The thriller guy was once tall and lean and he was once smiling, without end smiling. His lifestyles had modified dramatically when he left Cuba in a fishing boat, and it was once about to switch once more. Every day featured extra adjustments, extra smiles and extra glimpses of the pitcher referred to as El Duque.
That was once the scene on a sunny spring coaching day when Orlando Hernandez first pitched in entrance of the Yankees. After fleeing Cuba at the day after Christmas in 1997, he took a deadly and circuitous path to signing a four-year, $6.6 million contract with the Yankees. Now Hernández was once in any case on a mound in Tampa in overdue March of 1998, surrounded through curious Yankees coaches and managers who had been keen to peer him pitch.
He tossed a baseball softly and expectantly, the ball snapping off his fingertips and popping into the catcher’s mitt. There was once an ease and a swagger about Hernández, a reputation that each one eyes had been on him and a realization that he adored the eye. After greater than a yr of now not enjoying baseball, he was once in any case pitching once more.
On that day in Tampa, the actual El Duque antics began when he pitched from a windup and unveiled a cool movement that was once other from any that the attendees had ever observed. His eyes regarded menacing as he held his glove in entrance of his face, nevertheless it was once his limber and acrobatic leg kick that made him so unique. He lifted his left leg and it climbed upper and better, his knee virtually brushing his chin, after which he peered to the aspect earlier than reconnecting with the objective and powering ahead to fireplace a pitch. It was once athletic. It was once balletic. It was once stunning.
“He showed up for this bullpen session in Tampa and he just had this presence about him like he was Michael Jordan,” stated General Manager Brian Cashman. “There was something projecting from him, a presence that you could feel. It was greatness. He wasn’t cocky, but there was something about him.”
Hernández did not have a single major league inning on his résumé, but Cashman saw a similar ultracompetitive nature between the pitcher and Jordan.
“I feel like when you’re around successful people, they emit an aura about them,” Cashman stated. “And, before El Duque knew what he could do around here, he was emitting that aura. He had a presence.”
Cashman wasn’t alone in instantly noticing Hernández’s presence, his confidence and his talents. He was so excited to pitch again, so excited to be a Yankee and, honestly, was probably excited to show off. He had been the king of the mound in Cuba, a baseball-obsessed country where he had a gaudy 129-47 record for Havana’s Industriales, 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 daring and proud and focused and captivating. While working on my book “The 1998 Yankees: The Inside Story of the Greatest Baseball Team Ever,” there were constant reminders that Hernández was the most fascinating player on that historic team. I devoted a chapter to him and called it “International Man of Mystery” because he made an already great team even more imposing, because he was a very savvy and gutsy pitcher and because he was a joy to observe.
“Couldn’t prevent looking at him,” said David Cone, another Yankees pitcher known for his creativity. “Wanted to peer what he did subsequent.”
How could El Duque pitch so effectively with a leg kick that would make a Rockette proud? How many arm angles did he use? How many pitches did he throw? The questions hovered over Hernández, and he answered them all emphatically while going 12-4 with a 3.13 earned run average. Then he won the Yankees’ most important game of the season in Game 4 of the American League Championship Series.
He was immune to pressure.
“I do not believe any one has written the appropriate film script for this man,” 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. That’s just a movie waiting to happen. It was unbelievable.
Covering Hernández in 1998 was highly entertaining, a delightful show every time he stared at a batter. He was just different. Even the way he prepared for games was different. Before he picked up a baseball, he would do wind sprints, leg kicks and calisthenics in the outfield, making other pitchers look like weekend warriors.
Most pitchers don’t speak to reporters before starts, but Hernandez was chatty. Before his fifth start, he casually told reporters that Fidel Castro, the Cuban leader and a man he reviled, would very likely watch him pitch against the Mets, and he added, “He is aware of the whole thing.” After talking and talking, Hernández proceeded to throw 141 pitches across eight innings. And he wanted to keep pitching.
“In Cuba, you do not need a reduction pitcher each and every day out,” Hernandez said. “In Cuba, it is win or die.”
The teammate with the best perspective on Hernández was Posada, who was as headstrong as the pitcher he caught. Of Hernández’s 23 starts in the regular season and postseason in 1998, Posada caught 21 of them. All these years later, he searched for the optimal way to describe El Duque.
“He was once simply perfection,” Posada said. “He was so—well, perfection is a word, but I’m not sure it’s the word I’m looking for. He wasn’t nervous. He went through hell and now he’s living his childhood dream. He was just saying: ‘I’m here. This is the best time of my life and I’m not going to take anything for granted. Yeah, I guess perfection is the word I wanted to use.”
In the emotional and feisty Posada, the Yankees had the perfect catcher to maintain Hernandez. Posada revered Hernández and felt an instantaneous kinship with him as a result of Posada’s father had additionally defected from Cuba in 1968.
“I told him all about my Dad and, of course, it brought us closer,” Posada stated.
Hernández known as Posada “a brother for me then and a brother for me today,” they usually had been a part of an overly tight-knit Yankees’ staff. After a tumultuous 1-4 get started by which Manager Joe Torre and Cashman questioned about their task safety, the Yankees cruised thru an idyllic season. stress? What stress? The Yankees saved successful, so there was once little rigidity. Until Game 4 of the ALCS they trailed the Indians two video games to 1 in a best-of-seven sequence.
“It was really the first time all year that we were worried,” stated outfielder Paul O’Neill.
Enter El Duque, an unflappable pitcher who handled the pressure-packed recreation the similar as some other get started. On the morning of Game 4, Torre was once consuming breakfast within the resort eating place when he spotted a well-recognized determine cleansing plates and silverware from tables to lend a hand the overtaxed body of workers. That helper was once Hernández, who was once as carefree as a glass may well be.
“He wasn’t afraid of a thing,” stated Derek Jeter. “And, if you think about it, he was the perfect guy for that game.”
Since Hernández had now not pitched in 15 days, it was once necessary for him to navigate throughout the first inning and in finding the texture for his pitches. But a unmarried and a stroll put two runners on base for Jim Thome, who had blasted two homers in Game 3. And Thome virtually went deep once more as he drove Hernandez’s changeup to proper box, however O’Neill stuck it in entrance of the fence. for the 3rd out. The Yankees exhaled. Then the sport become the El Duque Show as he pitched seven scoreless innings in a 4–0 win.
It isn’t hyperbole to mention that Hernandez stored the Yankees. Had the Yankees faltered, they might were one loss clear of removal, and the stress would were insufferable. The incessant query would were: Could the staff that gained 114 common season video games flop? With all that the Yankees had achieved, that may were a disaster they’d now not confronted all season. Instead, El Duque guided the Yankees.
“I had stress,” Hernandez said. “But I had no worry.”
El Duque gave the Yankees a lot more than the only win that tied the sequence. In the relieved clubhouse, it was once glaring that Hernández had additionally given the Yankees their swagger again. For 48 annoying hours, the Yankees had been an uncomfortable bunch who questioned if their exceptional journey was once about to finish. It did not. It did not as a result of El Duque, essentially the most compelling persona in my e book and essentially the most attention-grabbing participant at the largest staff ever.
Jack Curry’s new e book, “The 1998 Yankees: The Inside Story of the Greatest Baseball Team Ever,” was once launched on May 2.