By Dave Sheinin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 30, 1999; Page D3

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla., March 29 – When the Baltimore Orioles announced they were going to Cuba, catcher Julio Vinas made his choice. When the club said anyone who objected did not have to go, Vinas kept quiet. But when Cuban dictator Fidel Castro came around to address the Orioles before Sunday's historic game, Vinas, a Cuban-American whose parents fled the island in the 1950s, stood well to the side.

And today, when the Orioles reassigned Vinas to their minor league camp, he wondered why they couldn't have done it a day earlier.

"That would have made my decision easier," he said. "I wouldn't have had to make a decision at all."

Vinas, 26, spoke about the trip today as he packed his bags for Sarasota, where he will report to the minor league camp on Wednesday. He said the trip affected him more than he thought it would, more than he would have liked.

"Definitely, when I got there, I wished I wasn't there," he said. "It was more than I thought it would be."

When the Orioles first announced the trip to Cuba on March 7, Vinas spoke with his parents, who left Cuba just as Castro was coming to power and who now live in Miami. Having grown up in a Cuban household and in heavily Cuban Miami, Vinas was well aware of the intense anti-Castro feelings shared by south Florida's exile community.

"I had to do what I had to do," Vinas said. "The team was going there to play, so I had to go with them. If I was a big-name player with a big contract, I could do what I want. But I'm not."

Although Vinas said his parents did not have a problem with him making the trip to their homeland, when Vinas called his parents again after he returned to Florida they asked no questions, not even inquiring about what their son had seen during the brief, 36-hour tour.

"They would rather remember Cuba as it was," Vinas said. "They even asked me not to take any pictures. . . . But I'm glad I got to see what they saw. At least I know where my family is from."