Playboy Interview: Keith Hernandez

He is the ultimate professional. Since 1974, when he broke into the big leagues with the St. Louis Cardinals, Keith Hernandez has been perhaps the most consistently productive player of his era. After 15 seasons in the majors, Hernandez, the diplomatic elder statesman of the New York Mets, has compiled a lifetime batting average of exactly .300. Many baseball purists believe he's the finest first baseman of all time and that he has almost singlehandedly redefined that position. Before his emergence, first base was often the outpost of good hitters who couldn't field a lick. Not for Hernandez. Uncannily adept at digging up throws in the dirt and having almost patented the three-six-three double play--first base to shortstop to first base--the slick-fielding southpaw has won National League Gold Glove awards for the past 11 years.

In 1983, after eight and a half seasons with St. Louis, the Cardinals traded Hernandez to the New York Mets, then the worst team in the National League. He became the catalyst that transformed a pack of perennial losers and unproven rookies into a confident--some say overconfident--group of winners. "That's the great bonus we got," Mets general manager Frank Cashen told writer William Nack three years ago. "We knew he was a great fielder, a great hitter, but nobody knew that he was a leader."

When Davey Johnson was hired to manage the Mets in 1984, he encouraged Hernandez to help out in any way he could, and the six-foot, 205-pound first baseman took him up on it. Because he knew every hitter in the league, Hernandez took over the positioning of the Mets' infielders. He also, when invited, advised young Mets pitchers on what to throw to whom. Says former Mets hurler Ed Lynch, "If Einstein starts talking about the speed of light, you better listen to him."

Hernandez believes that his chief contribution to the team's pitching staff has been his willingness to act as its cheerleader. "When the game's on the line and there are runners on base, some of our pitchers like me to walk over to the mound and pump 'em up," he says. "They don't need it, but they enjoy having me tell 'em things like, 'You're the best--now get this son of a bitch and let's nail this down!' It's a rah-rah macho thing, but everybody likes some positive support."

Hernandez' value as a steadying father figure was so obvious that in 1987, Johnson appointed him the first team captain in the history of the franchise. The Mets continue to call on Hernandez to act as guidance counselor: Last September, when New York called up prize rookie Gregg Jefferies from the minors, the team deliberately assigned him a locker next to Hernandez'. "Osmosis," explained Mets vice-president Joe McIlvaine. "Keith's got a lot of baseball in him. Gregg can pick some up just sitting next to him."

Although he seemed like a throwback to a time when the nation had a kinder, gentler notion of baseball, in September 1985, Hernandez--testifying at the trial of a Pittsburgh drug dealer--revealed that he'd used cocaine for three years. "I was very ashamed and worried about how the fans at Shea Stadium would react when I returned to New York after the trial," he recently recalled. "But when I came up to hit for the first time, the crowd gave me a standing ovation. I'm never going to forget that."

Born in San Francisco in 1953, Hernandez became an ardent New York Yankees fan at the age of five, when he discovered that he and Mickey Mantle shared the same birth date--October 20th. By then, John and Jackie Hernandez and their two sons, Keith and his older brother, Gary, had moved to nearby Pacifica. Keith's favorite sport was basketball. After reading Oscar Robertson's biography, he took a tip from the Big O and, every day, dribbled a basketball to and from grammar school--one mile away--using his right hand. "I wanted to be as good with my right as I was with my left, and it worked. I became a very good ball handler."

By the time they reached Capuchino High School in Millbrae, California, both Hernandez boys were accomplished athletes. Gary's little brother eventually became a big man on campus: Keith was the first athlete in the school's history to be named all-league in baseball, basketball and football. He was offered combined baseball/football scholarships to Stanford and the University of California at Berkeley but declined both. In 1971, after his high school graduation, Hernandez was signed by the St. Louis Cardinals and sent to St.Petersburg, Florida. St. Louis called him up to the majors for the last couple of weeks of the 1974 season, and a year later, he became the Cardinals' starting first baseman.

To interview Hernandez, Playboy sent Lawrence Linderman to meet with the Mets' first baseman shortly after the season started. Linderman reports:

"Keith Hernandez has the swarthy good looks of a Latin screen idol, even though he's not Latin and has a broken nose. (The break occurred in the early minutes of a high school football game. Too proud to retire to the bench, Hernandez, a quarterback, went on to complete 23 of 36 passes for 353 yards and three touchdowns. He got a lot of ink even as a teenager.)

"This is a sophisticated man whose interests reach far beyond the center-field wall at Shea Stadium. A student of military history, particularly the Civil War, he's a great admirer of Confederate generals--especially Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson--primarily because they were tactical geniuses who had more than their share of colorful idiosyncrasies. A couple of years ago, Hernandez delivered a speech on aspects of the Civil War to the history faculty of the United States Military Academy at West Point.

"Also, Hernandez, true to his Northern California roots, is something of a wine maven. His inventory now numbers more than 200 bottles, but he insists he's not a collector; his consumption, which is moderate, has just never kept pace with his purchases. His latest enthusiasm is politics--the process, not the idea of becoming a candidate. He's had two lunches with Richard Nixon. The first time out, Nixon milked him for baseball lore; the second, Hernandez got Nixon to open up about his perceptions of China and Russia. 'Once I got him going, he went on for about an hour. It was just totally fascinating and enlightening. Nixon is very sharp--he hasn't lost anything to age.'

"The big question in the Big Apple these days is whether Hernandez has lost anything to age. That topic popped up twice this year--initially, when he was mired in an early-season slump (from which he extricated himself), and then, much more seriously, after he fractured his kneecap in a game at Shea Stadium on May 17. We'd already scheduled our interview when that injury occurred, and I was concerned that Hernandez, who's intensely private and who measures his words as carefully as Manhattan bartenders measure their drinks, might just clam up on me. He didn't. Instead, we had a series of wideranging conversations that touched on several subjects--including his bout with cocaine--that he'd never previously discussed.

"I met Hernandez at the two-bedroom apartment the shares with model Sheri Montgomery high above Manhattan's East Side. Hernandez, his right knee immobilized by a splint, was already able to move around without crutches. His injury provided the opening subject for our interview."

[Q] Playboy: Last year, the first serious injury of your career--a torn hamstring--kept you out of action for eight weeks, and this season, your broken kneecap will also sideline you for as much as eight weeks. In October, you'll be thirty-six; could these injuries be nature's way of telling you it's time to retire?

[A] Hernandez: No, I don't think so. If my kneecap had been shattered or broken in a few places, and if they'd had to operate instead of just putting it in a splint, then, yeah, it would have been the end of my career. But what I've got isn't debilitating; it's just a very clean horizontal break across the patella. The X rays show a slight separation that's so straight it could have been caused by a guillotine. Dr. James Parkes, our team physician, told me I'll be fine as soon as it heals, though I'll probably lose what little speed I have.

[Q] Playboy: Exactly how did you break your kneecap?

[A] Hernandez: It was a freak collision. In a game against the Dodgers, I was on first base when a ground ball was hit to their shortstop, Dave Anderson, who went across second base to field it. He wanted to tag me and then throw to first for a double play. In that situation, I'm supposed to bump the guy so that he can't complete the double play. When I did that, my right knee collided with Anderson's left knee. The doctors said it was like a diamond cutter tapping a diamond perfectly and getting a perfect stone. To me, it felt more like two rams butting heads.

[Q] Playboy: Did you immediately know the severity of your injury?

[A] Hernandez: No. I got up, ran off the field and played two more innings. The knee had swelled up by then, but I wasn't in too much pain until my next at-bat. I was kneeling in the on-deck circle, and when I started to get up--I couldn't. I had to use my bat as a crutch, and that's when I told Davey Johnson, our manager, to take me out of the game. But the pain wasn't really more than what you'd get from a sprained ankle. That night, I slept with ice on the knee. At six-thirty the next morning, I called Dr. Parkes and said, "Send an ambulance. I can't walk." He rushed me to the hospital for X rays, and that's all she wrote.

[Q] Playboy: What was your reaction upon learning you'd again be out for at least eight weeks?

