Roberto Manuel Hernández Rodríguez (born November 11, 1964) is a Puerto Rican former professional baseball right-handed relief pitcher. His best Major League Baseball (MLB) seasons came with the Chicago White Sox and Tampa Bay Devil Rays, in the 1990s. In all, Hernández played for 10 different big league teams, over 17 seasons. Early life Roberto Manuel Hernández was born November 11, 1964 in Puerto Rico. His father moved his family to the Dominican Republic where his father was originally from. At age 2, his family moved again to New York City. He went to Chelsea Vocational School in Manhattan where he played baseball for three years. During his junior year of high school, he and his brother were forced to drop out due to the fact that is mother was sick and his father was laid off from his job. He assisted his family for a year, then was offered a scholarship at the New Hampton School, a private school in New Hampshire where he repeated his junior year and completed his senior year of high school while continuing to play baseball. Amateur career In the fall of 1984, Hernández attended the University of Connecticut to play baseball for the Huskies and was named the starting catcher in the spring of 1985. Following the 1985 college season, he played in a summer league in Virginia. He was the only catcher on the team but he desired to pitch. The coach told him he would get the opportunity to pitch if they found another catcher. In his first start, he pitched against a team from Madison and struck out 14 batters. He then pitched against North Carolina, East Carolina and finally against Elon but wouldn’t pitch again and caught mostly every game the rest of the summer. Hernández hoped to return to UConn in the fall of 1985 and pitch; However, he had difficulty contacting the coach during the summer. Hernández then made the decision to transfer. He hoped to attend the University of South Carolina but he could not get a letter of consent. Had he signed, he would have been forced to sit out a season, which would have hurt his chances of being drafted the following year. Larry Carr, the pitching coach at Coastal Carolina, had seen Hernández pitch and called the pitching coach at USC Aiken (USCA) and told him to offer Hernández a scholarship. Hernández enrolled