By Bob Elliott, Toronto Sun, Tuesday, March 30, 1999
FORT LAUDERDALE, FLA. -- Back from a time-warp trip to Cuba, the island where time stands still, the Baltimore Orioles returned to the daily business of spring training.
The immediate task was a game against the St. Louis Cardinals, sans Mark McGwire.
After defeating St. Louis 7-6 yesterday, the Orioles sent Julio Vinas, a catcher of Cuban descent, on another trip, demoting him to Triple-A Rochester.
He was with the Orioles in Havana during the weekend, and he didn't like it. Vinas made sure he wasn't in the Baltimore dugout when Cuban leader Fidel Castro walked across the field to wish manager Ray Miller good luck Sunday, before the Orioles defeated a Cuban all-star team 3-2 in 11 innings in an exhibition game.
"I was as far away as possible -- the bullpen, I made sure of that," Vinas said.
At Sunday night's reception at the presidential palace, while players and executives lined up to meet and pose with Castro, Vinas was "as low key as possible."
"I was a shadow, all of a sudden I got a stomach ache and headed to the bathroom for 10 minutes," Vinas said with steely eyes. He did not meet Castro.
Commissioner Bud Selig has been knocked in some quarters for sitting alongside Castro at the game.
Meanwhile, Juan Guzman, a native of the Dominican Republic, had been the Orioles' scheduled starter on Sunday but was excused from the trip. He lives in the Doral area of Miami, populated by Cuban exiles opposed to Castro's regime and the Orioles' trip.
"It was fine for Guzman -- he had the team made," Vinas said. "I went because I had to and thought the game would mean a lot to kids. Hopefully, Cubans who live in Florida can visit Cuba and people who live there will get food.
"I didn't want to give anything to Fidel Castro. Some people on the island like him, some people don't."
Vinas, whose father, Umberto, trained thoroughbreds at Hialeah and Gulfstream, said it was sad to drive into Havana and see the decay. The bad news for Cubans in south Florida is that, according to Tony Bernazard of the Major League Baseball Players' Association, plans have begun for a trip for next year. Three teams have shown interest.
Yesterday morning at the cramped Jose Marti airport in Havana, baseball executives, musicians and actor Woody Harrelson rubbed shoulders. Leaving after a Sunday concert were Jimmy Buffett, the Indigo Girls, Peter Buck of REM, Mick Fleetwood and Bonnie Raitt.
"Baseball affords you the chance to meet interesting people, this trip we met Fidel Castro and Bonnie Raitt," Montreal general manager Jim Beattie said.
It's a 39-minute flight from Havana to Miami, although the two cities are light years apart.
"There aren't any neon signs for fast-food places and not a billboard advertisement to be seen," Atlanta Braves president Stan Kasten said.
The island still hasn't discovered Diet Coke. At the El Florideta in Old Havana, where Ernest Hemingway hung out, an order of cerveza, agua and Diet Coke, saw a waiter return with a beer, bottled water and a daiquiri.
Some 20 km from Havana, in Cojimar, is the man on whom Hemingway based The Old Man and the Sea. The Man is 101 years old and charges $1 US a minute for interviews.
The Orioles and the Cuban all-stars will meet again on May 3 -- this time at Baltimore's Camden Yards.
The Cuban team will have added standouts Antonio Pacheco, German Mesa and Orestes Kindalen. Baltimore best not wait until extra innings.
In Sunday's game, major-league scouts were impressed with Cuban right-hander Jose Contreras, who threw eight runless, two-hit innings with 10 strikeouts, and third baseman Omar Linares, whose two-out, eighth-inning single off Baltimore closer Mike Timlin tied the game.
"For me," Linares said, "that moment was the game. I had been waiting all my life for that chance."
Five years ago, on a visit to Cuba, we sat and talked with Linares poolside in Camaguey. The two-hour talk ranged from baseball, to our countries to our children.
The next day outfielder Victor "El Loco" Mesa screamed at me in a hotel lobby. "What is your real mandate for coming to our island?" he demanded. "How many children do you have? How much money do you make?"
Walking through the Cuban dugout that night I was grabbed by the arm. Thinking it was Mesa, slowly I turned to see Linares.
He handed me an autographed ball, saying "por el nino" (for your son).
Copyright © 1999, Canoe Limited Partnership.