[A] Hernandez: Total frustration. I got off to a bad start this year, but I hit .339 in my last sixteen games, and I was swinging the bat great. This is an important season for me, because I'm in the final year of a five-year contract, and the Mets are looking to make a decision about whether or not they want me back. And then this happens. But after I thought about it awhile ... I mean, what can you do? What's done is done.

[Q] Playboy: Do you have any doubts about whether you can come back this season?

[A] Hernandez: And pick up where I left off? Sure I do. When you miss two months, forget all the running and exercise you do to get back in shape--there's just no substitute for playing nine innings every day. When I came back from my torn hamstring last year, I was getting tired by the seventh inning of our games. Stamina is one of my two main concerns.

[Q] Playboy: What's the other one?

[A] Hernandez: The Mets' feeling about Dave Magadan, who now has his chance to show what he can do. This hasn't affected my relationship with Mags--I mean, I got my chance when Joe Torre sprained his thumb and the Cardinals called me up, and after I did well, they traded Torre. Now the shoe's on the other foot; that's baseball. This is Magadan's big break, and if he's to have a big career in the majors, he has to make the most of it. And if he does, I'll have to move on. But it's not like I'm out in the cold. I'll be a free agent next year, and as much as I'd love to stay in New York, baseball is a business. I'll be negotiating my next contract at a base salary of two million dollars a year, and if Magadan does well, the Mets may not want to offer me another contract--it'll be their call. We'll just have to wait and see what happens.

[Q] Playboy: While you were on the disabled list last year, the Mets won twenty-six games and lost twenty-three games, but while you were with the team, New York's record was 74--36. Do you believe you're that valuable to the club?

[A] Hernandez: Well, some players certainly are key to a ball club, and I feel that I'm one of the Mets' key players, but not to that extent. The real answer to your question is that I don't think the team as a whole handled my absence well last year. I don't know if I should say this, but I've always felt that one of the Mets' weaknesses has been the inability of certain players--I'm not going to name names--to accept responsibility for failure.

[A] This team can make excuses with the best of them. Last year, my being out of the line-up seemed like an excuse for the team to lose. At first, the typical quote from them was, "Oh, my God, we lost Keith-- what are we going to do?" And as the season progressed and they were playing .500 ball, they continued to say, "We miss Keith, we miss Keith."

[A] This year, they're handling the situation a lot better. This year, the guys are telling reporters, "Hey, we've got to take the responsibility on our own shoulders and hold the fort until he comes back." And I think they will. Right now, the National League East is like a horse race with everybody jockeying for position. No one's really run away with the division race, and I don't think any team will. When it's time for me to come back, I expect the Mets to be right there in the running. I should be playing again by the time this interview comes out, so by then, we'll know for certain what they've done without me.

[Q] Playboy: Bumping knees with a random Dodger isn't nearly as painful as your run-in with that team last year. In fact, you've continued to claim that the Mets' 1988 play-off loss to Los Angeles is too painful for you to discuss. Has the pain subsided?

[A] Hernandez: [Big sigh] I suppose so, but it was a major disappointment. We were big favorites, but I knew it was going to be a tough series even though we'd beaten the Dodgers every time we played them during the regular season. We were 10--1 against Los Angeles, but a lot of those games were very tight and competitive and could have swung either way. The fact that we won all of them was misleading, but that, I suppose, is the beauty of baseball.

[Q] Playboy: Was there a moment in the playoffs that still seems especially ugly to you?

[A] Hernandez: [Another sigh] Yes, the second inning of game seven, which the New York press calls our gold-glove inning. I screwed up a bunt play, Wally Backman tripped on a double-play ball and then Gregg Jefferies made an error with the bases loaded. There were three ways to fuck up, and we found them. That was the most agonizing game ocf my career. You play 162 games and errors happen, but you're there for the world series, and if you lose the play-offs, you don't goy to the world series. And seeing the sun go down on our season because of errors--it was demoralizing. After giving up five runs in the second inning, we were behind 6--0, and once Orel Hershiser got that early six-run lead, forget it--he just painted the corners of the plate. He never gave us an opportunity to peck away and get back in the game. He just shut the door, like all good pitchers do.

[Q] Playboy: What makes him so tough?

[A] Hernandez: The guy may look like a schoolteacher, but he's got guts and he's a great competitor. There's a fine line between those who have brass balls and those who don't; Hershiser's got 'em. And he got hot last year. He put together a fifty-nine-inning scoreless streak to close out the regular season. When pitchers are on a roll, they have a direct line to where they want to throw the ball, and they don't make mistakes. After my first at-bat, Hershiser did not give me a pitch over the plate that whole game. He was just working the corners, inside and out.

[Q] Playboy: How hard did you take losing the play-offs?

[A] Hernandez: Hard enough so that I couldn't watch game one of the world series. That Saturday night, I was just sitting home with my girlfriend, and when we finally turned the game on, Kirk Gibson was walking back and forth in the dugout and we heard the whole spiel about his injuries. Dennis Eckersley was on the mound and I said, "I have to stick around and watch this." When he hit the home run-- well, from that point on, I felt a little better about our loss. Tell me that wasn't a Hollywood script: Ninth inning, the Dodgers are down, 4--3, a man on second, two out and the count is three and two. Seeing Gibson hit that homer was like watching John Wayne take on the entire Mexican army with eight bullet holes in him.

[Q] Playboy: Were you at all surprised that the Dodgers went on to beat Oakland in the world series?

[A] Hernandez: No, I think it was meant for the Dodgers to win it all. They got hot at the right time, and when that happens, a team can be impossible to stop. But I also think some of the A's didn't help themselves by telling reporters that the Mets were the best team in baseball and that they were disappointed we'd lost. To me, that was the kiss of death. Rules one, two and three: Keep your yap shut, let your bat do your talking and don't piss anybody off. You do not want to give your opponents a banner or a flag to rally round.

[Q] Playboy: Funny, but the way we hear it, the Mets offend all of their opponents and are theleast popular team in the National League. Do we have it wrong?

[A] Hernandez: We're not well liked around the league, but there are a lot of reasons for that.You know, everybody loved the Mets when they were the bums who always finished last, but now that we're king of the mountain, everyone is trying to knock us off. People like tobeat us, and I understand that.

[A] I remember when I was young and with the Cardinals in the mid-Seventies, and we were a fifth-place team. Whenever the Dodgers or the Reds--the Big Red Machine--came to town, it was like our world series. We'd playour asses off against those teams, and then, when we faced a second-division club like the Cubs, we'd fall back down to earth. You get up for the teams that are on top.

[Q] Playboy: Isn't the real knock on the Mets that they're braggarts who aren't above taunting their opponents?

[A] Hernandez: Look, I don't think we're different from any other team in baseball. We have quiet people, characters and, yes, some players who've said a lot of things about our opponents. The real difference is that what you say in New York goes over the news wires, and the next day, it's everywhere. So I think you have to be extra careful about what you tell the press here, and the team's finally gotten a lot smarter about that.

[A] But not everybody will watch what they say. For instance, Wally Backman--he was traded to Minnesota over the winter--was always outspoken. He happens to be very gutsy and cocky, and he had a tendency to mouth off--that's Wally. We'd go into a three-game series against somebody and he'd say, "We're gonna kick their ass. They can't play with us." I'd go, "Oh, Wally." Meanwhile, we'd kick the shit out of them. But you don't want to incite other teams or give them extra reasons for wanting to beat you. I think you have to follow that line about letting sleeping dogs lie.

[Q] Playboy: Let's focus on the current pennant race: Even with the Mets' leader out with injuries, most baseball experts still believe New York will win the National League pennant. St. Louis Cardinals manager Whitey Herzog says, "If you put the Mets' pitching staff with any team in the league, that team would win." Do you agree with him?

[A] Hernandez: Yes, I do. Pitching's the name of the game. Good pitching will always keep you in the game. There's not a lot of pressure on our offense to score five runs a game--a lot of times, three or four will be enough for us to win, so we're always in the game. Conversely, our offense has led the league in runs scored the past three years in a row, and that takes the pressure off our pitchers--it's kind of like each hand is washing the other. Still, if I had to pick a team with a mediocre pitching staff and a great offense or a great pitching staff with an average offense, I'd take the pitching any day of the week.

[Q] Playboy: Is the Mets' pitching staff the best in baseball?

