Tuesday, March 9, 2010

By Horace M. Nure, Laredo Midday Times

Rarely does one injury strike so hard.  For any player to suffer an injury that ends his career, the event will forever remain etched in his memory as catastrophic.  For fans it will be heartbreaking.  For the player’s employer, the team, it is generally considered part of the business and life will go on.

In the case of the Rafael Hernández and his torn labrum, the event was catastrophic and heartbreaking.  Not just to Rafael Hernández himself, nor just to the fans, but to the management and ownership of the Connecticut Nutmeggers.  In fact, to the brain trust of the Nutmeggers the news that Hernández will never again take the mound was more than just heartbreaking.  It was more than catastrophic.  This was a shot to the Nutmeggers’ ribs that has left the team gasping for air.

The Nutmeggers have lost at least 96 games in each of the PEBA's first three seasons.  Saddled with a staggering debt of more than 25 million dollars after the inaugural season, the Nutmeggers have successfully turned around the economic fortunes of a team once considered on the brink of financial insolvency.  With a financial surplus heading into this offseason, the Nutmeggers were determined to turn the team’s fortunes on the playing field as quickly as they had transformed their financial fortunes.

One key piece to the Nutmeggers plans was the young dominating closer Rafael Hernández.  The Nutmeggers engineered a deal with the London Underground on the 15^th of December to land Hernández, considered one of the best young closers in the game.  For the rights to Hernández, the Nutmeggers surrendered top young pitching prospect Francisco Robles, who was the 2^nd overall pick in last season’s amateur draft, as well as Chris McKinney, a promising young reliever.

Hernández did not come without risk.  The youngster had missed the greater part of the 2008 season and the early part of the 2009 season with a torn tricep.  But when he returned he continued to dominate and showed himself to be healthy.  The Nutmeggers gambled.  When Hernández removed himself from a meaningless exhibition game on March 7^th, the dice came up snake eyes for the Nutmeggers.

Hernández would leave the mound with his once dominating right arm dangling loosely at his side.  An MRI later that afternoon would confirm the worst fears of Hernández, the Nutmeggers fans and the Nutmegger front office.  Hernández had a torn labrum.  He would never pitch again.

For Hernández, at age 25 and having fought his way back from one sever injury, the news was catastrophic.  Numbing.  He sought a second opinion but was told there was nothing that could be done; his career as a major league pitcher was over.

For Nutmeggers fans starved for a winner, the news was heartbreaking.  The hopes of the hometown faithful for the fate of their 2010 Nutmeggers dimmed.

But for the Nutmeggers themselves – the management, the ownership – the injury to Hernández surpasses tragic.  Having mortgaged part of their future to obtain Hernández, the Nutmeggers were dealt the harshest blow imaginable.  Without ever saving a single regular season game, a pitcher considered a cornerstone to the Nutmeggers franchise for years to come had his career come to an abrupt end.

It's hard not to wish the best for Hernández in his life after baseball.  He was well-liked by everyone.  He politely refused our request for comment on this story except to say that he just wasn't ready to talk at this time.  We understand.

And it’s hard not to feel sorry for the Nutmeggers in this situation.  In the PEBA's short three year history it's hard to imagine any team being so tragically struck by a single injury.  It stings and everyone knows it.  We understand.

In the end, Hernández will move on with his life after baseball.  Nutmeggers fans will soon have Hernández's memory fade as they root for whichever new players put on the Nutmeggers uniform.  And the Nutmeggers themselves will regroup and move on with the business of baseball.

But at this moment, they all grieve the end of a promising career that ended much too early.

We understand.