The Dashers last spoke with Roberto Hernandez. They've tried to reach him since the scandal broke, but the phone number isn't accepting messages.
View full sizeJim Dasher (left) was the team chaplain for the Lake County Captains when his brother and sister-in-law -- Bob and Bonnie Dasher -- housed the pitcher known as Fausto Carmona while Carmona pitched for the Captains in 2003.CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Fausto Carmona was just a shy, polite 19-year-old who barely spoke English and loved hanging with the kids -- but preferred the family dog stay outside -- when he lived in Bob and Bonnie Dasher's house in Highland Heights.
In 2003, Carmona was a promising right-hander with the Indians' Class A Lake County Captains. The Dashers were his host family that season, and on and off for the next two years as he was shuffled back and forth through the Tribe's minor-league system.
They had no clue the reserved young man who toted a single duffel bag into their house was actually Roberto Hernandez and three years older -- at least not until Dominican Republic authorities arrested him last month for trying to get a U.S. visa with a false I.D.
"You can't believe how many people called us, [saying] 'Hey Bob, you had to know about this!'" Bob Dasher said. "We just laughed when we heard it. We had no idea."
The Dashers last spoke with their former guest last summer. They've tried to reach him since the scandal broke to tell him they love him, but the phone number isn't accepting messages.
Carmona and a lineup of other Captains, including Tribe reliever Rafael Perez, wound up living with the Dashers and with Bob's brother, Jim, who was chaplain for the first three years of the team's existence. Jim, a former coach and athletic director at Mayfield High School, found the boys places to live and drove them back and forth to the ballpark in Eastlake, to the Western Union window to send their paychecks home, and anywhere else they needed to go.
Sometimes, late at night after games, he would let them drive the van around the school parking lot just for fun.
To communicate with Fausto, Bob and Bonnie kept their Spanish dictionaries handy. He would talk about his family, but with never a hint of his real identity. He always signed baseballs, shirts and his baseball card as "Fausto."
To make Fausto and the other Latin players feel at home, they made sure to prepare the boys' favorite staple -- chicken and rice -- with every meal. Nurtured on such home cooking, Carmona tore it up with the Captains in 2003, going 17-4 with a 2.06 ERA. He was named South Atlantic League Pitcher of the Year, and his 17 wins were the best at any level of the Indians' organization that season.
Three years later, he become the first Captain to play for the Indians.
The pitcher referred to his host parents as "Mama Bonnie" and "Roberto." "Which is really funny," Bob said, "because that's his name. Next time I see him, I'm going to call him Bob."
Carmona enjoyed watching Spanish TV, goofing off with two sons of Bob and Bonnie who were teenagers and living at home at the time, and shopping at nearby Richmond Town Square with Jim's 13-year-old son. They were teenagers after all, or so it seemed.
"We thought he was 19," said Bob, who finds it hard to believe the false identity was the pitcher's idea. "Greatest kid in the world."
"We never doubted it," said "Mama Bonnie."
Source: http://www.cleveland.com/tribe/index.ssf/2012/02/roberto_hernandezs_ohio_host_f.html
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