Remembering the Legacy of Jose Fernandez
October 5, 2016
by: Trevor McNamara
I thought I was in the middle of a nightmare. I woke up Sunday morning to a text and a few other notifications about the Mets game the night before. When I scrolled down some more I couldn’t believe my eyes. The headline read “Jose Fernandez dead at 24.” I couldn’t believe it. I rubbed my eyes five times to make sure I wasn’t still asleep. I wanted to just wake up from this nightmare and still see Jose Fernandez’s name in the box score as the starting pitcher for the Miami Marlins for Monday night’s game vs the New York Mets. Monday night was supposed to be another one of Jose Fernandez’s latest gems on the mound, dominating Mets hitters with his imposing fastball and nasty slider. That start never happened unfortunately.
On Sunday at approximately 3:15 in the morning, Jose Fernandez and two other men got into a boat accident off the shores of Miami. The boat, a 32 foot Sea Vee Center Console named “Kaught Looking” spelled with a backwards K and with baseballs as the “O’s” in the name, crashed into a jetty and ejected the three men from the boat with all three men dying instantaneously.
Jose Fernandez wasn’t just a typical baseball player. The impact he had on Marlins fans, people in Miami (especially Cubans), and any avid baseball fan was just astonishing. News of his death absolutely sent shock waves throughout Major League Baseball. Many players and managers were left speechless; the unthinkable had happened. Jose Fernandez was on track to one day probably make it into the Hall of Fame and blossom into one of the best Latino pitchers to ever play in the Major Leagues, in my opinion.
At countless points in his life, Fernandez faced near death situations. For example, Cubans are not allowed to leave the island so they are forced to defect from the island if they want to leave. Fernandez describe his life in Cuba during an ESPN interview in 2013 saying, “When you’re there, it’s like you’re in prison, I had to leave.” The government tries everything possible to keep Cubans from defecting which makes defecting so dangerous.
It took Jose Fernandez four tries to get off the island. After his third attempt, he was jailed for two months as a fourteen year old and he wasn’t allowed to play for the Cuban baseball team anymore. On his fourth try he finally made it off of the island. He got out by way of speedboat that brought him to Mexico before he made his way into the United States.
As if anything about the trip couldn’t get harder for him, he noticed someone fell off the side of the boat while escaping to Mexico. It was Jose’s mother who fell of the boat. At the time, he had no clue who fell, but he jumped in anyways, slowly helping his mother swim back to the boat. Fernandez explained his decision to jump in during an interview with the Miami Herald saying, “I have always been a good swimmer, since I was a kid, which is why I am always alert, I dove to help a person not thinking who that person was. Imagine when I realized it was my own mother. If that does not leave a mark on you for the rest of your life, I don’t know what will.” He was fifteen years old and already risking his life for others. People who met him said that was the type of man he was, he was a special person in life.
Even though I have obviously never met Jose, I feel like I know him because he just seemed like the kind of athlete who was so down to Earth, and wanted to talk to anyone no matter what while never getting caught up in the professional spotlight. It’s pretty rare to see a professional athlete of Fernandez’s caliber to be so caring and passionate for regular people who surrounded him when he was away from the ballpark.
On Monday night, the Marlins played the Mets. Understandably, they cancelled their game against the Braves on Sunday to mourn the tragic loss of Jose. Everybody playing in the game knew the challenges of playing with the legacy of Fernandez being remembered throughout the evening.
Before first pitch there was an emotional sixteen minute tribute remembering the greatness of Jose Fernandez. There wasn’t one dry eye in the audience that night at Marlins Park. All of the players were shedding tears and hugging by the pitcher’s mound, in which Fernandez called home. Gary Cohen, Ron Darling, and Keith Hernandez, the announcers for the Mets television station SNY were holding back tears and choking up while reflecting on the life of Jose Fernandez.
Once the game finally got started, leadoff hitter Dee Gordon came up to bat in the bottom of the first inning. He stepped into the batter’s box wearing Jose Fernandez’s batting helmet. As a switch hitter facing right handed pitcher Bartolo Colon, Gordon would typically bat lefty. In remembrance to Jose Fernandez he felt it was important to honor him by batting righty for the first pitch of the game. After the first pitch he switched to bat left handed.
