Growing up with his older brother Arnaldo Jr. in a small home was not ideal for the future pitching great. There wasn\u2019t much schooling in his childhood, but El Duque certainly learned the game of baseball. He was clearly an intelligent kid, as he developed and perfected a complex pitching motion while also adding a potent arsenal of pitches. Once his reputation spread, it did not take too long for El Duque to be added to the perennial powerhouse Cuban national baseball team.<\/p>\n
El Duque won his first gold medal at age 22 with the victorious 1988 Baseball World Cup squad and gradually added several more golds in numerous competitions over the next seven years, highlighted by the Cuban national team winning the gold medal in baseball at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona. As if that weren\u2019t enough, El Duque was also prominent on the most successful Cuban league baseball team, the Havana Industriales. He was a star there too, as he was the team\u2019s ace while also getting to play with his brothers Arnaldo and Livan.<\/p>\n
Photograph of young Orlando \u2018El Duque\u2019 Hernandez about to deliver a pitch during a Cuban winter league, Havana, Cuba, circa 1995. (Photo by Transcendental Graphics\/Getty Images) Getty Images<\/p>\n Tragically, Orlando only had one season with Arnaldo, who passed away suddenly in 1994 as a result of a cerebral hemorrhage. El Duque\u2019s life was further complicated when Livan defected from the Cuban national team late in 1995. As a result of his association with Livan, El Duque was suspended from Cuban ball, left off the \u201896 Olympic roster, and eventually banned entirely from the Cuban National Series. With nowhere to play, El Duque now basically had just one choice–defect himself or never play organized ball again. After watching Livan triumph in 1997 with the Marlins while winning both the NLCS and World Series MVP, it removed any doubt<\/a> as to El Duque\u2019s future plans.<\/p>\n Through the assistance of some shady dealings with his agent, Joe Cubas, El Duque defected from Cuba two months after the World Series and eventually was granted residency in Costa Rica. Now free to negotiate with any team, the Yankees and newly-christened general manager Brian Cashman came calling. Following negotiations, El Duque and the Yankees agreed on a four-year, $6.6 million contract, one of the best free agent contracts of all-time<\/a>. The Yankees sure received some incredible value from that deal.<\/p>\n On a pure value basis, few contracts have been better than the comparatively measly $6.6 million invested in El Duque back in 1998. Minor leaguers could do nothing with the 32-year-old rookie\u2019s repertoire, and when David Cone had to miss a start due to a bite on the finger from his mother\u2019s Jack Russell terrier, he got his shot. El Duque pitched so effectively that the Yankees couldn\u2019t remove him from the rotation, and he recorded a 3.13 ERA, 3.53 FIP, and 131 strikeouts in 21 starts during his first season.<\/p>\n Although the \u201898 Yankees romped to 114 victories, they trailed the ALCS two games to one to the defending AL champs, and they were forced to ask El Duque to come up big for them in Game 4 at Jacobs Field in Cleveland. He did just that, twirling seven innings of shutout ball, the first of seven consecutive victories that the Yankees notched against Cleveland and San Diego, never losing another game en route to the World Series title.<\/p>\n El Duque was a fascinating addition to the rotation, dazzling hitters but also mystifying his manager and his teammates. On the day of that fateful Game 4, Joe Torre thought that he might be nervous, but in fact, El Duque was not at all afraid of the spotlight. Torre found him at a local Cleveland restaurant, pretending to serve dishes and humoring the patrons. On many occasions though, he bickered with his catcher, Jorge Posada, on his pitch selection, and once even cursed at Luis Sojo when Sojo asked him to stand during the National Anthem. Then, there were the times when he would absolutely baffle his teammates, like when he called all his infielders into the mound and said nothing, unless one counts stomping on the mound a few times as saying something.<\/p>\n Despite El Duque\u2019s idiosyncrasies, he remained a steady presence in their rotation throughout the three-peat from 1998 through 2000. He was a fine pitcher in the regular season, but he seemed to be even better when the spotlight of the playoffs was on. The big start in Cleveland was just the beginning of his postseason excellence. The Padres had no answer for him in the World Series that year, nor did the Rangers in his Division Series start the next season. He dominated the Red Sox in the \u201899 taking home ALCS MVP honors with 15 innings of 1.80 ERA ball, then outpitched Hall of Famer Greg Maddux in his World Series opener start against the Braves.<\/p>\n El Duque wasn\u2019t quite as overpowering in the 2000 playoffs, but the Yankees still won in four of the five games he made an appearance. Those three years cemented El Duque as a Yankees cult hero.<\/p>\n The \u201801 campaign was a rockier one for El Duque, as a bad toe sprain kept him off the mound for several months and he struggled when he actually did make starts. He shook it off to pitch well in two of his three starts that postseason, most notably when he kept the Yankees in the game against Curt Schilling in Game 4 of the World Series<\/a>, a contest they famously won thanks to late homer heroics from Tino Martinez and Derek Jeter.<\/p>\n![\"Photograph](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/gettyimages-595456550.jpg\"\/)
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