Paying their final tribute
Teams join for Jose’s memorial
MIAMI — They came early in ubers and cabs. They caught rides to Marlins Park in twos and threes before the first bus. Josh Smoker and Addison Reed had to talk their way through the gates and Bartolo Colon and Hansel Robles were caught on the other side.
Without any orchestration by the team, about a dozen of the Mets players and staff made their way outside Marlins Park Wednesday afternoon to stand and bear witness to the last time Jose Fernandez would leave the ballpark. The casket of the Marlins ace, who was killed in a boating accident on Sunday, was driven by the third-base side of Marlins Park where his teammates, fans and members of the Mets organization waited to pay one final public tribute.
“It was very sad, but we wanted to be here and pay our respects,” said Smoker. “It was hard to watch, but a nice tribute.”
The hearse drove with a police escort up to the ballpark where his teammates, wearing T-shirts with his image and R.I.P. on them, surrounded the vehicle solemnly. His mother emerged from a trailing limousine, and her body shook with sobs as she was hugged by Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria and manager Don Mattingly.
The core of the Mets contingent was directly behind that scene.
“It was so sad,” Bartolo Colon said. “His grandmother was in the car too, but she couldn’t get out. It’s too hard to see this.”
The Marlins then walked with the hearse the rest of the way down the lane by the ballpark like pallbearers. They moved slowly past fans chanting ‘Jose, Jose, Jose,” and past the memorial that has grown in his tribute outside the ballpark.
At the end of the block, the team gathered one last time around the hearse, heads bowed and with several crying, before the casket was carried to a public viewing in a nearby church.
“I thought it was important to be there to honor Jose,” said Mets manager Terry Collins. “You know this is a very large fraternity. It’s an exclusive fraternity, it’s hard to get in, when you lose somebody I just think you need the representation of everybody else. We were represented very well today. I was very proud.”