If El Duque Could See Him Now

Cuba is 90 miles from Miami. In a restaurant at the Havana airport, Orlando Hernandez works as a cook. He pitched for Cuba’s national baseball team for a while. “El Duque,” his friends knew him as then. The Duke.

Every so often, El Duque gets a long-distance call. It comes from Eisler Livan Hernandez, his rich baby brother, who is 22. Livan--pronounced “la-VON”--can afford to call, but has to be careful. He and his brother have worked out a system. Calling home to Cuba isn’t easy for Livan, being a defector.

Livan is in Miami, livin’ large. He owns a Ferrari, a Mercedes and a truck. He got a fat contract, to pitch for the Florida Marlin baseball team. He also got fat, from not being able to spot a Burger King drive-thru window without driving through. Orlando was left in Cuba, cooking. Livan was here in Florida, eating.

What happened to him Sunday was something out of Livan’s wildest dreams. Secret dreams, dreams he had to keep to himself, until he could cross the 90 miles that felt like 9,000.

On the phone, he would try to convey to his brother what it felt like, standing on a mound in Miami in front of 51,982 people, pitching against the great American team, the Atlanta Braves, and striking out 15 of them, giving up three hits, winning Game 5 of the National League championship series, putting a Florida team within one victory of the World Series.

Wait until El Duque heard about the ninth inning.

Fans in the stands, stomping. Keith Lockhart, batting for the Braves, looking at a tantalizing 73-mph curve ball, fouling off one clocked at 75, swinging and missing at a 77, outta there on three pitches.

In stepped Chipper Jones. Swing and a miss. A weak foul to the right side. A ball, then, outside, Livan’s first non-strike of the inning. He delivered again, and Chipper ripped it, a line shot. The 6-foot-2 Livan stuck out his glove and stabbed the ball, shoulder high. The crowd went crazy.

Two out. Fred McGriff, last chance for the Braves. Alone and tired stood Livan, 140 pitches under his belt, the numeral “32” on his cap, in tribute to Alex Fernandez, a teammate felled by injury. Livan’s own number was 61. Had there ever been a famous 61, in any American sport? Roger Maris’ home run total, but otherwise, off-hand, no.

A radar gun registered the first pitch at a slow 72, hardly faster than Little Leaguers throw. McGriff took it. Eric Gregg, the umpire, called it a strike.

Then came fastballs, at speeds up to 92. Hernandez thought he had McGriff on a checked swing, but the third-base umpire, Charlie Williams, said no to an appeal. Livan shook off his catcher, Charles Johnson, twice, before firing a fastball that McGriff fouled back. The next pitch was high. Three balls, two strikes.

Livan then spun one high and outside, as he had all day. McGriff let it go by. Johnson had to extend his mitt to catch it, and was in the process of returning the ball to his pitcher, when Gregg shouted out, “Steee-rike three!”

Atlanta had lost, 2-1. Pumping his fist, Livan strode toward home plate, to slap Johnson’s bare hand and get a hug. The whole club mobbed him. A stadium loudspeaker blared the pitcher’s theme song, an old Elton John recording. “Le-VON!” went the lyric, referring to someone else. “He shall be a good man!” Or perhaps not so good to John, who has a home in Atlanta and is a fan of the Braves.

Livan wasn’t even supposed to pitch. He was not in Florida’s rotation for this series. Rich Donnelly, the third-base coach, contacted Atlanta Manager Bobby Cox at noon Sunday, to inform him that Kevin Brown was still ill, meaning the Hernandez kid would have to go instead.

Back in Cuba, everyone Livan knows is a Marlin fan now. Family members wear teal caps, with the “F” emblem and the fish.

Ever since Sept. 27, 1995, when news came that Hernandez had bolted in Monterrey, Mexico, from a Cuban team in training for a tournament, his people waited to hear from Livan, or about him. Did he choose a team? (Yes, the Marlins, over his next choices, the Braves and New York Yankees.) Did he lose the 30 pounds he gained? (Yes.) Is he married? (No.)

“When people arrive in this country, they arrive blind,” he says. “They do not know what they are getting themselves into. They do not know what there is, and I did not know exactly what to do.”

He became a conspicuous consumer, of new cars and junk food.

“I am eating soups now, which I never did. I am eating salads now, which I never liked.”

And he misses his brother.

“We talk by telephone. That is all I can say.”

If only his brother could see him pitch in a World Series. If only 90 miles didn’t seem so far away.