Keith Hernandez (born October 20, 1953) is an American former professional baseball first baseman. He played 17 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the St. Louis Cardinals, New York Mets, and Cleveland Indians. Hernandez was a five-time All-Star who shared the 1979 NL MVP award and won two World Series titles, one each with the Cardinals and Mets. Since 1998, he has been a color commentator on Mets television broadcasts.
A contact hitter with a .296 career average and a walk rate of 12.5%, Hernandez's career hitting productivity was 31% above league average. For his defensive work, he received 11 consecutive Gold Glove awards, the most by any first baseman in baseball history. Hernandez is widely considered the best defensive first baseman of all time.
Hernandez has been a color commentator on Mets games for SNY, alongside former Mets teammate Ron Darling and play-by-play announcer Gary Cohen since the launch of the network in 2006. He has also been a studio analyst for MLB on Fox since 2017.
Hernandez was born in San Francisco to John Hernandez Sr., who was a minor league baseball player, and Jacquelyn Jordan Hernandez, the daughter of a Texas oil wildcatter. His oldest brother, John Jr., was born prematurely and died soon after birth. He grew up in Pacifica and Millbrae, California. He attended Terra Nova High School in Pacifica during his freshman year, then transferred to Capuchino High School in San Bruno for the remainder of his high school years. During a Mets broadcast, Hernandez said he nearly enrolled at Serra High School, a boys' Catholic high school in San Mateo that graduated Barry Bonds and Tom Brady. Hernandez was a star athlete in high school and graduated in 1971. One of his teammates at Terra Nova High School was future major league pitcher Bob McClure, who had also played Little League baseball with him. Given his surname, and the fact that he is from California, it was incorrectly assumed that Hernandez was of Mexican descent, and he was nicknamed "Mex" by his teammates. In actuality, his father's ancestry is Castilian Spanish and his mother is Scots-Irish, as he explained during a Mets broadcast on SNY.
Hernandez was perceived as having attitude issues because he sat out his entire senior high school season due to a dispute with a coach. He played briefly at the College of San Mateo, a local community college, before being drafted by the St. Louis Cardinals in the 42nd round of the 1971 Major League Baseball draft as the 783rd player selected. Hernandez was the last player selected and signed in the 1971 Major League Baseball draft to play in the Major Leagues. He batted and threw left-handed, and through most of his career was listed as being 6' tall (1.83m) and 195 lbs. (88.5 kg).
During his childhood, Hernandez's brother bought a book on Civil War history, which ignited Hernandez's passion for the subject. His interest in the Civil War landed Hernandez guest spots on KMOX radio when he was with the Cardinals. He was also featured in the New York Times when he was with the Mets and appeared in episodes of the television series Seinfeld.
Hernandez's batting average hovered around .250 for most of his minor league career, until his promotion to the Tulsa Oilers in the second half of the 1973 season. With the Cardinals' AAA affiliate, Hernandez batted .333 with five home runs and a .525 slugging percentage. The following season, Hernandez's average jumped to .351, earning him a promotion to the big league club. He made his major league debut at Candlestick Park on August 30, 1974, against the San Francisco Giants, going 1-for-2 with two walks, and earning his first major league RBI with a single in the ninth. Following the season, the Cards traded first baseman Joe Torre to the New York Mets for Tommy Moore and Ray Sadecki to make room for their budding young prospect.
Hernandez ended up splitting 1975 between Tulsa and the Cardinals. Though he had a .996 fielding percentage with only two errors in 507 chances, Hernandez struggled with major league pitching, batting only .250 with three home runs and 20 RBIs.
Hernandez wore uniform number 18 for the first two years of his career. In 1976, he switched to number 37, insisting that his uniform number end with a "7" in honor of Mickey Mantle (with whom he shared a birthday). While Hernandez became more comfortable with his bat, he was always recognized as a fielder first, snatching his first Gold Glove Award away from perennial winner Steve Garvey in 1978. In 1979, however, Hernandez's batting improved markedly as he led the league with a .344 batting average, 48 doubles, and 116 runs scored, and went on to share the National League's Most Valuable Player Award with Willie Stargell. For the first and only time in major league history, two players received the same number of points from the Baseball Writers' Association of America and shared the MVP award for that year.
From there, Hernandez became a perennial .300 hitter, and one of the top stars in the National League. His Cardinals won the 1982 World Series, defeating the Milwaukee Brewers in seven games. In game six, Hernandez and Cardinal catcher Darrell Porter hit home runs in a 13–1 St. Louis victory. Hernandez also contributed eight runs batted in during the seven-game World Series.
After multiple disagreements with Cardinals management, most notably manager Whitey Herzog, Hernandez was traded to the Mets on June 15, 1983, for pitchers Neil Allen and Rick Ownbey. Herzog said he felt that Hernandez had become a cancer on his team and never regretted the trade.
Hernandez, after the trade, said that he believed his cocaine use while playing for the team was the impetus for the trade and that he even played a game while under its influence (although he couldn't remember which game). Hernandez testified that in 1980 perhaps 40 percent of MLB players were using the drug but that use dramatically declined after that season. He said he did not use cocaine after being traded to the Mets.
The Mets had retired number 37 for former manager Casey Stengel, so Hernandez switched to number 17 upon joining the club, which he wore for the remainder of his career. As a result of this trade, Hernandez went from a World Series champion to a team that narrowly avoided a hundred losses (68–94) and consistently finished at the bottom of the National League East. Hernandez, however, was determined to prove Herzog wrong, helping to fuel a rivalry between the two teams in the mid-1980s.
Under new manager Davey Johnson, the 1984 Mets had their first winning season since 1976, finishing 90–72, and six games ahead of the Cardinals in the NL East (6.5 games behind the eventual division winner, the Chicago Cubs). Hernandez finished second in the NL Most Valuable Player voting behind Cubs second baseman Ryne Sandberg, and emerged as the leader of the Mets' young core of ballplayers that included 1983 and 1984 Rookies of the Year Darryl Strawberry and Dwight Gooden, respectively.
Hernandez had such a strong and accurate throwing arm that, as a result, the Mets re-routed their relays through him. Due to his quick instincts, Hernandez was also able to play farther off first base than other first basemen, allowing the other infielders to play farther to their right.
Hernandez is widely considered one of the greatest fielding first basemen in major league history. He made brilliant diving plays far to his right and left.
Hernandez defended bunts by charging so aggressively that he occasionally discouraged opponents from attempting to bunt merely by reputation. Pete Rose, when he managed the Cincinnati Reds, compared bunting against Hernandez to "driving the lane against Bill Russell." Astros manager Hal Lanier said the combination of Hernandez at first and any one of three Mets pitchers— Ron Darling, Roger McDowell or Jesse Orosco— made bunting against the Mets "near impossible", and Cubs manager Jim Frey said he wouldn't ask most pitchers to bunt against the Mets. "You're just asking for a forceout at second, and now you've got your pitcher running the bases", he said. It wasn't just that Hernandez would arrive in front of the home-plate a moment after the pitch did. He had an uncanny feel for when the batter would attempt to bunt, therefore knowing when to charge in the first place. In the decades since Hernandez intimidated the opposition on bunt plays, no first baseman has yet managed to copy the move, with the possible exception of Anthony Rizzo of the Chicago Cubs three decades later.