Jose Fernandez: Why It Hurts
It was 8:30 a.m. Sunday morning, my girlfriend just left for work and I was planning on going back to sleep for an hour before finalizing my NFL lineups. I decided to check Twitter one last time before laying down when I saw this tweet:
It didn’t really register initially — for some reason, my brain just couldn’t comprehend what I was reading. I shook it off, scrolled my timeline, and read a similar tweet.
Wait, is this real? How is this possible?
I immediately Googled “Jose Fernandez” and saw no news stories. Someone must have hacked an account, this has to be a mistake. I feverishly refreshed my Twitter feed until more confirmations came in. At some point, it hit me, and I’m not gonna lie — I teared up, my body felt numb, and I was physically sick to my stomach. I continued to read Twitter reactions, seeing more people feel the exact same way I did.
I obviously couldn’t go back to sleep, so I turned on ESPN, where it took about 10 minutes or so for the news to break. I just stood in my bedroom, about a foot away from my TV with my hands on my head, and watched in silence. For about 20 minutes, I didn’t move. I watched Dan Le Batard, Buster Olney, and other TV personalities provide details about Jose Fernandez.
But then Eduardo Perez, Fernandez’ former hitting coach, made an appearance and that’s when I really felt it. He explained how he had to tell his father, who was close with Jose, that he had passed away:
My mind immediately traveled down a rabbit hole of sadness, thinking of times when I was informed that people close to me had passed away. I thought of when my dad was out of town for the day and when he returned that night, my mom had to tell him his brother unexpectedly passed away. I remembered exactly where I sat in my living room when my mom came home from the hospital and told me and my brother that my grandma was gone. I went back to a Sunday morning when I stepped off the Metro and my mom called to tell me my uncle passed away.
And now, I’ll never forget the devastation when I realized Jose Fernandez passed away. And why? Seriously, why? I’ve never met him and to be honest, I admittedly haven’t even watched him pitch that much in his career.
I solely had a fantasy baseball connection to Jose — doing research during the day, determining that he was going to strike out enough batters, sticking him into my lineup, and watching the fantasy points accumulate.
So frankly, I mostly only cared about things like his home/road splits, his K% vs lefties, and other numbers in a spreadsheet. It was all stats.
But because I’m consumed by sports nearly 24/7, I know the stories about every player — where they went to school, what injuries they’ve gone through, off-the-field hardships, everything. So when I’m watching a game with my girlfriend, a roommate, or a friend who doesn’t follow sports as closely, I’ll try to contextualize a performance:
“So see that guy who just scored? His mother has been locked up since he was 12 years old and this was the first football game she’s ever seen him play.”
When Jose Fernandez passed away, I tried to frame the significance to my girlfriend:
“Wow, this MLB pitcher just died. He was seriously one of the best in the game. Just 24 years old, died in a boating accident. It’s devastating.”
But that explanation really doesn’t do it justice. A beloved teammate, a Cuban-American icon, and a physical specimen with a 100 mph fastball that dominated the best athletes in the world lost his life in an instant. He was invincible on the mound, which is what made the news so much more difficult to believe.
But I’m still trying to figure out why it hurts me personally so much. Is it because there was this weird connection that I felt success when Jose succeeded? The more fantasy points he scored in my lineup, the more money I’d win? Seems simple, but I don’t think that’s it. There are herds of other players, who if they passed away, I wouldn’t feel this way.
Is it because I played baseball growing up? When I found out about this, I did really only text people with baseball connections about his death — writers, fantasy enthusiasts, season ticket holders, and former players.
There is nothing at all like the team aspect of sports. So when I think of Jose Fernandez passing away, I think of his teammates who spend nearly every waking moment with this guy and how heartbroken they are to have lost a friend and family member. They walk into the clubhouse and expect #16 to come through the door, but he’s gone. That kills me.
But sports are special, baseball in particular. I remember during my junior year of high school, about five minutes before I was about to take the mound in a baseball game, I learned of the news of a classmate’s death (it turned out to be a hoax, but I didn’t find out until the next day). He wasn’t a teammate or close friend, but I felt the need to dedicate my performance to him.
I pitched the best game of my life, a one hit shutout against an out-of-state school. That game was the peak of my baseball career.
So when I see Dee Gordon on Monday night, in the first game since Jose died, honoring his friend by using Jose’s batting helmet and batting right-handed for the first pitch of the game, then immediately switching to his natural left-handed side and hitting his first home run of the season, I get emotional.
When I watched this live, I got the chills. My eyes welled up. Gordon crossed home plate and collapsed into the embrace of his teammates in the dugout — it was both awesome and soul-crushing to watch.
Sports are an outlet for many people, but it sometimes takes an unfortunate tragedy like this to take a step back and realize that these players are more than just jerseys and statistics. They are human beings with real relationships.
It’s also a harsh reminder that nothing is promised in this world and no matter how invincible we seem to be, life can be taken in an instant.
Here’s a life that was taken far too soon. RIP, Jose.
