“We had to tell these guys, ‘Do you know who that guy is?’ ” mentioned Randy Knorr, a longtime Nationals coach and minor league supervisor — and a teammate of Hernandez’s way back.
Who that man is: dwelling, respiration, Washington Nationals history. This franchise has received a World Series, nevertheless it’s nonetheless a child by baseball requirements. The 2022 season that begins subsequent week will probably be simply the 18th for the Nationals. The New York Yankees have 27 World Series titles. A toddler born through the Nats’ first season hasn’t even graduated from highschool.
“I remember Opening Day like yesterday,” Hernandez mentioned. “So nice. And I get stopped like three times. I remember driving my Ferrari to the stadium. They stop and put the [police] dog inside the car.”
President George W. Bush threw out the ceremonial first pitch that evening, so the additional safety was warranted. But after the pomp and circumstance, Hernandez plied his commerce. He pitched into the ninth, and the Nats beat the Arizona Diamondbacks. He turned an all-star that summer time, over which he casually threw 246⅓ innings, a quantity not touched by any Nats pitcher since. Not Jordan Zimmermann. Not Max Scherzer. Not Stephen Strasburg.
“That was the best year for me in baseball,” he mentioned.
Really? At 22, this man was a World Series MVP for the Florida Marlins. In 2002, he reached the World Series once more with the San Francisco Giants. But 2005 in Washington — that was totally different.
“That year is crazy,” Hernandez mentioned. “The whole stadium is packed. The stadium is different. It’s old. It’s all around you. You don’t see a stadium now like that.
“Just a lot of memories there. And we do good in the first half.”
I’ve typed variations of the next sentence extra occasions than I can depend, and it’s nonetheless gorgeous. The 2005 Washington Nationals have been 50-31 over the primary half of the season, on a 100-win tempo. They got here house 31-50, a most weird path to a .500 end that was good for final within the National League East. For a city that went 33 summers with out baseball, it was fairly a return.
“That was amazing,” Hernandez mentioned.
The listing of the largest heroes in Nationals history will without end embody Howie Kendrick and Anthony Rendon, who homered within the seventh inning of Game 7 of the 2019 World Series to propel a comeback in opposition to the Houston Astros. It will without end embody Strasburg, Scherzer and Patrick Corbin, the beginning pitchers who one way or the other lined 89⅔ of the Nats’ 151 innings over that wild October trip.
But it additionally has to incorporate the gamers who got here earlier than them. Ryan Zimmerman’s retirement over the winter was a step on this course of. He’s the one National who straddles all of the eras: first season again at RFK, 100-loss slogs, breakthrough to the playoffs, heartache again and again, after which the title. Retiring Zimmerman’s No. 11, which the Nats will do in June, will additional root these former gamers as items of the franchise’s history.
“I thought they would retire mine,” Hernandez mentioned with a smile. It was unclear whether or not he was joking.
Midway by way of the 2006 season, the Nationals traded Hernandez to Arizona for a pair of pitching prospects — Garrett Mock and Matt Chico. It’s precisely the type of transfer these Nationals may make this summer time, as a result of restocking the farm system was an organizational objective then, simply because it is now. Those trades are a part of baseball enterprise. They are virtually at all times jarring to the people.
“It’s difficult,” Hernandez informed me by telephone the day of the commerce. “I think I was going to stay here. … I’m [ticked] off because it’s something I did not expect.”
He preferred dwelling in Washington, the place he and his teammates went to Wizards video games, the place they took in Mike Tyson’s final struggle at what was then MCI Center. He returned as a free agent for 2010 and 2011, and now he’s again once more, serving to out nonetheless he can. He is 47 and appears trimmer than in his taking part in days. But he is not spending time telling tales about his glory days, about how he would float a curveball up there at 60-something mph after which sneak an 85-mph fastball previous a hitter. He’ll go away that to others.
“He threw everything that he could possibly throw at you,” mentioned Nationals Manager Dave Martinez, who confronted Hernandez 19 occasions, getting six hits and strolling twice. “But the thing about him is, and what we’re trying to teach our guys, is he threw strikes. He attacked you with strikes. He hit his corners and everything. And he worked up and down [in the strike zone], which we’re trying to do.”
There is nothing Hernandez doesn’t find out about gripping and spinning a baseball. But that’s not his major operate as a trainer.
“You throw 98, 99, 97,” Hernandez mentioned. “They’ve got the stuff. But the stuff has got to come with this,” and he pointed to his head. “If you don’t have this, you have no chance. It’s 85 percent here.” His finger tapped his head once more.
There’s a number of baseball knowledge in that mind. He is sharing it with the younger Nationals. He runs a youth baseball academy in Miami as properly. He doesn’t miss the sport, as a result of he is across the sport.
“I [am] not teaching the way I pitch, because I pitched my way,” Hernandez mentioned. “I don’t like to teach that. Everybody got their own way to pitch. Different mechanics. There’s only one Mike Trout. There’s only one Juan Soto. A lot of people want to be like them, but you got to be yourself.”
Livan Hernandez was and is at all times himself. That he’s sharing that with present and future Nationals is good. They must know who he is and what he was as a result of he’s a part of the group’s history, which can solely get deeper and richer with yearly.
