Last week in Miami baseball laid one of its youngest stars to rest. Jose Fernandez was a 24-year-old righthanded starter for the Miami Marlins with less than four complete major league seasons to his record. From 2013-2016, he compiled 38 wins and an earned run average of 2.58, while striking out 589 batters. He was an All-Star in his debut season, when he was named National League rookie of the year, and was named to the All-Star team again this year. A power pitcher whose fastball averaged between 94 and 97 mph and at times touched 101, Fernandez was enjoying a breakout year, with 16 wins. On September 20, he pitched eight innings of shutout baseball against the Washington Nationals, which many, including Marlins batting coach and all-time home run leader Barry Bonds, thought was the finest outing of his career. Three nights later the man who as a 15-year-old boy saved his mother from drowning when they made their escape from their native Cuba a decade ago died in a boating accident along with two friends.
To see athletes mourn one of their own is to be reminded that they are young men, in some cases still boys, unaccustomed to tragedy. There is no grace in death, the humiliation of the physical excellence of the body and of its beauty. And it is against the natural order of things for young athletes to wear death so heavily, as major league baseball players did last week.
On Monday, in the Marlins’ first game after Hernandez’s death, second baseman Dee Gordon stepped to the plate against the Mets in the bottom of the first and paid tribute to his friend and teammate by mimicking Fernandez’s batting stance in the righthanded batter’s box. He took a ball, switched to the left side, passed on another ball, then drilled a 2-0 pitch into the upper deck. It was his first home run of the season. He rounded the bases weeping, and when he touched home saw that the opposing team’s catcher, Travis D’Arnaud, was also crying.
Fernandez’s childhood friend from Cuba, St. Louis Cardinals shortstop Aledmys Diaz, hit a grand slam Tuesday, his first in the major leagues, and pointed upward as if to acknowledge a greater power—Fernandez in this case. “It’s amazing, you know,” Diaz said. “I can’t explain that. I’m very grateful.”
Nationals left-handed pitcher Gio Gonzalez is a Miami native, of Cuban descent, who was also friends with Fernandez, and he, too, looked up to the sky for solace and strength. However, there was no dramatic triumph for Gonzalez when he pitched Wednesday. He was pulled in the fourth inning after throwing 100 pitches in a rain-shortened game in which he was credited with the loss.
On Thursday, Fernandez’s pallbearers wore Marlins jerseys with his name and his number 16 and lowered his casket into the ground.
