The Death of Jose Fernandez — A Fan’s Perspective
I spent most of this past week hoping I wouldn’t watch the Mets face Jose Fernandez tomorrow night. There were rumblings all week that Fernandez’s last start of the season might get bumped from Sunday to Monday so that Adam Conley could make his return from the DL. I kept wishing the Marlins would just let him start on Sunday. Pushing the start would mean Fernandez would now face my beloved New York Metropolitains who, with 8 games left in the regular season, are fighting for a playoff spot. Images flashed in my head of Fernandez’s utter dominance; mowing down Mets hitters one by one and sending their playoff push into a tailspin. I know I wasn’t alone on this. The news was made official yesterday, with Mattingly citing a desire to give Fernandez an extra day of rest after throwing a career high 111 pitches in 8 innings against the Nationals his last time out. As it turns out, those 8 innings against Washington were Fernandez’s last — not just of this season, but of his career. Be careful what you wish for.
I was stunned this morning when I read the alert on my phone: “Marlins Pitcher Jose Fernandez Killed in Boating Accident.” In shock, I followed the story as the news trickled in. The coast guard found them at around 3:30 a.m. “Them” being Fernandez and two friends, all under the age of 27. The boat hit a jetty and capsized. Then a picture of the capsized boat, flipped head over heels on top of the aforementioned jetty. It turns out Fernandez wasn’t steering. It wasn’t even his boat. He was 24 years old.
Of course Fernandez isn’t the first active athlete to die unexpectedly. In baseball alone, he is the 13th player to die during his career since 2010 (according to Wikipedia). Only three of the thirteen were over the age of 24. What’s more, nine of the deaths involved motor vehicle accidents of some kind. Tommy Hanson died of catastrophic organ failure in 2015, Evan Chambers died in his sleep in 2013 of a cardiac arrhythmia, in 2011, Greg Halman was stabbed to death by his younger brother while in the Netherlands, and Jose Lima died in 2010 of a heart attack. The rest, Jose Fernandez, Sandy Acevedo, Ramon Ramirez, Jose Rosario, Victor Sanchez, Yeralf Torres, Oscar Taveras, Rosman Garcia, and Dustin Kellogg, died in some distribution of car, motorcycle, and boating accidents. Just typing this out makes me uncomfortable. Reading it back makes me afraid of coming off as insensitive. There’s no easy way to talk about this stuff.
The private lives of athletes are largely shrouded behind a veil of ignorance. Our motto, for the most part, is: The less we know the better. This is due largely, in part, to the fact that when we (the fans) find out what an athlete is doing outside of his sport, outrage often ensues. Questions of the player’s “commitment” to the game and the team are hurled from all directions. In our minds, athletes aren’t supposed to do anything except eat, sleep, and breathe their sport. They aren’t “supposed” to be playing golf; they aren’t supposed to be out on a boat at 3:00 a.m. the night before a game (even if they aren’t pitching). There is one specific stipulation that we seem to take for granted. It seems so obvious it’s almost not even worth spelling out; until it is: Athletes aren’t supposed to die.
From the outpouring of support on social media, it is clear that the baseball community lost a great person as well as a great ballplayer. I suppose this is the place to say all of the wonderful things about Jose Fernandez on the field. To talk about how in his brief time in the majors, he gave us the privilege of watching him play the game we love in such a beautiful way that few will ever come close to replicating. But Fernandez’s death also reminds us that he, who successfully defected from Cuba on his fourth try, saved his mom from drowning when she fell overboard on their journey to Mexico, was drafted in the first round out of high school, got called up to the majors despite never having pitched above Single-A, and calmly made the All-Star team and won the rookie of the year award that very season, was a human being first. Jose Fernandez’s life outside of baseball was rich and vibrant. This is a man who called his grandmother “the love of my life,” a man who announced just five days ago via Instagram that his girlfriend was pregnant with their first child.
Of course when I spent the week hoping that Jose Fernandez wouldn’t pitch against the Mets tomorrow night, the thought of his death as a possible antecedent to the actualization of this reality did not occur to me even once. Now I can’t stop thinking about tomorrow night, when Jose Reyes digs into the box at Marlins Park. There won’t be a single person in the world watching that moment who won’t be wishing that Fernandez was standing 60 feet 6 inches away from Reyes.
The tragedy that is the death of Jose Fernandez brings the full picture of Jose Fernandez “the person” into view for all of us. His death is a sobering reminder that as much as we like to pretend, it’s really just a game and that those we watch playing it are real people. These men and women who entertain us through sport are not “just” athletes. What’s heartbreaking is that it often takes a tragedy for us to remember this. The least we can do is try not to forget so quickly this time.