[A] Hernandez: 1 haven't seen any that are better. Dwight Gooden has awesome stuff-- he throws extremely hard. He and David Cone are the same type of pitchers: power pitchers. Both basically have good, hard fast balls and great curve balls. Bob Ojeda, a crafty left-hander--sinker, slider and great change-up--and Ron Darling are in a different category: They're control pitchers. They work on a batter's timing and have stuff to throw him off, whereas Good-en and Cone will just overpower you. Sid Fernandez is kind of in his own world. He's got this amazingly slow rainbow curve and sneaky last ball. He's also got a weird motion and his pitches are always hard for hitters to pick up. He's the unique one.

[Q] Playboy: Pitching aside, if you were scouting the Mets for another club, how would you describe them?

[A] Hernandez: I'd stress the fact that we're a slugging team, a power team. Our lead-off hitter and our second hitter kind of set the tone. Our two center fielders, Mookie Wilson and Lenny Dykstra, are unhappy with their platoon roles, but they're indispensable to our club, because they're both sparkplugs. Either Mookie or Lenny, who has a swagger and a cocky air about him, leads off. The young kid, Gregg Jefferies--good bat--hits second. They're the table setters. From that point on, we've got a power-hitting middle of the lineup--me, Darryl Strawberry, Kevin McReynolds, Gary Carter and Howard Johnson. Kevin Elster, our shortstop, hits eighth, and anything he does offensively is a big plus; his glove is that important to the team. We win a lot with our power and, obviously, pitching has been our strength.

[Q] Playboy: This will come as no surprise to you: Even managers of other teams have begun saying that this year's Mets are vulnerable because the team's two aging and injured veterans--you and Gary Carter--may be over the hill.

[A] Hernandez: Look, Gary is hurting; we all know that. He's probably the guy I feel for more than anybody else. His arm is shot from wear and tear, and his knees have just deteriorated on him. Gary and I are both thirty-five, and I know that I've got aches and pains that I didn't used to have, and I'm just out there playing first base. Gary has to squat down on every pitch, and he also has to call the pitches, and that's a tremendous burden. Gary's in the same spot I am--he'll also miss a couple of months because of a knee injury--and I'm just hoping he comes back and finishes strong. Gary's been such a great player that you can't help but have a little compassion.

[Q] Playboy: What about yourself? You may have won another Gold Glove last year, but you also missed sixty-five games and your average fell to .276, your lowest in a decade. Do you think that was a signal that the end of your career is imminent?

[A] Hernandez: No, because I look at last season--and this season, too--in terms of how I was hitting at the point I got hurt. I got off to a terrible start in '88; I was hitting about .170 for the first three weeks and then came out of it with a bang, and when I got hurt, I was up to .298. This year was almost identical in that I got off to the same slow start. A lot of New York sports writers were doing stories that began with "Is Hernandez over the hill? Is he too old to hit any more?" But then I got red-hot in May, and when I had this freak accident, I was up to .282 and really wearing pitchers out. So I think I've put to rest all that talkabout my being through. I can still hit.

[Q] Playboy: If that's true, how do you explain the nose dive you went into after returning from your injury last year? And will it happen again this year?

[A] Hernandez: I hope it doesn't, but it might. The problem I had was that, after missing all those games, I kind of felt like I was trying to turn over an engine in winter, and I just couldn't get going again. I wound up hitting .240 for the second half of the season.

[Q] Playboy: Is that how you picture yourself when you're hitting--as a finely tuned engine?

[A] Hernandez: Yeah, but when I'm really red-hot, the ball looks like it's coming at me in slowmotion, and hitting then becomes a little like bowling. It's like I'm the seven pin--the corner pin in back--and this bowling ball is rolling down the lane. When you've got everything working, that's how big and slowpitches look coming up to the plate. Everything happens in a split second, of course, but when I'm really ona tear, I can actually see the ball hit the bat, the bat recoil and the ball leave the bat.

[Q] Playboy: And when you're not doing so well?

[A] Hernandez: You think panic, and you hit panic. When you're in a slump, you're not picking the ballup out of the pitcher's hand; therefore, it looks like it's going five hundred miles an hour. It's just the opposite of what happens when you're red-hot: Instead of thinking in slow motion, you go, Oh! A curve! I better swing! The key to hitting is seeing the ball leave the pitcher's hand and not making a move until you identify the pitch.

[Q] Playboy: At what point can you do that?

[A] Hernandez: When the ball is around six feet out of the pitcher's hand. The reason a baseball is white with red seams is to give us a chance to identify the pitch. For instance, when a pitcher throws a slider, the red seams make a tiny circle in the middle of the ball. A curve ball spins like a moon in orbit over a planet. A fast ball doesn't spin at all-- it does nothing. A screwball has a different kind of spin. Each pitch has its own identifying mark, except for the split-finger, and that's what makes it so tough, because coming up to the plate, it looks like a fast ball. The way I deal with it is to pretend it's a sinker--I can hit sinkers. This game is all in your mind and, like anything else, if you doubt that you can do something, then you'll have a hell of a time doing it.

[Q] Playboy: Rusty Staub, your friend and ex-teammate, has said that he has never seen a hitter with your ability doubt that ability as much as you do. In fact, he says that when you get into a slump, you act more like thirteen than thirty-five. Is that an overstatement?

[A] Hernandez: Not really, because when I'm going bad, I tend to mope and pout and feel sorry for myself. The depression and self-doubt are still there, and it's the one thing I really don't like about myself. I wish I could have been a totally confident, cocksure piece of shit no one liked, and then, when my career was over, I could become what I am today. I would have done that in a minute. I finally go back to what Lou Brock--my guru when I broke in with the Cardinals--used to tell me: "If you're going to feel sorry for yourself, it's going to be a long, miserable season, and you're going to be out on the street working a job from nine to five. Instead of channeling it internally, direct your anger at the pitcher, 'cause he's the one who's going to put you out on the street." The only good thing I can say about my self-doubt is that it's probably a motivator.

[Q] Playboy: How depressed do you get?

[A] Hernandez: When I'm in a slump--and I've had only two years out of fifteen when I haven't had any--I won't want to go out to the ball park. Now, a slump is not an unlucky streak where you're tearing the cover off the ball but just not getting any breaks--that's frustrating, but you say, "Well, it could be worse; I could be striking out." A slump is when you are striking out or just not hitting the ball good, and those are the days you don't want to go to the park. And invariably, those are also the days when you'll go to bat in the eighth or ninth inning with the bases loaded and the chance to win it or tie it--and you feel like a piece of shit up there. I've always been better than a .300 hitter in clutch situations--I thrive on that--but when I'm in a slump, I'm thinking, Oh, God, why me? Why couldn't it be someone else up here? But you've got to just take a deep breath and go, Well, I've got to fight through it. You can't give in. You give in, you're done.

[Q] Playboy: Do you have a tried-and-true formula for breaking out of a slump?

[A] Hernandez: Yes, and I got it from my dad, who played double-A ball in the late Forties. Dad was a first baseman, and everyone I've met in baseball who played against him said that if he hadn't been beaned--hitters didn't wear helmets then--his eyes wouldn't have gone bad and he probably would have made it to the majors. One year in the Texas League, Dad hit around .312 and was the star of the team--and he's got the clippings to prove it.

[A] Anyway, one time when I was in a deep slump, he said, "When that happened to me and it got to a point where it was so bad, I'd go out and get drunk." Dad's not a drinker, yet he told me to tie one on. He said, "If you go back to your hotel room, you're just going to dwell on the negatives and compound the problem. Go out and have a good time, don't think about the game, and when you go to the ball park, you'll have a fresh outlook. Give your mind a break." I must tell you that whenever I tried that, it always worked. I'm not saying it's the right thing to do, but I can't say it's the wrong thing, either.

[Q] Playboy: How responsible was your father for your becoming a ballplayer?

[A] Hernandez: My older brother, Gary--who later became an all-American first baseman at Cal Berkeley--and I were both raised to be baseball players. I knew the fundamentals of playing first base when I was six years old, including where to be in every cut-off situation. My father would hit me ground balls everyday, and we'd also work on scooping up throws in the dirt--he'd use tennis balls, so if the ball came up and hit me in the face, I wouldn't get hurt.

