Three-time All-Star relief pitcher Willie Hernández, who won the 1984 AL Cy Young and Most Valuable Player awards for the World Series champion Detroit Tigers, has died. He was 69.
Tigers spokesman Chad Crunk said Tuesday that Hernández passed away in Florida and the team confirmed Hernández’s death with his family. No cause was announced.
The south-paw Hernández had a 13-year major league career but is largely remembered for his role as the closer on one of the most dominant teams in the past four decades. The 1984 Tigers, led by Alan Trammell, Lou Whitaker and Jack Morris, opened the season with a sparkling record of 35-5 and cruised to the AL East title with a 104-58 mark before sweeping the Kansas City Royals in the AL Championship Series and defeating the San Diego Padres in a five-game World Series.
Hernández had a 9-3 record and 32 saves in 33 chances in 1984, with a 1.92 ERA over 80 games and 140⅓ innings of work. He is in elite company as just one of 11 pitchers to win the Cy Young and MVP in the same year, edging out Kansas City’s Dan Quisenberry for Cy Young in 1984 and Minnesota Twins’ Kent Hrbek for MVP.
Hernández would go on to have an excellent postseason and got the final out of the clinching Game 5, coaxing a short fly ball to left field from Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn, setting off a celebration for the ages. The Tigers have not won a World Series since.
Embed from Getty Images“Willie Hernández was a great teammate, and I’m terribly sorry to hear the news of his passing,” former Tigers star Alan Trammell said in a statement. “I will never forget our team’s celebration together on the mound after he recorded the final out of the 1984 World Series. He will always be remembered as a World Series champion. My thoughts and prayers are with this family.”
Hernández became only the third player to win MVP honors, the Cy Young Award and World Series in the same season, joining Sandy Koufax (1963) and Denny McLain (1968).
Guillermo Hernández was born in Aguada, Puerto Rico, on November 14, 1954. His ascent to baseball stardom could not have been predicted during 6½ solid but unspectacular seasons with the Chicago Cubs that began in 1977. He was dealt to Philadelphia during the 1983 season and pitched four shutout innings in that year’s World Series as the Phillies lost to the Baltimore Orioles.
Detroit acquired Hernández and Dave Bergman from the Phillies for Glenn Wilson and John Wockenfuss a few weeks prior to the 1984 season. Hernandez would go on to make three consecutive All-Star teams from 1984-86.
Hernández finished with a 70-63 record and a 3.38 ERA.
His career was not without controversy. After a decline in performance led to fan booing, Hernández poured ice water from a bucket over Detroit Free Press columnist Mitch Albom in March 1988 while the reporter was speaking with Tigers teammate Frank Tanana. The following month, Hernández asked the team to have the public address announcer refer to him as Guillermo, and Hernández went by that for the rest of his career.
