DEAR MR. SPIELBERG:
Haven't heard from you lately, and I'm guessing you need a fresh idea, a new film project. Take a tip from me. Two words: Orlando Hernandez.Trust me on this one, Stevie. Hernandez is a baseball pitcher for the Yankees, but that doesn't begin to describe him. Hernandez is . . . El Duque, and his story has it all. Political oppression, a villainous dictator, house arrest, secret police, escape on the open sea, sharks, a desert island, romance, heartbreak, rags and riches, big-time sports and possibly a happy ending.
Sometimes you'd swear the whole thing was put together by Disney Productions. I mean, he's even got that nickname. And he didn't end up with just any team - but the Yankees. And now he's in the World Series.
This is a story made in baseball heaven, or Iowa, and the best part of it is you don't have to make up a thing. Life wrote it for you.
Hernandez is a blockbuster waiting to happen. A year ago, he was at a TV station in Cuba watching his half-brother Livan pitch in the World Series. Ten months ago, he was living in a shack in Havana. Last December, he was floating on a raft. Now he's pitching in the World Series.
Hernandez has landed in New York, a combination of Crocodile Dundee, Roy Hobbs and Shoeless Joe. He might be 28 (as he says) or 32 (as others say), who knows. He hadn't played baseball for two years and some baseball experts doubted he could make it big in the Big Leagues. There was his age, there was his layoff and there was his funky-chicken pitching delivery in which he brings his knee to his chin and throws from various arm angles.
But they were wrong. He can pitch, all right. He tied the American League playoff series by throwing a shutout, and he got the win in Game 2 of the World Series.
El Duque is living a dream. He's living in a hotel in New York and takes the subway to Yankee Stadium. He wanders the streets staring at the sights while people passing in cars shout "El Duque!"
Yes, he says, he is a lucky man. Sometimes he can't believe what is happening. He wept after playing his first Major League game. The first time he was in a big league clubhouse, he simply stood there and stared at the stacks of gloves and shoes and uniforms and food piled high for the post-game spread. Welcome to America.
After they won the ALCS to qualify for the World Series, the Yankees found El Duque alone in the clubhouse bathroom. "I needed to have a moment alone," he explained. "I needed to think about what was happening. My mind was racing back with thoughts of the past year. Although at times I've felt this is a dream, I am certain now it is real."
Is it? He was making $10 a month last year; now he makes millions. He sits amid the bounty of America, for better or worse. One day, a reporter watched El Duque watching a baseball game on TV in Hooters, armed with a cell phone, a beeper, a pack of cigarettes, a quart of milk, a bucket of greasy chicken wings and packets of mayonnaise.
He is making his way in a strange new land, a long way from home. He was a national hero in Cuba, the overpowering pitcher of the national baseball team, the pride of his countrymen the first half of the decade. Then his brother escaped to the U.S. in 1995. Fidel Castro, the Cuban dictator, took his revenge and banned El Duque from playing baseball forever. El Duque went from hero to pariah, just like that. "Traitor to the revolution!" his countrymen shouted at him.
He began a new life. He was forced to work in a psychiatric hospital and was prevented from leaving the country. Cuba's secret police watched him constantly and once told him, "Havana will crumble you smaller than a cent."
The secret police threatened El Duque. He decided if he didn't do something soon he'd soon be El Deadque. The secret police told him they were going to make him disappear, so he did it himself. El Duque, along with his wife and a few ex-teammates, made a flimsy, 19-foot raft of scrap wood. Wearing only a T-shirt and shorts, El Duque made his escape.
"I decided I'd rather die at sea than be thrown in prison," he explained.
The raft broke up and sank after a day in shark-filled waters, but El Duque and his companions were able to swim to a sand bank in the waters of the Bahamas. They survived for four days by eating shellfish, stale bread, seaweed, Spam and a little water before they were rescued by the U.S. Coast Guard.
"We came looking for the dream of freedom, and we found it," he said shortly after being rescued.
And so El Duque came to America, the land of opportunity, the land of plenty, the land of World Series and pagers and cell phones and automobiles and Big Macs. "After living in liberty for a month, I think it's the prettiest thing there is," he said.
At times he must feel like he won the lotto, but it is not quite a happy ending yet. He left his two young daughters behind in Cuba with his ex-wife. He has wept in the clubhouse, missing his daughters, and it could be years before he sees them again. He talks to them by phone. They tell him about their homework and ask him to send lollipops and gum. He calls the separation "a sacrifice for the future."
So here comes El Duque, oblivious to the burden of a World Series start. When the press talks to him about the pressure of baseball, he scoffs. Pressure? Pressure is a raft on the open sea, not a batter in the box.
El Duque's is a story worth telling, and he knows it. His translator told reporters, "He said he won't answer any more questions about his trip. He's saving it for the movie."
Only in America . . . .