[Q] Playboy: Sounds to us like the perfect father--son relationship. Was it?

[A] Hernandez: [Pause] Look, I don't want this to come out sounding bad, because up until high school, my father was just the greatest. Dad was a fireman who worked twenty-four hours on and forty-eight hours off, and during those forty-eight hours--when Gary and I were kids-- he'd get all the parents in the neighborhood to take their boys down to the little-league and Babe Ruth--league diamonds that he had helpedbuild on church property. When Gary and I got to high school, Dad started worrying that the high school coaches were gonna fuck us up and ruin us. He watched every football workout and every baseball workout, and that's when he started really pressing. He couldn't let go. Gary and I were both very uncomfortable about it.

[Q] Playboy: Did you and your brother let him know how you were feeling?

[A] Hernandez: No one really spoke up. Dad was the master, and in our house, differences were not tolerated. Gary was the first one to tell Dad how we were feeling, and when he did, it was as if the earth had shaken. That was a major crisis.

[Q] Playboy: Do you remember it?

[A] Hernandez: Yes, vividly. Dad had a temper and was a shouter, and Gary just screamed back at him and it turned into a shouting match and, of course, Mom was there to wave our flag. Mom was definitely the buffer, but it really didn't help. My big problem with Dad came years later, when I was in the major leagues and told him, "Hey, I am a man, and I want to go it on my own. If 1 get into a slump and it becomes critical enough,I'll ask for your advice. But I want to play ball by myself and not have you to lean on." That was in 1978, after I'd hit .340 the first half of the season and slumped in the second half. I wanted to pull away from him, which caused a big stir. He just couldn't let go. Some people have said we have a love/hate relationship, but I don't think of it that way; 1 know I've never hated him. And at this point, he's backed off. My father taught me how to hit, knows me better than anybody else, and I still go to him when I'm in trouble. And invariably, he always has something to say that's helpful. I think we're both probably very stubborn.

[Q] Playboy: Do you think you have his temper, as well?

[A] Hernandez: Hmmm. Well, I know that in 1973, when I was nineteen and playing double-A ball in Little Rock, Arkansas, I acted like a maniac. I got off to a .170 start, and 1 broke batting helmets, water coolers--I was very much of a red ass. It was the hottest summer anyone down there could remember--it was a hundred degrees every fucking day--and it took me two months to get to .300. I remember that one day in early August 1973,1 went six for eight in a double-header and got to .300 and then went home and had an out-of-body experience.

[Q] Playboy: Care to tell us about it, Miss MacLaine?

[A] Hernandez: I'm not kidding about this. After that double-header, I went back to the hotel and tooka bath and I guess I went into a hypnotic state. All of a sudden, I was startled, because I actually felt something leave my body, from the tip of my toes to the top of my head. It really felt like it was a ghost of my inner self, and it just snapped me out of my trance. I opened my eyes and--whoosh!--it came right back in. I don't know what the fuck it was-- probably a release of tension, 'cause I was a maniac when I played there.

[Q] Playboy: What was the result of that experience?

[A] Hernandez: Within two and a half weeks, I was down to .260. I was emotionally spent. I'd had a 133-point climb over a two-month period, and when I finally got to .300, all the tension came out and I had notnothing left. In the middle of that slump, Bob Kennedy, who was then the Cardinals' farm director, called me up to Tulsa, the Cards' triple-A club. The team was eight games out of first place, with a month to go in the season. I loved the weather there--there was always a breeze in Tulsa--and in thirty-one games, I hit .333, and we won the championship on the last day of the season.

[A] The next year at Tulsa, I hit .351 and won the American Association batting title. In August of '74--as I told you before--Joe Ibrre, the Cards' first baseman, sprained his thumb. I got called up and did well, and Torre was traded over the winter. I was the heir apparent, and that's when the pressure really came down on me. At the start of '75, I got off slow, my confidence really dipped and I definitely needed to get sent down again.

[Q] Playboy: What was the problem?

[A] Hernandez: The pitchers were just flat-out jamming the piss out of me, and mentally, I was overmatched. I was in awe of being in the big leagues, and I'd go up to the plate saying things like, "Oh, my, I'm facing Tom Seaver." I had too many doubts about whether or not I belonged in the big leagues. I was my own worst enemy. I was with them through June--I hit .203--and then they benched me and sent me down to Tulsa again. That turned out to be a big break for me, because the new manager there, the late Ken Boyer, knew I'd been getting jammed, jammed, jammed. So he had me go out early every day, and he'd do nothing but throw me inside pitches and tell me to pull them to the right. All good hitters like the ball out over the plate--you like to extend your arms--but you have to be able to hit when pitchers go inside on you. Boyer really saved me. I hit .330 at Tulsa, and in 1976, my first full season with the Cardinals, I hit .333 after the All-Star game, when they made me the starting first baseman.

[Q] Playboy: Was it smooth sailing from that point on?

[A] Hernandez: No, my average fell to .255 in 1978, and that's when Lou Brock really took me under hiswing and became like a second father to me. He taught me everything, and I always told myself that when I got to be his age--Lou retired after the '79 season, when he was thirty-nine--I'd help out younger players the same way he helped me out.

[Q] Playboy: What was the most important thing Brock taught you?

[A] Hernandez: How to hit left-handed pitchers. Up until then, I was dangerous against left-handers, but I really didn't start hitting .300 off them consistently until Lou told me, "You're standing too far away from the plate. Move one inch off the plate, and make it obvious to the catcher and everybody. That's significant and they're gonna notice, and they're gonna throw you inside fast balls." Lou always said that in your first at-bat in a game, you should always establish inside on the pitcher, and when you get the inside fast ball--and you will--it's OK if you rip it foul, because that pitcher's gonna go, "Damn, that's my best fast ball." He'll know that he can't get you on inside pitches, so for the rest of the game, he'll throw to your strength--the middle of the plate or outside--and now you've got him. That made a lot of sense to me, and the following season, I went from .255 to .344, the highest batting average in both leagues that year.

[Q] Playboy: And it was that simple?

[A] Hernandez: It wasn't simple at all. Lou told me, "When they see you ready for the fast ball inside, they're gonna start throwing breaking balls, but don't look for them-- look for fast balls away and adjust tothe curve." I did that, too. And then he got me in spring training the next year and said, "Now you're gonna start mixing the pitchers up, until they don't know what the fuck you're doing. You'll pick your spots." What it finally boiled down to is this: If I'm looking for an outside pitch, I can handle anything over the outside three quarters of the plate; I can't handle the inside quarter. When I'm looking for inside pitches, I can handle the inside three quarters of the plate; I can't handle the outside quarter. Every pitcher in the league-- particularly left-handers--now knows that I'm an area hitter. 1 always have three quarters of the plate covered, but which three quarters is the question that pitchers--and, really, catchers--have to ask. The catcher has to say, "Is he looking inside or out?" And he's got a fifty-fifty chance of being right.

[Q] Playboy: What part did your hitting play in the emergence of the Cardinals as a power to be reckoned with?

[A] Hernandez: Very little, I think. The Cardinals didn't really come together until Whitey Herzog got there in June of the 1980 season, and almost immediately, he made a top team out of us. Whitey's forte is thathe gets the most out of his players. He was the first manager I ever really played for who talked to everybodyon the team and made everyone feel he was contributing--that's difficult to do, but Whitey's a country bullshitter. And he knows the game. Whitey was the first manager who called the team's attention to all the minor fundamentals--like hitting the cut-off man--that nine times out of ten will win or lose you a ball game. He also molded a team to play on Busch Stadium's artificial turf. It's a big ball park, and you need rabbits in the outfield to cut down the gaps, and Whitey went out and got 'em. By '82, the team had gelled and we went on to win the world series.

[Q] Playboy: Was competing in the series all you'd thought it would be?

[A] Hernandez: For me--no. The confidence factor again. The one thing I'd hate would be to go to the American League and have to learn every team's pitching staff. Brock always told me, "Hitting will get easier as you get older. You'll face pitchers like Don Sutton year after year, and when you go into a game, you'll know what they're gonna throw." Nothing worse than when September comes and teams call up their minor-leaguers and you've got to face these rookies and not know what the fuck they'll throw--I hate that! That's what would happen to me in the American League. And that's what happened to me in the '82 world series.

