One Tough Butterfly
Hero. Idol. Yoda. Kids growing up in Canada tried to mimic his sidearm toss, but the legend of four-time Blue Jay Tony Fernandez brought hope to the Dominican Republic, where it grows still
It was 7 a.m. and I was sitting in an Uber staring out the window on my way to Pearson Airport. The sun was creeping out along the earth’s crust, splashing light into Toronto’s sky. My girlfriend had her eyes closed. I was wide awake. We staggered to Terminal 3 in a morning daze, luggage slogging its way behind us, as we navigated around tired travellers. Coffee in one hand, luggage handle in the other.
In a few short hours, we would be on a plane to the Dominican Republic, a small piece of land that produces the greatest baseball players in the world. Players such as Juan Soto, Fernando Tatis Jr., Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and the number one prospect in baseball, Wander Franco, have all played on dusty diamonds in the Dominican. They have caught the attention of North American scouts and signed international contracts as teenagers. And eventually they will pass the torch to a new generation of Dominican kids, just as the torch was passed down to them. The Dominican baseball flame always burns from the island’s past to its present, with stars Vladimir Guerrero Sr., Julio Franco, Sammy Sosa, Manny Ramirez, David Ortiz, Albert Pujols, Jose Bautista, Edwin Encarnacion and others serving as inspiration to young kids who dream of leaving the island to play in a big city in America.
Once we landed, I could feel it. Baseball was in the air. I was wearing my Montreal Expos cap and most of the people who worked at the Punta Cana International Airport looked at me, smiled and said, “Vladdy Sr.” Our cab driver talked to me about baseball. He loved Guerrero. He was a fan of the Expos. I stared out the window at the undeveloped land and abandoned construction projects along the road while I listened to him talk enthusiastically talk about the game.
I woke up early the next morning and went down to the bar to get an Americano. I sipped it on the terrace and looked out at the cerulean sea and watched the surf kiss the shore. A younger man came up to me and introduced himself as “MiniMe.” He told me that he ran the salsa classes, organized the beach volleyball games and the horseshoe tournaments. MiniMe, who never mentioned his real name, said he was working his way through university and studying to be a lawyer. He, too, noticed my Expos cap.
He told me he used to be a shortstop and played with Tatis. He once dreamed of getting scouted and signing an international contract. We talked about Vlad Jr., Vlad Sr., and Bautista and his legendary bat flip. He said baseball was the only way out for most Dominican kids and once that dream becomes washed up, they end up working on resorts or finding any job they can to help out at home. He told me that most kids can’t afford a baseball glove.
He strode me through his thoughts. He talked about Soto. Ramirez. Ortiz. Pujols.
Then he paused, peered into my eyes and said, “But there is nobody better than number one.”
He smacked his hands together.
“Nobody better than Tony Fernandez!”
“Number 1.”
It was June 5, 1989. The first game at the SkyDome. Fans lined up to watch their Blue Jays host the Milwaukee Brewers in the new state-of-the-art stadium that looked like a cumulus cloud. The roof was open and the iconic CN Tower was seen from a whole new perspective. First pitch was scheduled for 7:35 p.m. Bars were busy and pints were poured as people sat on stools across the city — across the nation — and witnessed history.
Tony Fernandez stood along the third-base line with the rest of his teammates for the pregame ceremony. He looked around the sold-out stadium, arms serenely crossed, a peaceful look on his face. It had been a long road for Tony, from those dusty diamonds of the Dominican to this new pristine, sparkling turf in Canada. It had been a long road since April 24, 1979, the day Epy Guerrero, the Blue Jays’ co-ordinator of Latin American scouting, signed the skinny 16-year-old Dominican to his first professional contract. It had been a long road since that audition in Santo Domingo where the young shortstop signed for a $3,000 (U.S.) bonus. Real money for a baseball kid on an island.
In a story featured in the program that historic day titled “One Tough Butterfly,” Fernandez — who died in February at age 57 after a long battle with kidney disease — described the moment he gave that money to his mom. He recalled tossing the “wad” on his mother’s bed and the “tears in her eyes.”
“The money … she couldn’t believe it. It was then that she found out her kid was real. We were not rich, but not poor. There was always something to eat. I always had shoes.
“Money was never so important to me, never will be … What is the good for a man to win the whole world if he loses his soul?”
A few weeks before spring training that year, and months before that special day, a 26year-old Fernandez was playing ball in the Santo Domingo dirt in front of a crowd of youngsters who marvelled at the legendary and youthful star. Fernandez, however, never considered himself an idol on the island.
