The mysterious man was tall and slender and was always smiling. His life changed dramatically when he left Cuba on a fishing boat, and he was about to change again. Each day featured more changes, more smiles, and more glimpses of the pitcher known as El Duque.
Such was the scene on a sunny day in spring training when Orlando Hernandez pitched for the first time against the Yankees. After fleeing Cuba the day after Christmas in 1997, he took the dangerous and circuitous route of signing a four-year, $6.6 million contract with the Yankees. Now Hernandez was finally on the mound in Tampa in late March 1998, surrounded by nosy Yankees coaches and executives who were excited to see him play.
He threw a baseball softly and confidently, and the ball snapped out of his fingertips and appeared in the catcher’s glove. There was a sense of comfort and vanity about Hernandez, the realization that all eyes were on him, the realization that he loved the attention. After more than a year of not playing baseball, he finally got into the game again.
That day in Tampa, El Duque’s real antics began when he pulled off an accident and unveiled an unorthodox move that was unlike any the attendees had ever seen. His eyes seemed menacing as he held his gauntlet in front of his face, but it was his nimble kick and acrobatic leg kick that made him so special. He raised his left leg and it rose higher and higher, his knee nearly brushing his chin, then peered to the side before reconnecting with the target and stepping forward to launch the pitch. She was athletic. She was a dancer. It was awesome.
“He showed up at this bullpen session in Tampa and had this presence about him like he was Michael Jordan,” said general manager Brian Cashman. “There was something projecting about him, a presence you could feel. It was grandeur. He wasn’t cocky, but there was just something about him.”
Hernandez didn’t have a single major league on his resume, but Cashman saw a similar super competitive nature between pitcher and Jordan.
“I feel like when you’re around successful people, they give off an aura about them,” Cashman said. “And before El Duque knew what he could do here, he was emitting that aura. He had a presence.”
Cashman wasn’t alone in immediately noticing Hernandez’s presence, confidence and talent. He was so excited to be on display again, so excited to be a Yankee, and honestly, he might as well have been excited to show off. He was the king of the mound in Cuba, a baseball-obsessed country where he had an impressive 129-47 record for the Havana Industries, who are Cuba’s version of the Yankees.
As I watched El Duque, on and off the field, I eventually realized there was no one like him. He was bold, proud, focused and captivating. while working on my book In “1998 Yankees: The Inside Story of Baseball’s Greatest Team Ever,” there were constant reminders that Hernandez was the most formidable player on this historic team. I dedicated a chapter to him and called him “The International Mystery Man” because he made an already great team even stronger, because he was a very smart and daring pitcher and because he was a pleasure to observe.
“I couldn’t stop watching it,” said David Kuhn, another Yankees player known for his creativity. “He wanted to see what he did next.”
How can El Duque play so effectively with a leg kick that would make Rocket proud? How many arm angles did he use? How many pitches did he throw? Questions flew over Hernandez, and he answered them all emphatically while going 12-4 with a 3.13 earned run average. Then he won the most important game for the Yankees of the season in Game 4 of the American League Championship Series.
He was immune to pressure.
“I don’t think anyone has written the right movie script for this guy,” said catcher Jorge Posada. “There’s no way to really tell his story and what he had to go through to get here and pitch for the Yankees. This is just a movie waiting to happen. It was incredible.”
Hernandez’s coverage in 1998 was very entertaining, a fun show every time he was stared at. It was completely different. Even the way he prepared for the matches was different. Before he picked up baseball, he would wind sprints, leg kicks, and gymnastics exercises in the outfield, making other pitchers look like weekend warriors.
Most pitchers don’t talk to reporters before starting, but Hernandez was very talkative. Before his fifth start, he casually told reporters that Fidel Castro, the Cuban leader and the man he idolizes, would very likely watch him play against the Mets, and added, “He knows it all.” After speaking and speaking, Hernandez proceeded to throw 141 pitches across eight innings. And he wanted to keep promoting.
“In Cuba, you don’t have a relief pitcher every time,” said Hernandez. “In Cuba, it’s win or die.”
The teammate with the best perspective on Hernandez was Posada, who was as tenacious as the pitcher who caught him. Of Lernandez’s 23 regular season and postseason starts in 1998, Posada caught 21 of them. After all these years, he searched for the perfect way to describe El Duque.
“It was just perfect,” Posada said. He was—well, perfect is a word, but I’m not sure it’s the word I’m looking for. He wasn’t uptight. He’s been through hell and now he’s living his childhood dream. He’d just say, ‘Here I am.’ This is the best time of my life and I will not take anything for granted. Yeah, I think perfect is the word I wanted to use.”
In an emotional and feisty Posada, the Yankees had the perfect catcher to tackle Hernandez. Posada respected Hernandez and felt a direct kinship with him because Posada’s father had also defected from Cuba in 1968.
“I told him everything about my dad, and of course he brought us closer,” said Posada.
Hernandez described Posada as “a brother to me then and a brother to me today,” and they were part of a tight-knit Yankees team. After a tumultuous 1–4 start in which manager Joe Torre and Cashman questioned job security, the Yankees embarked on an idyll season. pressure? what pressure? The Yankees kept winning, so there was a little bit of tension. Until Game 4 of the ALCS they trailed the Indians two games to one in a best-of-seven series.
“It was the first time we’ve been concerned all year,” said outfielder Paul O’Neal.
Get into El Duque, the unburst pitcher who handled the pressured game like no other starter. On the morning of Game 4, Torre is eating breakfast in the hotel restaurant when he notices a familiar figure cleaning plates and silverware from tables to help the overworked staff. That assistant was Hernandez, who was as relieved as a pitcher.
“He wasn’t afraid of anything,” said Derek Jeter. “And if you think about it, he was the perfect man for that match.”
Since Hernández hadn’t played in 15 days, it was important for him to move around during the first half and find feel for his courts. But one pass and a walk put two runners on base for Jim Thom, who blasted two homers in Game Three and Thom almost went deep again when he drove Hernandez’s changeup to right field, but O’Neal caught it against the fence for the third out. Yankees exhaled. The game then became the El Duque Show as he pitched seven scoreless innings in a 4-0 win.
It’s no exaggeration to say that Hernandez saved the Yankees. Had the Yankees faltered, they would have been one loss away from elimination, and the pressure would have been unbearable. The constant question was: Can a team that has won 114 regular season games fail? With all that the Yankees have accomplished, this could have been a crisis they haven’t faced all season. Instead, El Duque directed the Yankees.
“I had pressure,” Hernandez said. “But I had no fear.”
El Duque gave the Yankees more than one win to tie the series. In the comfortable clubhouse, Hernandez was clearly putting the Yankees back on the show. For 48 tense hours, the Yankees were an uncomfortable bunch and wondered if their remarkable journey was about to end. you did not. It didn’t happen because of El Duque, the most compelling character in my book and the most awesome guy on the greatest team ever.
new jack carrey book, “The 1998 Yankees: The Inside Story of the Great Baseball Team Ever”, He was released on May 2.
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