Death of Marlins ace stuns baseball
Pitcher, two friends killed after their boat collides with rocks
Jose Fernandez was nervous. He had already accomplished so much, defecting from Cuba and becoming a major league star, but the thought of speaking before a crowded ballroom on a January night in Manhattan was something new.
As he prepared to take the dais at the writers’ annual awards dinner, Fernandez huddled with the other rookie of the year, Wil Myers. They looked like kindergartners sticking together on the bus before the first day of school. Hank Aaron would be on that dais. Sandy Koufax, Mariano Rivera and Miguel Cabrera, too.
When Fernandez learned that he would be among the first speakers, he smiled and seemed to exhale: Less time to worry about his speech, more time to enjoy the night. He would talk for only a minute, and apologize for his nerves. But his words told a powerful story.
“Six years ago, I was trying to come to the United States, and I was in jail, thinking about one day playing in the big leagues,” Fernandez said. “I’m here now, next to all these guys. A lot of talent and a lot of history here.”
Fernandez had the talent to make history of his own as a dominant right-hander for the Miami Marlins. That night in 2014 was not supposed to be the only time he accepted a major award.
Fernandez was on a path to be one of the game’s greats when he died early Sunday, at 24, in a boating accident in Miami Beach.
Police said Fernandez and two other men died when a 32-foot boat slammed into a pile of rocks, most likely on impact. The Coast Guard discovered the boat on a routine patrol at 3:30 a.m. Sunday.
Don Mattingly, the Marlins manager, fought back tears at a news conference Sunday in Miami. The Marlins had cancelled their scheduled home game with the Atlanta Braves. “As mad as he would make you with some of the stuff he would do, you just see that little kid you see when you watch kids play Little League,” Mattingly said. “That’s the joy that Jose played with, and the passion he felt about playing. That’s what I think about.”
Fernandez’s back story was a baseball fairy tale. As a teenager, he was jailed for trying to defect. He finally made it out on his fourth attempt, at age 15 in 2008, and saved his mother from drowning when she fell overboard into violent waters on their way to Mexico.
“This high,” Fernandez told the Tampa Bay Times in 2009, raising his hand far above his head to describe the waves. “I thought I was going to die many times.”
Fernandez settled in Tampa, Fla., and became a star at Braulio Alonso high school.
He was chosen 14th overall by the Marlins in the 2011 draft, signed for $2 million and was in the majors by 2013.
Fernandez had never pitched above Class A, but the Marlins could not hold back his talent. They fetched him from minor league camp and
“When he was in the dugout, you’d look over there and he’d be rooting on his team more than anybody you’d probably ever seen.” JACOB DEGROM METS PITCHER
told him to join the team.
“He made his first start here in Citi Field,” New York Mets manager Terry Collins said. “We had not seen him in spring training, we had only heard about him. And when the first pitch left his hand, the first thought is: ‘Oh, wow. This is something special.’”
Fernandez had a 95-m.p.h. fastball, a wipeout slider and two other pitches he commanded with ease. In four seasons he was 38-17 with a 2.58 ERA and far more strikeouts than innings. Tommy John surgery in 2014 did not slow his ascent; this season, his sec- ond as an all-star, he was 16-8 and led the majors in strikeouts per nine innings, with 12.5.
Fernandez could rankle opponents. When he hit his first home run, against Atlanta in 2013, Fernandez lingered at the plate to admire it. After rounding the bases, he was greeted with hostility by Brian McCann, the Braves catcher. Fernandez said later he was embarrassed by how he had acted.
Yet the sport’s protocol could never shake the zest from Fernandez’s approach.
He pitched in just 76 major league games, but was an animated presence in many more.
“When he was in the dugout,” the Mets’ Jacob deGrom said, “you’d look over there and he’d be rooting on his team more than anybody you’d probably ever seen.”
Fernandez’s death was not the first by an active player in a boating accident. In 1993, two Cleveland Indians, Tim Crews and Steve Olin, were killed in a spring training accident that also injured pitcher Bob Ojeda. It was also not the first death of an active all-star; Roberto Clemente and Thurman Munson died in plane crashes in the 1970s, and Darryl Kile died of a heart attack in 2002.
Yet rarely, if ever, has a player so accomplished died so young. Like Ken Hubbs — a Chicago Cubs second baseman who won the National League rookie of the year award in 1962 and died in a plane crash in1964 — Fernandez had so much more to do.
“He just loved to be out there,” said Collins, who managed Fernandez in the all-star game in July. “It was his stage. I wish more guys were like that. I wish more guys really had fun, like he did, playing the game.”
Fernandez was supposed to start Monday against the Mets at Marlins Park. The game will take place. The void will remain.