“I don’t like ‘idol.’ Maybe ‘hero’ is OK. In this country, when you make it, you feel an obligation to help out,” he told longtime Star baseball writer Allan Ryan in that program tale. Fernandez never stopped helping the people of his country. And he would end up serving children from a troubled society until his last days. After 17 years of professional baseball, 12 with the Blue Jays, he devoted much of his remaining days to helping impoverished children — children who, like himself, were born into a world without privilege — but that chapter in his journey was many spins around the sun away.
While standing on the thirdbase line waiting to play the first ever game at the SkyDome, 10 years had passed since the day Fernandez was discovered. And he stood as one tough butterfly who won three consecutive Gold Gloves. One tough butterfly who helped Toronto make major league history in the “Drive of ’85.” One tough butterfly who survived the1987 Bill Madlock collision, where he suffered a broken elbow during a pennant race showdown against the Tigers. That was all in the past, though. And Fernandez was ready to fly into the future, arms out, gracefully avoiding collisions.
“Great hitter. Great defender. Great baserunner,” says Pat Hentgen, a three-time all-star and a teammate of Fernandez on the Blue Jays’ championship team in 1993. “He could be a Hall of Famer.” And he’s not wrong. Any fan could look at his statistics on the FanGraphs website and make that argument: 43.5 wins above replacement (fWAR), 2,276 hits (including a franchise-best 1,583 with the Jays), a .288 batting average, four Gold Gloves, a five-time all-star, a World Series champion and someone who struck out only 8.9 per cent of the times he dug in his cleats within the white chalk lines — over 8,793 career plate appearances. And so on and so on. “He was like the Roy Halladay of position players for the Blue Jays,” said Hentgen.
The phone went silent for a few seconds.
“I loved watching him. He was on a mission. A legend.”
Hentgen recalled shortstop Dick Schofield’s season-ending injury and how Toronto brought back Fernandez for that World Series run a couple of years after trading him and Fred McGriff to the San Diego Padres for Joe Carter and Roberto Alomar.
“A legend,” Hentgen repeated into the phone. “Legend.”
“Quiet. Hard worker. Incredible father.” He paused. “Yoda,” he laughed inwardly. “That’s what Shawn Green and Carlos Delgado called him.”
Hentgen explained that when Tony came back to the Jays in 1998 and ’99, he passed the torch to the younger players.
“It says something that Tony came back to Toronto on four different occasions,” former Jays general manager Gord Ash said. “He felt comfortable in Toronto. As he aged, he became a better hitter.”
But for Fernandez, Ash said, it was never about the limelight. “It was always less about him and more about the team.”
The organization held a special day for Fernandez in the final month of the 2001 season to honour his playing career in Toronto after he had returned to the club for the fourth time. Ash wished he’d been there, instead of scouting in Japan.
He missed seeing Fernandez pinch-hit for Shannon Stewart that day, walking up to the plate with the bases loaded and one out. He missed Fernandez working a full count and then sending a Ted Lilly fastball into the right-field seats. He missed another legendary moment from a legendary man. He missed a Fernandez grand slam — the last home run of his career.
“He was loved,” Ash said.
Crack! A few seconds later. Crack! Green and Darrin Fletcher stood off to the side of the batting cage as Delgado hit thunderous home runs to centre field, smashing into the glass of the Windows restaurant. Crack! And another. Crack! Fernandez stood off to the side in deep thought, as Fletcher counted Delgado’s blasts. Delgado walked out of the batting cage and it was Green’s turn in the latest edition of the duo’s home run derby.
The cracks continued, as Fletcher playfully stirred up the competition between the two sluggers.
A 37-year-old Fernandez, in his own world, didn’t notice their sacrosanct yet playful routine. Once Fletcher finished pulling a few baseballs, Fernandez set foot in the box, always hitting last, as he searched for his swing. This time, though, he took one swing, nodded sagely, walked out of the cage, put away his bat and quietly went into the clubhouse. Delgado, Green and Fletcher looked on, and then Delgado hurried back into the cage to continue the competition.
Fernandez only needed one swing that day.
Green explained in his book “The Way Of Baseball” that they loved when Fernandez did that because it meant they could get extra swings. Every day after Fernandez’s one-swing BP, the youngsters heckled the older hitting guru, who was flirting with .400 late into June during that ’99 season.
“Beautiful swing, Tony … your legs look perfect … go ahead and take it on into the clubhouse … what a great one to end on!”
And when he was in a playful mood, “we’d catch a grin on the master’s face,” said Green.
But other times, Green added, when he couldn’t find his legs, he’d silence them with his glare.
“Tony had an incredible first half of the season, hitting .400. It was his best year. In my hitting group, we called him Yoda because he was the guru master, and we worshipped his approach to hitting.”
Green got nostalgic as we talked over the phone.
