Emotion Takes Center Stage After Tragic Loss of Jose Fernandez

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MIAMI — It did not win a pennant. It did not heal the aching heart of a sport and a community. And the one thing everyone wants — for Jose Fernandez to come bounding into Marlins Park and resume his life of joy — will never happen.

But what Dee Gordon did on Monday night, as the Marlins’ leadoff hitter in their first game without their heartbeat, was one of those uplifting moments that make us care about sports.

Gordon, a left-handed hitter, got into the batter’s box as a righty, the side from which Fernandez hit. He took one pitch from that side, switched helmets, took another pitch, and then belted a fly ball high over right field.

It soared above a black scoreboard showing Fernandez’s number, 16, the number every Marlin wore on his back on Monday, the number no Marlin will ever wear again. It landed in the second deck for a home run, the first in more than 300 at-bats this season for Gordon.

“First swing he took, and that’s the first ball he ever hit into the upper deck,” said the Marlins’ Christian Yelich. “If that doesn’t tell you something, I don’t know what does.”

Teammates pounded the dugout railing with their hands, the way Fernandez used to celebrate, as Gordon circled the bases in tears. He pointed skyward after crossing the plate, nearly collapsing into the arms of his teammates, tears flowing into their Fernandez jerseys.

The homer sent the Marlins on their way to a 7-3 victory over the Mets. When it was over, the Marlins gathered in a circle around the mound. They knelt and left their caps. An hour later, they returned for a final salute.

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“Most difficult game I’ve ever played,” Gordon said. “I just kept looking at the board and seeing his name. How is he not here?”

Gordon and Giancarlo Stanton said they kept waiting for Fernandez to appear, to tell them he had fooled them all. At one point, Yelich said, he forgot they all were wearing Fernandez’s name and number. He saw a teammate’s jersey and felt a twinge of agony. This was real.

Gordon started and ended his workday in a T-shirt that said “RIP” with the image of Fernandez as the second letter. Tributes were everywhere, from the fans’ outdoor shrine of flowers and candles to the messages players scrawled in the dirt. “Rest With God,” wrote catcher J. T. Realmuto.

Fernandez died at 24 early Sunday, one of three who were killed when his 32-foot fishing boat slammed into a jagged jetty off Miami Beach. He had been scheduled to start against the Mets on Monday, probably the final start of his latest masterpiece season.

Instead, the Marlins took the field with an empty mound, flanked by eight grieving position players. There was a color guard, and the teams exchanged hugs around the infield after a choir sang the national anthem. The Marlins gathered in a circle around the mound, then huddled behind it, with Stanton addressing the team. They pointed above and played ball.

“I went kind of numb in that moment,” Stanton said. “A lot of us were talking about: ‘Why are we here right now? What’s the main purpose of this? How do we get through this together?’ I was just trying to ease all that and tell them we’re here for Jose, and Jose’s fans.”

Fernandez’s locker was preserved in a corner of the clubhouse, his orange glove balanced on the corner of his nameplate, a purple rose tucked into the collar of his jersey. He was at his best here, with a 29-2 career home record. He loved to pitch before his mother, whom he saved from choppy waters when she fell overboard on their fourth attempt to defect from Cuba, in 2008. Fernandez, then a teenager, had been jailed for an earlier attempt.

“He pitched for her,” said Scott Boras, Fernandez’s agent, who cried as he spoke of his client before the game. “I used to tease him: ‘Take your mother on the road, because your E.R.A. is a run and a half lower when she’s in the stadium.’ I’d go, ‘Just tell me what advice she’s giving you,’ and he’d laugh. He was very focused when she was here.”

Boras had flown in from California and spent the day with Fernandez’s mother. On Sunday, after an emotional news conference following the cancellation of their game with Atlanta, the Marlins had visited Fernandez’s mother and grandmother as a team.

The wrenching scene tapped a deep emotional well for Manager Don Mattingly. In 1969, his oldest brother, Jerry, was killed at 23 in a construction accident. Mattingly was 8, and when a man from the construction company came to the house with the news, his parents sent him outside to play, to shield him. As the team tried to comfort Fernandez’s family, Mattingly’s personal anguish flooded back.

“I was not really a part of all that, what was going on, but now I know what was going on,” Mattingly said. “I knew the pain. I could see my mom and my sister-in-law, what they were going through. It was awful.”

Marlins reliever A. J. Ramos said he was glad, at least, to have told Fernandez he loved him. Fernandez was open like that, Ramos said, always telling teammates how he felt. But Sunday’s visit hit him hard.

“That was easily one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do,” Ramos said. “I think when you see a mother lose a child, let alone someone like Jose, all they’ve been through, the struggle they had to get here, and when they get here, they were pretty much set. And then this happens. I wish I could say some words to her just to make her feel a little bit better.”

The Marlins’ owner, Jeffrey Loria, was in New York when he learned of Fernandez’s death Sunday morning. He was sitting in the same chair, he said, as he was when he found out his sister had died. The chair is gone now, said Loria, who flew in on Sunday night and visited Fernandez’s mother after the team did.

“She jumped up from the couch and came flying into my arms,” said Loria, who will bring the team to the funeral in the coming days. “I just held her. That’s all we could do.”

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Loria said definitively that “nobody will wear that number again,” referring to Fernandez’s No. 16. He had a special bond with Fernandez, insisting that the Marlins put him on their opening day roster in 2013, even though Fernandez was 20 years old and had never pitched above Class A.

Loria remembered a shopping spree Fernandez made on his first road trip, how ungainly he looked hauling bags of electronics and video games around with him. Loria took Fernandez out to buy luggage, and he recalled some of their playful conversations.

“There was always back-and-forth banter like that,” Loria said. Then he paused. “Oh, I just can’t believe this happened,” he said.

What made Fernandez so special, Boras said, is the way he embraced everyone in uniform, not just the Marlins. He was eager to share the game, and his story resonated deeply among Cuban-Americans in Miami.

On Monday afternoon at a park on Calle Ocho, in the heart of Little Havana, Fernandez was on the minds of the many Cubans playing their country’s po[CENSORED]r game of dominoes.

“For me, it’s a lot of pride that he’s from my country – in this city and for the entire country,” said Bruno Guerrera, 78, who left Cuba for a visit to the United States 13 years ago and never returned.

In between games of dominoes, Guerrera, who grew up in Havana, sat at a table covered with the map of Cuba and told stories of his country’s baseball history. He was eating lunch on Sunday when a friend called to tell him the news about Fernandez.

Guerrera said that he was so upset, he had to stop and take medicine for his blood pressure. He watched the Cuban stars Camilo Pascual, Luis Tiant, Orlando Pena and others, and said Fernandez was headed down that path.

“I saw this kid,” Guerrera said. “If he didn’t hurt his arm, he was going to be the best Cuban pitcher of all time.”

Fernandez won precisely half his starts (38 of 76), achieving a benchmark for greatness. He had a 2.58 earned run average and endless potential.

Here, though, his legacy will always be bigger than that. David Samson, the team president, said Fernandez represented possibility, the fulfillment of the Cuban dream of freedom.

“There’s been a lot of talking and a lot of crying and a lot of praying, and trying to make sense of something that we can’t make sense of,” Samson said. “There’s no sense to a life ending like that, in a way that is so meaningless. So it’s our job to make his life matter, and we’re going to do it forever.”