By JOEY JOHNSTON
The Tampa Tribune
(c) Tampa Bay Times. Originally published Oct. 20, 2006.
The noise from Comerica Park still rang in his ears. The dream of a baseball lifetime – his first appearance in the World Series – was five days away.
Monday morning, Detroit Tigers first-year pitching coach Chuck Hernandez almost wondered if it was real.
There he was, relaxing at Aguila’s Sandwich Shop on Hillsborough Avenue, sipping café con leche with his wife, Donna, and some friends. It was a rare two-day break back home, assured when Detroit swept through the American League playoffs.
Donna looked at her husband. “Do you still feel like this is all a dream?”
Long pause.
Chuck: “Yeah.”
This is a story about good things happening to good people.
It’s about a former Tampa Catholic Crusader who always imagined making the World Series – “it was supposed to be as a pitcher, not a coach,” Hernandez said, chuckling – a guy whose playing career essentially ended when he suffered a Tony Saunders-like broken arm during his delivery in a 1984 Instructional League game.
It’s about a guy who became a big-league pitching coach at age 31. But when that job dried up, he found himself back home with the expansion Tampa Bay Devil Rays, bouncing around as the organization’s minor-league pitching coordinator, getting passed over a few times for the big-league gig before landing in the Tropicana Field dugout for two seasons.
It’s about a baseball lifer who was left hanging when Lou Piniella departed as manager. Hernandez still had a contract, but who knew what was ahead? One day, his cell phone rang. It was Jim Leyland, new skipper of the Tigers, a man he had never met, who wanted to talk about his pitching-coach job.
“And here we are, getting ready for the World Series,” said Hernandez, 45. “Can you believe it?”
Getting The Opportunity
The decision looks golden now.
It wasn’t that easy.
The Rays were good for Chuck and Donna Hernandez, who, for once, never had to move the family away from Tampa during the summer. Their sons, C.J. and Cody, had stability.
Hernandez, with the job offer from Leyland in hand, was on a family vacation at Disney’s Animal Kingdom, while he deliberated his future. The Rays hadn’t yet hired Piniella’s replacement. In a profession where managers usually hire their buddies, Leyland wanted Hernandez based on reputation alone – a rare compliment.
“We weren’t going to go back and forth with Chuck until the summer – we believe in keeping our kids in their schools – so it was going to be hard,” Donna said. “We would be separated for a few months. He asked us all what we thought. Could we make the sacrifice and make it work?
“I know Chuck’s heart. I could tell from his voice how much he wanted this. We told him to go for it. And now we’re in the World Series. I guess things have a way of working out, somehow, some way. It’s incredible, really.”
The ultimate irony: The Rays later hired Joe Maddon, one of Hernandez’s closest friends in baseball from the days when they worked in the Angels’ organization and talked about one day teaming up in the big leagues.
“It almost makes you laugh, how it all turned out,” Hernandez said.
For the best.
Television cameras focused on the Detroit dugout during a particularly critical juncture of the AL playoffs. The coaching staff was hopping around urgently. Hernandez sat and stared straight ahead, like it was spring training.
Leyland, the hyperactive chain-smoker, has heaped praise on Hernandez, the placid, cerebral man at his side. Hernandez, of course, is pleased at the approval of his boss. At the same time, he maintains perspective.
“Let’s be real here,” Hernandez said. “People keep saying I’ve done such a great job. That’s nice to hear.
“But to be honest, I’m not even the best pitching coach in my family.”
Hasn’t Changed A Bit
He’s talking about Nardi Contreras, Hernandez’s brother-in-law, now a roving pitching instructor with the Yankees, formerly a big-league pitching coach.
“He has been in the game even longer than me, and he’s so good at what he does,” Hernandez said. “But he hasn’t been in the right place at the right time like me.
“You just pinch yourself. It’s like, ‘Why me? Why am I so lucky?’ “
That statement alone tells everything you need to know about Chuck Hernandez, family man and loyal friend. Self-promoter? Not by a long shot.
He still lives in the same house, still hangs out with the same people. He wouldn’t think of big-timing anybody. In the offseason, he helped out as a junior varsity basketball coach for his son’s parochial school.
He downplays his accomplishments, but clearly, his calm exterior, plus his ability to listen and evaluate, have helped the Tigers mature into baseball’s best pitching staff.
“It’s great to be going to the World Series, but in the bigger picture, I think you need to look at how you’re blessed,” Hernandez said. “The important things have always been there. I’m in good health. I have a great family, a great wife, great kids, a great life.
“I wasn’t unhappy coaching and roving in Princeton, W.Va., seeing Seth McClung at 17, coaching him. I feel like there were good things done in Bakersfield, in Hudson Valley, N.Y., the jobs that no one will ever hear about. That’s the way it is for most people in baseball.”
That’s the way it was – and the way it is – for Chuck Hernandez.
“Whether it’s the clinching game of the playoffs or trying to win your 70th game with the Devil Rays, I don’t get any more nervous, one way or the other,” Hernandez said. “Some people get all worked up. I really don’t. You prepare, then you let the players play.”
Everything has changed. But nothing has changed, even as he lives out this dream of a lifetime. The regular guy is deservedly getting his chance to sit at baseball’s pinnacle.