[Q] Playboy: You couldn't figure out Milwaukee's pitching staff?

[A] Hernandez: Not in the first four games, I couldn't. I went 0 for fifteen, and newspapers were running stories about how I was on a pace to break Gil Hodges' record of going 0 for twenty-one in a world series. I couldn't get angry at the reporters, because going 0 for fifteen in the series is a story. That's going to bother a younger player more than a veteran, and it really didn't get to me until I was taking batting practice in Milwaukee before game five. About seventy reporters were on the field and all of them were asking me the same question: "When are you gonna get a hit?" At that point, the pressure was overwhelming.

[Q] Playboy: What did you do?

[A] Hernandez: I took only one round of batting practice, walked out of the batting cage and went intothe trainer's room-- which is off limits to the press--just to get away from those negative questions. I was being my own worst enemy again. Hitting is a constant battle, and you really need to think positive. You've got to get angry at the pitcher and say, "I don't give a fuck what you throw. The count's 0 and two, bases loaded, pressure situation--throw me anything you want, I'll hit it." You've got to have the eye of the tiger, or, as Dad used to say, "When you're up at the plate, you've got to be a cold-blooded killer." I remember sitting in the trainer's room and thinking about the spaced-out tank commander Donald Sutherland played in Kelly's Heroes. He had this great line about how you've got to tune out all the negative waves.

[Q] Playboy: Did that help?

[A] Hernandez: It must have. Even though we lost game five, I went three for four and I was on my way. In the last three games, I went seven for twelve, including a three-run homer off Don Sutton--and when Sutton was with the Dodgers, I'd never come close to hitting a home run off him. That shot contributed to what eventually became a 13--1 blowout in game six, a game we had to win. The next day, we won it all.

[Q] Playboy: Did that feel like the climax of your career?

[A] Hernandez: No, and I was disturbed that it didn't mean that much to me. I thought that when we wonit, I'd run over to the pitcher's mound and jump up and down and just go crazy--and I did that, but it felt like what I was supposed to do. At the time, I blamed it on having a child's view point of winning the world series, but that wasn't the reason.

[Q] Playboy: What was?

[A] Hernandez: I was burned out on baseball. People don't realize that after a while, you can get burned out. Major-league baseball is every day--it's not a Sunday slow-pitch Softball league with beerin the dugout. This is seven months out of the year with only twenty days off. You play a hundred and sixty-two games in a hundred and eighty-two days, and before that, you go through six weeks of spring training with no off days, and after enough years, the grind gets to you. In'82, because we were winning, I didn't realize it had gotten to me. The next year--when I went to spring training--is when it really hit.

[Q] Playboy: What were you feeling?

[A] Hernandez: Well, I was twenty-nine years old, I'd been in the big leagues for almost ten years, I had maybe ten more left and, in a way, I'd attained everything I wanted. I'd been M.V.P., I'd won the league batting championship, Gold Gloves and I'd been on a championship team--what more was left but to do it again?

[A] The following season, during spring training, I talked to Pete Rose about it, and he said the same thing had happened to him when he was thirty. He told me you have to remotivate yourself to go on. By coincidence, I met Julius Erving at this year's Super Bowl, and Dr. J thought I was thirty or thirty-one. Out of nowhere, he said, "Well, you're at the age now where you've got to remotivate yourself." When I told him I was thirty-five, he said, "Oh, then you've already been through that. I had to do the same thing." So I guess it must be a natural process.

[Q] Playboy: You may have remotivated yourself at the start of the '83 season, but that June, you weretraded to the New York Mets, a move that seemed to shock just about everyone in baseball.

[A] Hernandez: Everyone except me; I'd smelled a rat six weeks in advance. I could see that Whitey Herzogdid not like me, and in baseball--unless you're the biggest airhead who ever walked the earth--you are the first to know when you are not a wanted commodity.

[Q] Playboy: After you hit .299 and drove in ninety-four runs during the Cardinals' championship season, why didn't Herzog want you on the team?

[A] Hernandez: [A very long silence] I must tell you that I've never talked about this publicly, because I want this period of my life swept under a rug and forgotten. [Another long pause] The realreason I was traded? I've got to believe it was caused by my use of drugs. When I said I'd smelled a rat six weeks before the trade, what actually happened was that Whitey called a meeting and said three players on the team were using cocaine. He said he knew who we were, and if we didn't come out and admit it, we were gone. But that was bluff. The Cardinals had suspicions, but they didn't have any proof.

[Q] Playboy: But their suspicions were correct?

[A] Hernandez: Yes, and the three guys who were using it were me, Joaquin Andujar and Lonnie Smith-- it's well documented, because later on, we all testified in court. Ironically enough, I'd stopped using the drug just a couple of weeks before I was traded in'83. I started using cocaine in 1980--that was the year of my greatest use. I never really used that much, and I only did it on the road, but not every day and notin every city. We would just do it and yap and tell each other our life stories. Two other players who were gone from the team by '83 were also involved, and since they're no longer in baseball, I don't see any point in mentioning their names.

[Q] Playboy: What prompted you to quit using cocaine?

[A] Hernandez: Well, I'd stopped enjoying the high by'81. But I was still snorting coke in '82, and I'd sit there and say, "Why the fuck am I doing this?" I was down to minimal use at the start of the '83 season, when Whitey delivered his speech. And then early in the season, when we played the Phillies in Philadelphia, Lonnie came to the park too strung out to play. He talked to Whitey and turned himself in for rehabilitation--Lonnie went into the tank for a couple of months. That's when I told myself, That's it.

[Q] Playboy: Did Smith tell the Cardinals that you and Andujar were also using coke?

[A] Hernandez: They knew. Lonnie had been at that meeting when Herzog said he knew three of us were using coke. The clubs know what's going on--they all know. We're their investments. They watch overtheir investments.

[Q] Playboy: Was it difficult for you to get off the drug?

[A] Hernandez: Yeah, it was. When I started using it, the biggest fuckin' lie about cocaine was that it's not addictive. Listen, it's tough to get off cocaine. The urges stayed with me for the rest of the '83 season, and I had those urges during all of'84 and'85, as well. I had to stay completely away from it. If there was cocaine in the room, wherever I was, I left. Now I have a whole new group of friends and I'm not around it. I think coke is bad, and anybody who does it recreationally is taking a tremendous risk. Cocaine will grab you by the throat, and the next thing you know, you're in trouble. You're in trouble.

[Q] Playboy: When did you feel as though you were in trouble?

[A] Hernandez: Well, not in '80, when I started doing it--I was enjoying it and I wasn't doing it to the point where it affected my game. I don't know exactly when it started getting a hold on me; probably late'81 or'82.1 think that if I'd kept it up, eventually it would have torn me down. In a way, I suppose the trade was actually the best thing that could have happened to me, because no one on the Mets knew what I'd done.

[Q] Playboy: Were you happy about being sent to the Mets?

[A] Hernandez: Oh, no, not at all. I was traded right at the deadline. On June fifteenth, I was out taking batting practice and I'm thinking, Well, I've got till midnight. It's five o'clock, we're hitting and I'min uniform--only seven more hours till deadline. A few minutes later, Buddy Bates, the clubhouse man, came out and said, "Whitey wants you in his office." As soon as Buddy told me that, I knew I was gone. The only surprise was where I was going. The minute I walked into his office, Whitey said, "We traded you." I said, "What team?" and he said, "The Mets." I honestly think they traded me to New York just to bury me, because the Mets were then a terrible team. While I was in his office, Whitey called up Frank Cashen, the Mets' general manager, and put me on the phone with him.

[Q] Playboy: What did Cashen say to you?

[A] Hernandez: That he was happy to have me aboard, and that the Mets were turning things around-- and I was sitting there thinking, Oh, sure, the Mets have only been mired in last place for the past five years. I was also thinking that I had half a season left on my contract, which may have had a lot to do with the trade. I was finishing a five-year three-point-eight-million-dollar deal with St. Louis, and if I had signed a new five-year contract, it would have been for considerably more--probably for as much as the eight million, four hundred thousand dollars I got from New York. I don't think St. Louis really wanted to pay it. They're a very conservative organization; they're the ones who are always going to move last.

