[dropcap]A[/dropcap]s an avid baseball fan for much of my 31 years on this planet, I’ve seen my fair share of dramatic home runs. From Joe Carter’s World Series-winner in 1992 to Mike Piazza’s post-9/11 shot at Shea Stadium, there are a lot that were in the conversation for “most memorable.”
At least, they were in the conversation until Monday night.
In the Miami Marlins’ first game following the tragic boating death of 24-year-old phenom Jose Fernandez, Miami leadoff hitter Dee Gordon—a close friend of Fernandez—stepped into the right-handed batters box (he’s a lefty) as a tribute to his late teammate, took a pitch from the Mets’ Bartolo Colon, then dug in from the left side and cranked Colon’s next offering over the fence for his first home run of the season.
Tears flowed down Gordon’s cheeks as he rounded the bases, and he was mobbed by his teammates in the dugout, an unusual occurrence for a home run in the first inning of a game.
It was an incredible sight, but given the passion and exuberance that their fallen teammate played with in his brief Major League Baseball career, it was a perfectly fitting tribute to Fernandez.
In just three years as a major leaguer, Fernandez had become one of the most recognizable and popular stars in the game. A right-handed hurler with electric stuff, his starts were appointment viewing for baseball fans. But it wasn’t just his prodigious ability to rack up strikeouts that made Fernandez outings must-watch TV; it was his on-field exuberance and passion for the game that set him apart.
Sure, Fernandez’s celebrations may have rankled some of the baseball’s elder statesmen; his first career homer led to a bench-clearing fracas when Braves’ catcher Brian McCann felt he had admired his handiwork for a bit too long—but it didn’t take a genius to see that Fernandez wasn’t out there to show people up, he just simply loved the game of baseball.
Earlier this season, Fernandez was hitting against Dodger rookie Kenta Maeda when Maeda fooled him on a letter-high, Frisbee slider. While no big-leaguer likes getting fooled, Fernandez’s reaction was unique; he flashed Maeda a huge grin, and when he got back to the dugout, he—still chuckling—demonstrated to his teammates just how much that pitch had moved, as if to say, “How the heck was I supposed to hit that?”
No ballplayer likes to look bad, but Fernandez laughed it off, like he was a beer-league softball player razzing himself for swinging and missing in a slow pitch league.
Fernandez was one of the game’s brightest stars, a Cuban-born immigrant to this country who risked his life to seek opportunity in America. He had a world of talent and could have been a perennial all-star, one of the sport’s great young players. But what I—and many others—will remember him most for is the emotion with which he played the game of baseball.
He made baseball fun, because he was clearly having fun.
Sometimes, moments in sports feel so perfect, it’s almost as though they’re scripted. Gordon’s homer on Monday was one of those. Watching him and the rest of the Marlins fight back tears as they celebrated in the dugout was proof that although Fernandez might be gone, his impact on the game and the lives he touched live on.
We might not see another player like No. 16 for a while, but I’m just glad I got to see him at all.
