Fossas was 8 and living in the little town of Guanajay, Cuba, about 35 miles southwest of Havana. Fidel Castro was in power on the island and his communist rule ran roughshod on anyone with a differing social or political opinion.
“I can remember jeeps with soldiers coming and taking over houses in our neighborhood,” he said. “And I remember when they came and took my father away.”
The family had shown interest in leaving Cuba and joining relatives who had fled to the United States and that drew the wrath of government authorities.
“They called us gusanos — worms,” Fossas said. “They looked at us like traitors just because we wanted freedom. They took my father off to farms to work and I only saw him a few times over the next couple of years.”
The Cuban government called them re-education farms. They were little more than labor camps, often in the country’s vast sugar cane fields, and if they didn’t work in indoctrination, they certainly did in punishment.
With Emilio Fossas gone, his wife Nelida had to find a way to care for Tony and his younger brother Misael.
“We had to eat, but we had no money, so my mom made what we call duro frios — ice cubes with chocolate in them — and I sold them at the bus station and on the street, anywhere I could for a penny,” Fossas said.
“I was like those little kids without shoes and caps we still see begging outside the ballparks in winter ball in places like the Dominican Republic and Venezuela. But I had to do what I could to help my mom.”
Through the struggles, he said he picked up valuable lessons from his parents.
“I learned the value of hard work. I learned the importance of family, how that matters over everything else. And especially from my dad I learned the importance of never giving up, of never giving in.”
Those lessons served Fossas well in the years to come, especially through a baseball career that began in 1975 — thanks in part to a behind-the-scenes act of charity by George Steinbrenner — continued through his own 23-year professional pitching career and now as the Dragons’ pitching coach.
Along the way he would spend 11 years as a left-handed reliever in the minor leagues and he would get released eight times. “I never thought of quitting, though,” he said. “Every time it did get tough, I remembered that 8-year-old kid selling duro frios on the street.”
Finally, as he was turning 31, he made the big leagues with the Texas Rangers.
His major league debut came in a 1988 game against Kansas City. He was called from the bullpen with the bases loaded and future Hall of Famer George Brett coming to the plate.
“I was scared to death,” he said.
And that’s when the old mantra kicked in: Never give up, never give in.
With his first pitch, he got Brett to bounce the ball back to him and he turned it into an inning-ending double play.
He would go on to appear in 567 major league games over 12 years with seven different teams. In between, there were times he got released again or sent down to the minors, but always he refused to wilt.
Finally, when injury stymied his final season, Fossas, then 42, left the mound and began to coach: First his son Mark’s team at Piper High in South Florida and then at Florida Atlantic University.
That’s where the Cincinnati Reds hired him six seasons ago to come tutor the pitchers at their Class A affiliate in Dayton. Soon after they also called on him to help one of their grandest acquisitions, pitcher Aroldis Chapman, assimilate to America.
Break came late
Like Fossas, he too had come from Cuba.
And though the circumstances and the money were different for Chapman, the lessons Tony Fossas had learned from his late father would apply the same.
The Fossas family finally was allowed to leave Cuba on May 21, 1968. They came to Miami aboard a freedom flight.
“I remember it like yesterday,” Tony said. “Coming through immigration, my dad got called away to do paperwork or something. My little brother started crying and then my mom did, too. I was scared and that’s when one of the officers there, a big American guy, took me over to a candy stand and let me get whatever I wanted. That was my first experience with an American.”
Although the family started to get situated in Miami, Fossas said his mom had a premonition they should go to Boston, where a relative lived, but there wasn’t an embracing Cuban community like there was in Florida.
He said his mom ended up working a 40-hour-a-week job and then coming home and caring for the family, which now had a third son, Johnny.
“My dad worked full time at the St. Regis Paper Company, making $2.50 an hour as a machine operator, and when he got off there, he worked a second job cleaning floors at the John Hancock Building,” he said.
Emilio and Nelida were willing to sacrifice everything to make a better life for their children and, in the case of Tony, that involved sports, especially baseball.
“There’s not one Cuban alive that doesn’t love baseball,” he said. “Every family, every father and son play ball. Back in Cuba that might mean the kids made balls out of rocks and paper and string and bats were pieces of wood cut from trees, but we played.”