[Q] Playboy: After talking with Cashen, did you feel better about the trade?

[A] Hernandez: Let me put it this way: As soon as I got home from the ball park, I called my agent andsaid, "Can I retire? Do I have enough money to quit?" And he said, "No, you don't--not if you want to lead the life you're used to." After that, I spoke to my dad, who really made me feel better about going to New York.

[Q] Playboy: How So?

[A] Hernandez: My father, being the fan that he is, was very well informed about the progress being made by Dwight Gooden, Ron Darling and Walt Terrell, all of whom were then in the Mets' minor-league chain. He said, "You've got a pitching staff coming up." He also knew all about Darryl Strawberry and said, "This team's got some talent." My dad knows baseball, so I respected what he said.

[Q] Playboy: You were traded to the Mets for pitchers Neil Allen and Rick Ownbey--a trade that delighted Mets fans but made Cardinals fans fume.

[A] Hernandez: It was a bad trade, especially in retrospect. The Cardinals could have gotten a hell of a lot more for me, I think, because they didn't come out and tell the world about the drug thing. But there certainly were rumors floating around-- when I talked to Cashen, he let me know he'd heard whispers of my having a drug problem. By the same token, if Whitey had really wanted me, he could have come to me and said, "Look, we know what you're doing; let's get you some help." That never happened.

[A] And then, after the trade, the club suddenly went south, and St. Louis fans got all over Whitey for it. Still, he bit the bullet and didn't come out and say I was traded because of drugs and that I'd lied about not using them.

[Q] Playboy: So Herzog was a stand-up guy?

[A] Hernandez: Yes, he was. But when Whitey started getting heat every day because of the trade and because the club had gone south, he became very critical of me, and I wish he'd kept his mouth shut. Herzog saidI wasn't his kind of ballplayer because I didn't always run out ground balls--and that's a weakness in my game,I admit that. He finally came up with the ultimate criticism: He said I was a selfish player. That, to me, is the worst. I'd rather be called a dog than a selfish player. That's a player who goes four for four and the team loses, but he's happy; or when the team wins and he's 0 for four, he's pissed off. That really got to me.

[Q] Playboy: Have you talked with Herzog since then?

[A] Hernandez: Yeah, we're fine now. I have the greatest respect for him as a manager, and because of that respect, it really did bother me when I read that I wasn't his kind of player. But as I've already mentioned, I also know that he could have gone public with the drug thing and didn't.

[Q] Playboy: How did your drug use finally come to light?

[A] Hernandez: During spring training of 1985, I got a call from an FBI agent in Pittsburgh, who said,"We want you to come here and testify in front of the grand jury concerning Curtis Strong," who was a drug dealer. I thought, Oh, fuck. Something that ended two years ago, something that's behind me--and I get caught now? The trial didn't take place until September, and Lonnie testified the day before I did. He told the grand jury that he, Andujar, myself and the two other players I alluded to had used cocaine.

[Q] Playboy: Were you upset at Smith for informing on you?

[A] Hernandez: No, because I understood what he was going through. I knew he was afraid that he would be suspended; I'm sure they threatened him with that. So I didn't hold it against him--we're still friends--and neither did Joaquin. There were no hard feelings. What Lonnie testified to was the truth, and when my turn came, I wasn't going to perjure myself. And I didn't.

[Q] Playboy: After you and a number of other players were granted immunity in return for your testimony, former baseball commissioner Peter Ueberroth gave you a choice of being suspended for a year or paying a fine of ten percent of your yearly salary--which in your case came to a hundred and thirty-five thousand dollars-- and performing two hundred hours of community service. What did you think of Ueberroth's ruling?

[A] Hernandez: When he first came out with his announcement, I didn't like it at all. When Hollywood stars get caught doing cocaine and it appears in the papers, everybody just says "Oh," and it doesn't affect their box office and they continue to work. But then, I had to look at it objectively and I realized this was a big scandal, and Ueberroth had to do something, because the public was outraged. The public--and probably rightly so--said I should have been thankful that I wasn't suspended for life. Listen, I hate the fact that I'm part of "The Pittsburgh Seven," and that'll be baseball history, just like the Black Sox scandal: "The Pittsburgh Seven," and there is my name. Using coke was the biggest fuckin' mistake I ever made, because my reputation had been outstanding, and I blew it.

[Q] Playboy: How long did it take before you were happy about having been sent to New York?

[A] Hernandez: Well, when I first got there, my perceptions of New York were what they'd always been: that it's all crime and muggings and don't go out at night. Like most people around the country, I was terrified of New York. I was still married in'83, and we had three daughters, so I lived in Greenwich, Connecticut, and commuted to Shea Stadium. But over the winter, my wife and I separated for the last time, and in 1984, Rusty Staub, who was my best friend on the team, insisted that I take a place in the city. And that's when I changed my opinion of New York.

[Q] Playboy: What caused you to change it?

[A] Hernandez: Rusty and two other Mets who were also single, Ed Lynch and Ron Darling, were all living in the city, so the four of us hung out together. Rusty knew the city like the back of his hand, and being the gourmet that he is, we used to go out to great dinners after every game, and I liked that. Throughout my years in St. Louis, I'd always gotten bored in the off season, because there wasn't enough to do. In New York, you can't get bored--there's simply too many things going on, and not just party things. New York has great restaurants, Broadway shows, all kinds of entertainment, and good basketball, hockey and football.

[Q] Playboy: Off and on the field, you're known best as "the Mex," but we've been told that that's more of an alter ego than a nickname. True?

[A] Hernandez: Yes, but it didn't start out that way. When I began playing in the minor leagues, the Caribbean, South American and Mexican players I met usually asked me where I was from. I'd tell them the truth:"I'm from San Francisco, and I'm Spanish." They'd always say, "Well, you're not Spanish, you're just ashamed to admit you're Venezuelan or Mexican." So instead of fighting it, at eighteen, I became the Mex.

[A] As I grew older, the Mex became someone other than who I was away from the ball park. I remember that in 1987,1 spent most of the season trying to get back together with my girlfriend; we'd been separated for a year, and when I realized I'd made a grave error in judgment, it affected my play and the way I carried myself around the team. I was moody and I was distracted, and I'm usually hyper. At the end of the season, Ron Darling came up to me and said, "We need you to be the Mex again."

[Q] Playboy: And who is the Mex?

[A] Hernandez: The Mex is a ballplayer who enjoys being with his teammates and who doesn't act like an adult thirty-five-year-old male. He's not wild and crazy, but he certainly is youthful. When we're flying from city to city, the back of the plane is where everybody goes to have a good time. You go back and drink your beers and have some fun during the two- or three-hour flight to the next town. The Mex belongs in the back of the plane, but that doesn't mean I'm going to be getting drunk and abusive.

[A] I'm really two different people: the ballplayer and the person I am during the off season. During the off season, I'm a fairly solitary man; during the season, I don't want to be solitary. I smoke cigarettes during the season; the rest of the year, I don't. During the winter, I get up early, like normal people do, and I enjoy the day. During the season, because we're nocturnal--the great majority of our games are played at night --I stay up till two in the morning and sleep till noon.

[Q] Playboy: Is that the way you were spending most of your time that first season in New York?

[A] Hernandez: Actually, the first half of the season, I was living with a girl. The second half, I wasn't going out like Joe Namath and painting the town red, though I was staying out late. That's when I started thinking Davey Johnson was the greatest manager in the world. On Saturday nights, I'd usually stay out till five in the morning, and when I went to the ball park before our Sunday-afternoon games, I'd tell Davey, "I'm beat; I don't want to take hitting." And he'd let me go into the trainer's room and sleep till noon, and often enough, I'd go out and go four for five. That year--1984--was the best of my career. I hit .300 every month and I was never better in the clutch. To me, '84 was the initial challenge. The team had lost ninety-four games the year before; in '84, we won ninety games. We turned it around in one year, and Davey was one of the major reasons for that.

[Q] Playboy: How would you characterize Johnson's approach to managing?

