Son of South Florida connects with team
Retired big-league pitcher Alex Fernandez has crafted excellence at ArchbishopMcCarthy
Former major leaguer Alex Fernandez, director of baseball operations at Archbishop McCarthy in Southwest Ranches, is proud of the school’s six state championships in seven seasons. Fernandez connects with his players, passing along his experiences coming up and playing ball in South Florida.
SOUTHWEST RANCHES — In his one shot to play in a World Series, a torn rotator cuff sidelined Alex Fernandez for what turned out to be a seven-game thriller in 1997, when the Florida Marlins defeated the Cleveland Indians.
Since taking over as director of baseball operations at Archbishop McCarthy, Fernandez has virtually made sure the Mavericks don’t ever miss out on playing for a championship.
McCarthy’s run of six state-title wins over the past seven seasons is a reflection of more than Fernandez’s years as a big-leaguer. Celebrating a decade with the Southwest Ranches high school team, Fernandez also connects with his players where they live, passing along his experiences coming up and playing ball in South Florida.
Fernandez is a Cuban-American born in Miami Beach and raised in Hialeah. Winning two state championships at Miami Pace, hewas drafted in the first round out of high school (24th overall in 1988) and again after two years of college — fourth in 1990 following one year at the University of Miami and a Dick Howser Award-winning season at MiamiDade College.
He reached the majors less than two months after getting drafted and it led to 10 seasons — seven with the Chicago White Sox and three with the Marlins. The shoulder injury that began in 1997 eventually
“The hardest thing was to make them believe ... they’re capable of doing anything in life.” Alex Fernandez, on the players in McCarthy’s baseball program
forced him to retire in 2001.
As his oldest son, Alexander, was set to begin high school in 2007, Fernandez wanted to find the right place, the right team. Turns out, that place was roughly five blocks away from home in Southwest Ranches, where the Catholic school also happened to be interested in hiring South Florida’s first high school director of baseball operations.
Collecting 107 big-league wins, 1,252 strikeouts and a 3.74 ERA makes Fernandez a natural calling pitches, his game-day job for the Mavericks. His director role, he says, includes everything fromf und-raising to being a father figure for his players to helping maintain McCarthy’s field.
He had to start from the ground up. Previously, the Mavericks had won a district title once (2004) and had never reached states.
“The hardest thing was to make them believe they were good, make them believe they’re capable of doing anything in life,” Fernandez says. “I guess having the good background that I have, they listened.”
The first season, under coach Steve DeMatties, the Mavericks won their second district championship but fell in the first round of regionals. In 2009, current coach Rich Bielski's first season, McCarthy pushed further, winning its first regional title but then going down in state semifinals.
Then suddenly — magic: a record four consecutive state titles from 2010 to 2013. An extra-inning regional final defeat at Rockledge in 2014 was the only thing that stopped it from being seven straight after McCarthy rebounded the following two seasons.
“Winning has always been in my blood from my dad,” says Alexander Fernandez, who is nowplaying with the Washington Wild Things of the independent Frontier League after minorstints in the Marlins and Tigers’ organizations. “He doesn’t accept anything but winning.”
In order to help the team improve, Fernandez knew improvements had to be made in every aspect — beginning with facilities.
“Basically, there were dugouts here,” he says, leaning over the railing to the one downthe first-base line. “Andwe had grass and dirt.”
The upgrades since? Lights, an 8-foot outfield wall, stands with chair backs, a connecting clubhouse behind the Mavericks’ home dugout and — finally — a banner in right field listing all six state championships, along with
the one national title (2011).
Fernandez makes sure his players have the best he and the school can offer — from uniforms to the way they travel and eat.
“I know when I was at Hialeah, our team meal, we would pull over at McDonald’s or Burger King or Wendy’s — or if we were really going to eat well, it’d be a Subway,” Bielski says. “With Alex, it’s Carraba’s, it’s somewhere amazing every time.”
The baseball budget alone often isn’t enough and Fernandez digs into his own pockets to cover costs.
They make sure not to spoil the players — just ask the team after they were kicked out of the clubhouse following a recent loss to Trinity Christian, forcing players to change in cars or bathrooms until the suspension was lifted— but a “bigleague experience” is what Fernandez and Bielski strive to give their players.
“Some of the kids come back when they go to college and say, ‘Coach, itwas a downgrade from what we had here,’ ” Fernandez says.
And send kids off to college they do plenty of. In a ceremony at the school during the fall’s early signing period, nine seniors accepted college baseball scholarships, including three to the University of Miami and two— one being Fernandez’s youngest son, Andrew— to FIU.
Players understand that following Fernandez’s guidance will get them where they want to go— starting at the top with first baseman Alex Toral, who could go late in the first round in this June’s draft.
“Everybody respects Coach Alex the same. He played in the big leagues. You can’t big league a big leaguer,” says Toral, who will attend UM if he doesn’t go directly to pro ball.
Fernandez’s influence on the young men at McCarthy goes beyond baseball. Seeing the way he interacts with his two sons, two daughters — Ashley and Alyssa — and son-in-law Nick Basto, who attended McCarthy and is in Doublewith the White Sox, senior pitcher and third baseman Joe Perez says, “That’s the type of father I would like to be.”
While Fernandez has a big family of his own, it’s larger than life when considering he takes in his players as if theywere his own.
Like senior pitcher Daniel Federman says: “Coach Alex has almost been like a second dad tome— to all of us.”