Tony excelled at St. Mary’s High in Lynn,, Mass., and his father was willing to fund that pursuit as best he could as long as his son abided by two rules.
“In my household, alcohol was not allowed,” he said. “The only thing my dad did do once in a while was smoke a Cuban cigar, but that’s it. He told me, ‘I’ll work two jobs and you can play your sports. But if I see you with alcohol or messing around with women, you’ll go to work.’ “
As Fossas was coming out of high school, the Boston Red Sox wanted to sign him to a low-dollar deal, but his mother wanted him to go to college.
“No one in our family had ever graduated from college and that was her dream for me,” he said.
But the family didn’t have money to pay his way through school and he said he was at a crossroads:
“I remember going into the bathroom, kneeling down and praying. I said, ‘God, I want to play ball and I’m going to sign (the pro contract) unless you have something else in mind. If you do, show it to me.’
“And you know what? Six hours later I get a call from Jack Butterfield, the coach at the University of South Florida. He offered me a full scholarship. He said he had told George Steinbrenner about me and George agreed to pay for my entire college education.”
So often the late Steinbrenner is painted as the no-patience, win-at-all-costs tyrant of the New York Yankees. And under his ownership, the team went through 20 managers in his first 23 years. He changed general managers 11 times and had 37 different pitching coaches. He also won seven world titles in the 37 years he owned the club.
“You always hear about his toughness and how he wanted to win, but there was another side, one a lot of people didn’t know, but one I sure did. He helped people.”
Fossas starred at South Florida and graduated with a degree in education, then signed with the Rangers. Although it looked as if he was going to be a career minor leaguer, he got his break late and became one of the best left-handed spot relievers in the league. He would be brought in specifically to stymie left-handed hitters, guys like Jim Thome, Barry Bonds, Don Mattingly, Ken Griffey Jr., Mo Vaughn and Tony Gwynn.
In 1998, he hurt his back while playing for Seattle. He never quite recovered, however, and ended up playing briefly for the Yankees in 1999 before retiring.
“I was 42,” he said.” I was at the end of my career and couldn’t pitch the way I had for St. Louis or Boston. I wanted to give back to Mr. Steinbrenner for what he did for me, but I couldn’t.”
Mentoring Chapman
He remembers the day in 2010 when the Reds called him to take Chapman — who had defected from the Cuban national team the year before — under his wing.
“I was sneaking away from my wife (Pura) to go have breakfast,” he said. “She wanted me to go on a diet, but I was gonna eat pancakes. But then Billy Bavasi (special assistant to Reds general manager Walt Jocketty) and Terry Reynolds (chief scout) called and said they needed my help with this new kid they had signed.
“They wanted me to sponsor him, to show him how to go to restaurants and adjust to a new country, a new culture and life here as a pro.
“You’ve got to understand, here was a kid who had been making nothing and suddenly he gets millions. It was a big adjustment, but he’s a wonderful kid.
“And you know what? Even with all his success now, he still is. When he came here this year on a rehab assignment, he was humble, very nice to the team and to me. He treats me almost like a dad. He followed protocol, did everything I asked him to do and went out of his way for the players. He bought them lunch every day, signed autographs for everybody. You pull for a guy like that.”
As for his Dragons pitchers this season, two — Nick Travieso (just moved to Billings) and Sal Romano — were chosen to play in Tuesday’s Midwest League All-Star Game.
And along with on-field instruction, all of the Dragons pitchers get a daily dose of the Fossas gospel about living life.
“They probably get tired of hearing it,” he said with a laugh. “But I believe it.”
That’s because he has lived it.
And today being Father’s Day, he said he is especially reminded of that.
“With all the memories I have of my dad,” he said quietly, his voice beginning to break, “well, put it like this. A day like today I can’t watch those movies on Lifetime — the family-oriented ones, especially ones of fathers with their sons — they bring me to tears. I lost my dad 10 years ago and there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think of him.
“But truthfully when you see Tony Fossas, you see my dad.
“I’m the perfect example of all he taught me about life and family and just never giving up, never giving in.”
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