[A] Hernandez: Davey plays a lot of hunches-- he operates on his instincts, rolls the dice and oftengoes against the grain. And Davey's great at developing new talent and instilling confidence in young players. He was perfect for the Mets job. Davey never put any of our young players in the position I was in when I started out with St. Louis: If they went 0 for four, he didn't bench them the next day. He nurtured those kids, especially the pitchers. During their first year with the Mets, whenever Dwight Gooden or Ron Darling got intoa jam in the fifth inning or so, Davey would make them get out of it themselves, and only then would he yank them. And he would get tremendous criticism for not letting Dwight Gooden, at nineteen years of age, throw morethan a hundred and ten pitches--or whatever the number was-- because our trainer had seen a lot ofyoung arms get blown out from overwork. Unfortunately, our bull pen couldn't hold a lead, so when we lost, Davey would catch a lot of criticism for it: "Well, why didn't you leave Gooden in? Doc was throwing a six-hit, one-run game and you pulled him in the eighth inning. Why?" And Davey would always say, "Because he threw a hundred and ten pitches." He took the heat. It's pretty clear to me that Davey's one of the new breed of managers.

[Q] Playboy: Apparently so: He's known to rely heavily on computerized stats. Do you go along with that?

[A] Hernandez: Yes, but only to a degree, because there are some things the computer doesn't tell you.The first year Davey had the print-outs, I got curious and checked my average against every pitcher we faced. When I found out I was .345 against John Candelaria, I couldn't believe it, because he was one of the toughestleft-handers in the league. What the computer can't tell you--at least not right now--is if I hit twenty bloopers and infield bleeders or if I got legitimate hits off the pitcher.

[A] The numbers also can be deceiving in the other direction. The first time we faced Nolan Ryan, who was then pitching for the Astros, Davey called me into his office and said, "I'm going to rest you today; take the day off. The computer says you hit .175 against Ryan." I said, "No, no, Davey. I don't mind facing Nolan Ryan. Ryan's tough, but I've beaten him." I finally persuaded Davey not to rest me against Ryan, and in the eighth inning, I hit a three-run homer to beat him. My average against Ryan may have been .175, but he always walked me alot and I was dangerous against him.

[Q] Playboy: Former Cardinals catcher Tim McCarver, who's currently the hottest TV baseball broadcaster in America, says he has never seen a player do more than you do to help his team win, and Frank Cashen agrees. Just what is it that you do?

[A] Hernandez: Exactly what Lou Brock did for me when I was a rookie. I remembered how Lou calmed me down and how much that meant to me. I'd never been on a team that had so many young players come up at once who were bona fide major-leaguers, but they were all going through what I had gone through--wondering whether or not they belonged in the big leagues. So all of a sudden, I'm Dwight Gooden, I'm Ron Darling, I'm Lenny Dykstra, I'm Roger McDowell, I'm Darryl Strawberry--particularly Straw. I had a special attachment to him because he was gonna be the next Willie McCovey and hit five hundred home runs, and he had intense, immense pressure put on him starting when he was nineteen years old. I remembered how I'd felt when I was twenty-one and had my picture in Sports Illustrated, which ran an article called "The Most Likely to Succeed." Darryl's still under much more pressure than I ever was.

[Q] Playboy: Any reason for that?

[A] Hernandez: Oh, sure--he hits monstrous home runs. Darryl's got awesome power. And America much prefers a slugger like Darryl to a Wade Boggs, a .380 hitter who hits twelve home runs. We love home-run hitters because home runs are exciting. The closest thing to Darryl is Jack Clark, who also puts fear into the hearts of a lot of pitchers. Darryl's very intimidating.

[Q] Playboy: When crowds in stadiums throughout the National League razz him by chanting "Dar----ryl! Dar--ryl!" does he ever get intimidated?

[A] Hernandez: No, I think he likes it. The reason they do it, of course, is that Darryl's a special player. A lot of people compare him to Reggie Jackson, but I think Darryl's very sensitive, whereas Reggie was just Reggie.

[Q] Playboy: Meaning?

[A] Hernandez: Reggie loved being in the spotlight. I mean, when he came to bat with the bases loaded, he would get a hard-on. Mr. All-Star-fucking-grand-slam-homer-in-Detroit-off-the-light-tower, Mr. October--his ego just thrived on things like that, and I know him, and I like him. Darryl's not Reggie. Darryl has this vulnerability that shows, and it's such that in New York, fans really love him, but they're befuddled by him, and I think at least some of that's been caused by the New York press, which always criticizes his defense. Darryl is not a Roberto Clemente in right field-- Clemente won twelve Gold Gloves-- but he's not a butcher in right field, either. Well, maybe he is just an average outfielder. So what? Listen, Darryl is the cornerstone of the Mets' franchise--he is the franchise player. You build teams around a Darryl Strawberry and his abilities. But even though New York fans are very bright and very knowledgeable, they get exasperated by him.

[Q] Playboy: Why? Just because they think he should be a great defensive player?

[A] Hernandez: No, it's the controversy that seems to swarm around him every spring. They really want to take Darryl into their hearts, and it's a very frustrating relationship. Darryl could have New York in his back fucking pocket, and, to a degree, he does, but fans always want him to do more. Listen, last year, he led the league with thirty-nine home runs, had a hundred and one R.B.I.s and hit .269. What do you expect from this man?

[Q] Playboy: Let's focus for a moment on your mention of the controversy that always seems to surround Strawberry: This past spring, just about every TV station in the nation broadcast footage of the two of you fighting at spring training. You've thus far refused to reveal the cause of that fight, so we'll try to finesse this one out of you. What was the cause of that fight?

[A] Hernandez:[A long silence]Well, I've been highly critical of Darryl, and maybe too much so--in the news papers-- about things I should have said to him face to face. I've always had Darryl's best interests at heart, but there are things I've said about him publicly that I wish I hadn't.

[Q] Playboy: Such as?

[A] Hernandez: I said that he quit on us in '84 and'85.1 think I misjudged him back then, and Darryl is very misunderstood. I can tell you that he is a caring person who's got a good heart and who wants to be liked. He is not an asshole, which is to say he's not a self-centered piece of shit.

[Q] Playboy: You still haven't told us what happened at spring training.

[A] Hernandez: What happened was this Darryl had heard from a most unreliable source--don't ask me who, 'cause I won't tell you--that last fall, I had campaigned against him winning the league's M.V.P. award. He didn't hear this from anybody connected with the Mets, but he believed it, and that simply wasn't true.

[Q] Playboy: The M.V.P award is voted on by sportswriters. He was told that you had urged sportswriters not to vote for him?

[A] Hernandez: Right. The day before we got into the fight, we ran into each other and he asked me about it, and I said, "Darryl, no." And I thought we'd cleared that up.

[Q] Playboy: Obviously, you hadn't.

[A] Hernandez: That's also right. But I think I really touched it off. Straw was then trying to get his old contract torn up, and I told some newspapermen I thought he was getting bad advice from his agent--which was not really blaming Darryl. Anyway, he picked the fight. There were all these cameramen around and I said, "Are you sure you want to do this right here, right now?" He wanted to, and I couldn't back down. But I didn't want to hit him, and I could have coldcocked him. We were laughing about this recently, because he hadn't really wanted to hit me, either. Darryl's also a lefty, and he threw a half-assed left hand and brushed my nose with the back of one of his fingers--it wasn't even a backhand slap.

[Q] Playboy: Was that the end of it?

[A] Hernandez: Yes, but I couldn't sleep that night --I was very upset. The next day, I go to the park and, lo and behold, Darryl comes up to me and says, "Let's play catch, Mex." I can't tell you how relieved I was.

[Q] Playboy: Why? Is camaraderie that important to you?

[A] Hernandez: Camaraderie is very important! In St. Louis, we were a tight unit, and after a game, you didn't have to say, "I'll see you at the hotel bar." Instead of going up to our hotel rooms after a night game and feeling claustrophobic, we would meet downstairs and talk to one another over a few beers. On my first road trip with the Mets in '83, I took the team bus back to the hotel, and only three players were in the hotel bar. I went, "Holy fuck!" It stayed like that through the end of that first half season I played for New York.

