of the big reasons for his development has been his dedication.
When you shake Vina's hand, you can feel the rough calluses near the base of his fingers. Those calluses were formed during the hours he spends practicing hitting. Most days, he arrives at the ballpark before many of his teammates are done eating lunch.
Though his work ethic seems remarkable, particularly in this era of the pampered superstar, Vina considers himself blessed.
"What I have to do to be a ballplayer is nothing compared to what my family went through," Vina said. "My parents came over with nothing and built a life and raised a family. That was tough."
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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