“Every swing he took was beautiful, but Tony would hit during BP until he found his legs.” He joked about how they would be overly complimentary to Fernandez to try and coax him out of the cage so that they could have more swings.
“He’d kind of act mad and then start laughing,” Green chuckled to himself.
He took a second to collect his thoughts. “He had a huge impact on my career, my hitting, my mentality.” Silence. “I hung on every one of his words.”
I can see Mini-Me on a Dominican beach in Punta Cana telling stories about Fernandez to kids with big-league Dominican dreams as they hang on every one of his words. I can see him in the Dominican sand telling tales of the great Number 1 to tourists. I can see the stories being passed along from one generation to the next, in the Dominican dust, just like what happened to Vladimir Guerrero Jr.
In the fall of 2012, an 11-yearold Vlad Jr. was taking ground balls at Estadio Quisqueya while his dad warmed up as a member of the Tigres del Licey of the Dominican Professional Baseball League. At the time, Fernandez had a senior adviser role with the Santo Domingo ball club, not unlike the one Roberto Alomar holds with the Blue Jays right now. But a young Vlad Jr. had no idea who Tony Fernandez was. He was merely a toddler while Fernandez was in his final baseball days.
Vlad Jr. recalls standing in the dirt at third, as baseballs were hit to him by a svelte, older man in the batter’s box.
“I didn’t know who he was when he was hitting ground balls, but they told me after that it was Tony Fernandez. And they told me all about him,” Vlad Jr. said.
“I remember that he gave me advice on fielding ground balls.”
A friend of mine told me that his son asked him about Fernandez after the news broke of his passing in mid-February. My friend said to his son that he was the greatest shortstop to ever play in Toronto and was his favourite player as a kid growing up in the ’80s.
He showed his son old baseball cards of Fernandez. His son said he had a kind face. He liked his smile. He talked about the classic Fernandez flips to first and how all the kids growing up in Canada tried to mimic his sidearm toss. He showed his son clips of the great Fernandez. “He can fly,” his son said. He sure could.
Fernandez made headlines everywhere he went, from San Diego to New York to Cincinnati to Cleveland to Milwaukee and Toronto. The ink was pressed with the dust he stirred up.
He had five RBIs in Game 4 of the1993 World Series. He hit for the cycle with the Yankees back in 1995. He launched the gamewinning home run that sent Cleveland to the World Series in 1997.
Paul Beeston, former president of the Jays, spoke with Fernandez after that 1997 Series — which ended in defeat after the shortstop made a fateful error on a grounder by Florida’s Craig Counsell in the bottom of the 11th inning of Game 7. Fernandez told his longtime friend, “Better me than anybody else, ’cause I got the Lord.”
Beeston was president of Major League Baseball at the time. He said he wanted to talk to Fernandez because they’d had so many good times together. He needed to be there when things were bad for his friend, too.
Beeston said after Fernandez’s passing that the1980s Blue Jays were a varied bunch.
“On one end you had Tony, and on the other you had George Bell. I think 99 per cent of humanity fits somewhere between Tony and George.”
Buck Martinez told reporters Fernandez was a “very, very funny guy,” who would often tease his former teammate and friend Bell whenever he had the chance.
Martinez said in an interview he’ll never forget a couple of years ago when they were all together. Fernandez had said something to the effect that Bell and Michael Jackson had a lot in common because they both wore a glove for no obvious reason.
Jesse Barfield, one of Fernandez’s closest friends, said he was quick-witted and that some of the funniest things he has ever heard quietly came out of his mouth when he least expected it. He added that he wasn’t as stoic as some people think.
“We all know that he was an accomplished hitter with sneaky pop, but he was also sneaky funny.”
While I read “One Tough Butterfly” and thought about past Blue Jays like Barfield, Bell and Fernandez, who were a part of our youthful days, a storm of nostalgia roared through me. It could be because time has pushed us all along. No longer are we kids in the 1980s playing baseball on our neighbourhood diamonds.
No longer are we the youth that once looked up to Fernandez.
Our youthful era flew like a baseball, spinning us into adulthood. And that’s life. Time is meant to push us along. But as I sat there with this piece of history in my hands, flipping the pages of yesteryear, looking at the ads for old cellphones or an A&P grocery store, it occurred to me that the words within these baseball stories live. The story never dies. And neither will Fernandez’s.
My eyes slowly read each word about baseball’s butterfly.
“You cannot live in the past, nobody can,” Fernandez said. “I never think of myself as the best. I always think there is someone better.”
“It’s easy to say ‘hero,’ but only as long as you stay simple and humble, as long as you pay attention to what people are saying.”
If you asked the Dominican dust, what would it say? Probably: Fernandez lives.