Roberto Hernández (relief pitcher)
| Roberto Hernández | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Pitcher | |||
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Born: November 11, 1964 Santurce, Puerto Rico |
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| MLB debut | |||
| September 2, 1991, for the Chicago White Sox | |||
| Last MLB appearance | |||
| September 25, 2007, for the Los Angeles Dodgers | |||
| MLB statistics | |||
| Games pitched | 1,010 | ||
| Win–loss record | 67–71 | ||
| Earned run average | 3.45 | ||
| Strikeouts | 945 | ||
| Saves | 326 | ||
| Teams | |||
| Career highlights and awards | |||
Roberto Manuel Hernández Rodríguez (born November 11, 1964) is a former Major League Baseball right-handed relief pitcher. His best seasons came with the Chicago White Sox and the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in the 1990s. In all, he pitched for 10 different teams over 17 seasons.
Roberto Manuel Hernandez was born November 11, 1964 in Puerto Rico. His father moved his family to the Dominican Republic where his father was from. At age 2, his family moved again to New York City. He went to Chelsea Vocational School in New York City where he played baseball for three years. During his junior year of high school, he and his brother were forced to drop out due to the fact that is mother was sick and his father was laid off at his job. He assisted his family for a year then was offered a scholarship at a private school called The New Hampton School in New Hampshire where he repeated his junior year and completed his senior year of high school there while continuing to play baseball.
In the fall of 1984 he attended the University of Connecticut (UConn) to play baseball and was named the starter catcher of the baseball team in spring of 1985. Following the 1985 college season, he played in a summer league in Virginia. He was the only catcher on the team but he desired to pitch. The coach told him once they found another catcher he would get the opportunity to pitch. Once the team finally found a catcher he was given the chance to pitch. In his first start, he pitched against a team from Madison and struck out 14 batters. He then pitched against the University of North Carolina, East Carolina University and finally against Elon but wouldn’t pitch again and caught mostly every game the rest of the summer.
He wanted to return to UConn in the fall of 1985 and pitch. However, he had difficulty contacting the coach during the summer. Hernandez then made the decision to transfer. He hoped to attend the University of South Carolina –Columbia but he couldn’t get a letter of consent and would’ve been forced to sit out a season if he did attend there. Sitting out a season would hurt his chances of being drafted the following year. Larry Carr, the pitching coach at Coastal Carolina University, had seen Hernandez pitch and called the pitching coach at the University of South Carolina-Aiken (USCA) and told him to offer Hernandez a scholarship.
In the fall of 1985 Hernandez attended USCA without ever visiting the school in the hope that he could pitch there during the 1986 season and get drafted. He hurt his arm pitching in the fall and would undergo surgery to remove bone chips from his elbow. Once he recovered from surgery, he pitched well in the spring. Every time he began warming up for a game he would notice that 10-15 scouts would be watching him with a radar gun. Hernandez’s success in the 1986 season put little known USCA on the map for professional scouts. USCA would later refurbish and rename their baseball field after him. His son, Roberto Jr, currently attends USCA and is a member of the baseball team.
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