On the third pitch of the at bat, the beauty of sports took over. The ball was scorched off Gordon’s bat and headed for the right field grandstands. Jay Bruce ran back in right field in hope of somehow catching the ball. He didn’t have a shot. This ball was long gone.
Within a couple seconds, Gordon rounded first with tears running down his eyes. Gordon summed up his feelings rounding the bases in his postgame interview saying, “It seemed like it took forever, I was just trying to go back to my teammates as fast as possible, and I couldn’t get there. I was just wondering why [Jose Fernandez] wasn’t on the top of the steps cheering for me.” This was Gordon’s first home run of the season and it couldn’t have came at a better time for the grieving Marlin fans and players. This home run lifted the spirits of the Marlins players en route to a 7-2 rout of the Mets. Travis D’Arnaud the Mets catcher admitted he had tears running down his face when Dee Gordon crossed the plate.
While nothing can ever replace the tragic lost of Fernandez on Sunday morning, the Marlins tried their best to continue on with baseball in their home ballpark. That is what Fernandez would have wanted. Fernandez was 29-2 in his career starts at Marlins Park. Fans called labeled his starts as “Jose Day” whenever he would be pitching. Most days Marlins Park was barren. Everytime Jose Fernandez pitched, the park would fill up with thousands of extra people showing up for each game he started.
His impact is left by more than just baseball, he did so much for the Cuban population in Miami. He left an impact on countless Cubans with his no fear attitude and his pure joy in life.
His last pitch he threw was to Daniel Murphy in the 8th inning with runners on the corners and two outs. That pitch was his 111th pitch of the evening and he got Murphy to ground out to second baseman Dee Gordon. He left the mound with his mom and grandmother cheering for him along the third baseline near the Marlins dugout. That was the last memory that baseball fans will have of Jose Fernandez. He fanned twelve Washington Nationals batters over eight shutout innings in rout to a Marlins 1-0 win on Tuesday September 20. That night he made all his pitches count. His manager Don Mattingly deemed it Jose’s best start of the season, but Fernandez labeled it as his best start ever. Although he left us too soon, his lasting memory will be of pure domination.
Nothing anybody reads anywhere on the Internet will ever do enough to truly commemorate Jose Fernandez’s life. As a fifteen year old he arrived to the United States with barely any knowledge of the English language. By the time he became a United States citizen in 2015, he was bilingual with near perfect English. Fernandez was so proud to become an American citizen and had this to say to ESPN about what it meant to him to be given a chance in the United States: “I thank this amazing country for giving me the opportunity to go to school here and learn the language and pitch in the major leagues. It’s an honor to be a part of this country, and I respect it so much.” He sadly left us baseball fans the same way he introduced himself to the whole world. By boat. He left a glaring hole in the MLB that won’t ever be replicated.
While there may have been more talented pitchers before Jose Fernandez, none had the ability to uplift a team, a community, and all of Major League Baseball with his pure joy of the game. Fernandez described his commitment to baseball in an interview with ESPN saying, “Baseball is my life, it’s just fun, man, to come out on the field and to do what your dream is. Sometimes we forget that.” Baseball will still go on this season and for years to come, but it will sadly be without one of its most influential pitchers stepping to the mound every fifth day in Miami. This death hit everyone hard, including me. Nobody is supposed to die at twenty four years old while just hitting the prime of their career. Rest in peace Jose, baseball will never be the same without you. In three short seasons you left your mark on baseball with unbelievable pride and pure joy.
A legacy like Jose’s will always be remembered and cherished by fans of baseball. The Miami Marlins and Major League Baseball will never be the same without him. It has been a tragedy that has hit home with everyone who follows sports and ultimately, no words will ever do justice to describe the impact Jose Fernandez had on baseball and the Cuban community in Miami. He was just a special man who will live on forever in the hearts of the entire sports community.
Sources:
http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/17193192/the-reinvention-jose-fernandez
http://sports.yahoo.com/news/the-tragic-final-night-of-jose-fernandezs-life-023645408.html
http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/28/opinions/cuban-americans-jose-fernandez-story-sanchez/
http://www.si.com/mlb/2016/09/25/jose-fernandez-marlins-cuba-united-states-defection-story
http://www.miamiherald.com/sports/mlb/miami-marlins/article1953062.html
Dante • Jan 4, 2017 at 2:07 pm
was he driving the boat?