[A] The next year, in '84, on our first road trip, I made a point of going up to fifteen players and saying, "Hey, I'll meet you in the hotel bar after the game." All fifteen guys showed up, and I'll never forget that Hubie Brooks, who now plays for the Expos, came up the next day and said, "You know, I had a great time last night; let's do it again." A team becomes a team that way. And you don't just spend your time bullshitting. For instance, let's say Hubie went one for four during the game. I'd ask him, "That one at-bat where you were awesome--what did the pitcher lead you off with? What did he throw you on three and one? What was on your mind at three and one?" The pitchers talk about pitching, the rest of us talk about hitting, and that's important.

[Q] Playboy: Let's talk some more about hitting. Ted Williams once claimed that hitting a pitched baseball is the toughest single act in sports. Do you agree?

[A] Hernandez: Yes, I do. If a quarterback completes thirty percent of his passes, he won't make it to the N.F.L. You don't hear about quarterbacks with a thirty percent--or .300--completion average. If a tennis player gets in only thirty percent of his first serves, he's in deep shit. Same with a basketball player who shoots thirty percent from the floor. But a baseball player who gets hits in thirty percent of his at-bats--only about a dozen guys in each league are able to do that. Check it out.

[Q] Playboy: After fifteen seasons in the major leagues, your lifetime batting average is exactly .300. Can you tell us what it takes to be a .300 hitter?

[A] Hernandez: Mental discipline. Total mental discipline. Every year you have approximately seven hundred appearances at the plate. There will be times when you're in, say, St. Louis, and you're leading off the ninth inning, the score is 10--0, it's a weekend game and the temperature is a hundred degrees--and a hundred and forty degrees on the Astroturf--and the heat is reflecting up in your face. And you can't give in, but once in a while, you're going to give in. There ain't a man alive who's gonna have seven hundred quality at-bats. He's gonna have that time when he says, "I'm tired, this game's out of reach, this pitcher gives me trouble--fuck it." Keep them at a minimum. And that's the difference between a .300 hitter and a .280 hitter.

[Q] Playboy: Last year, even though you were only two hits short of it, the fact is that you did fall below .280. Aside from that statistic, are you aware of any inroads that time has made on your ability to hit?

[A] Hernandez: That's difficult to answer, because before I got hurt last year--and this year, too --I was having a normal season. Let me put it this way: When I slip, I'll be the first to know. I once asked [former Chicago Cubs slugger] Billy Williams when he first felt that he was slipping and what he did to compensate for it. Billy said, "When I was thirty-seven, I felt myself become a little slower --I didn't get the bat around as fast as I always had, so I looked for certain pitches." Billy and I talked about the pitches he looked for, and what he told me will remain strictly confidential. I'm not giving anything away that I don't have to.

[Q] Playboy: At the start of the season, Mets vice-president Joe McIlvaine sounded as if he were ready to give you away. McIlvaine told a writer that if you don't play up to your usual level, it may be "time to sever the cord." How did you react to that?

[A] Hernandez: I took it for what it was: That's the business end of baseball. I was coming off an injury that put me out for sixty days and was getting ready to negotiate a new contract, and he was saying, "Show me." If I were in Joe's shoes, I would have said and done the same thing: I wouldn't have signed me to another contract until late in the season or until the season was over-- I'd have waited to see if I'd had a good year or not. I think it's purely a business decision, and a good one, a sound one. They're doing the same thing to Carter-- the spotlight's on both of us.

[Q] Playboy: And how hot is that spotlight getting?

[A] Hernandez: This is a different sort of pressure than I've ever had to deal with, because I want to finish my career with the Mets. New York is my home, and if I didn't give a shit about living there, I wouldn't give two flips about playing somewhere else next year. My injury has changed the picture, however. Even though it's a freak injury, it's an injury nonetheless, and it's real easy to picture management saying, "OK, he's starting to get hurt now, and it will continue." But when I come back, and if I get back in the starting line-up, I think my destiny will still be in my own hands. Of course, it's certainly possible that come September--which is when this kind of thing always happens--a contending team will want a veteran first baseman to help them in their stretch run for a division title. But at least I'm not at the Mets' mercy. I'm a ten-and-five man--I have ten years of service in the big leagues and more than the required five with the same team-- which automatically means that they can't trade me to a club I don't want to play for. And if they can't trade me, then I become a free agent and can sign with anybody next year.

[Q] Playboy: How would you feel about being traded?

[A] Hernandez: Right now, if I have to go somewhere, there's only one team I'd want to finish my career with, and it's in the National League. I can't tell you-- which team, because that could be interpreted as breaking baseball's rule against tampering, and I'd catch hell for it from the commissioner's office. But I'd still rather finish my career with the Mets.

[A] So the pressure this year is unlike the usual variety, but it finally comes down to the same thing: I've got to continue to produce.

[Q] Playboy: And what if you can't produce?

[A] Hernandez: What do I do? I don't know. For the first time in my career, because of my divorce and some financial problems, I'm really playing for a new contract. I should be fucking set for life, but I got ambushed, waylaid by the past. When I got divorced, I got clobbered, and there were also problems with my formeragent and the IRS. I had everything planned so that after this contract, I could quit, if I wanted to, and live off the money I'd deferred all these years. I was set, but that option's no longer there. And I'm very pissed about it.

[Q] Playboy: Because of that situation, how many more years do you plan on playing?

[A] Hernandez: If I can stay healthy, I've got three years left where I can play a hundred and fifty games a season. Physically, I may have five years left, but the only thing that could keep me in the game that long is my shot at three thousand hits, which would just about ensure me a place in the Hall of Fame. Between last year's injury and this one, though, that's out: See ya. Sayonara. There's not enough years left and not enough games left for me to have any shot at getting three thousand hits. I'm not gonna fuss and break my head over it, though I certainly would like to get twenty-five hundred. But if it doesn't happen, then it doesn't happen. I'll just have had a good career, and I'll take it from there.

[Q] Playboy: Since you've already indicated that you probably won't be playing then, what do you expect to be doing five years from now?

[A] Hernandez: I'm not sure, and I'm worried about it. Do I want to broadcast? Do I want to manage? Do I want to stay in the game? You know what would be the most effortless job? Just coaching for the Mets, living in New York and throwing batting practice. I could do that for a while. Actually, I would love just to fade into the sunset.

[Q] Playboy: Is it important to you how New Yorkers remember your years with the Mets?

[A] Hernandez: Well, I think it's already pretty much guaranteed that I'm a member of an exclusive club--only two Mets teams have ever won the world series, the miracle Mets of '69 and the '86 Mets--so we'll always be remembered. And no matter if my career falls apart this year--the worst possible scenario is that I'm not given a new contract--as time goes by, the fans will forget all that, and they'll remember'86. That's important to me, and I'm looking forward to old-timers' day in the year 2006--the twenty-year reunion of the 1986 Mets will be a fun day.

[A] Other than that, I won't lose sleep over how people are gonna remember me when I'm through playing. Fans always expect you to be in a great mood, and there have been times when they've come up for an autograph and I've had a bad day or I've been in a slump, and I've been rude. Those people probably hate my guts, 'cause you remember those things. But if they think I'm stuck-up or unfriendly, they ought to think again. They don't know me. I have my own life.

[Q] Playboy: It almost sounds as if, when you leave the game--aside from your desire for Hall of Fame membership--you don't want to leave any footprints behind you.

[A] Hernandez: That's not true. What's important to me is how I'm perceived by baseball people. When Whitey Herzog was my manager, he could drive to the park every day knowing I'd be in the line-up, that I wantedto play and that I'd always give him my very best. That's how I want to be perceived. Not as this guy who got twenty-five hundred hits and who was a lifetime .300 hitter. I gave it my best--that's how I want to be remembered.

[A] And I know this much: When I retire from baseball, I will miss the guys much more than the game, and I think that's true for most ex-ball players. I won't miss having to drive in the clutch run with two outs in the ninth inning. But I will miss the three-a.m. bus rides from the airport into Cincinnati, where there's music going and everybody's singing and laughing. Those are the great times.

"Much as I'd love to stay in New York, baseball is a business. I'll be negotiating my nect contract at a base salary of two million."

I' think coke is bad, and anybody who does it recreationally is taking a tremendous risk.Cocaine will grab you by the throat."

"There's not enough years left for me to have any shot at getting three thousand hits. I'm not gonna fuss and break my head over it."