Baseball mourns the loss of rising star

Twenty-four-year-old Miami Marlins pitcher José Fernández died in a boat crash early Sunday morning, leaving the baseball world without one of its great young talents and personalities.

Fernández defected from communist Cuba at age 15 without knowing a word of English and went on to become the youngest Marlin ever selected to play in the Major League Baseball All-Star Game five years later. Through 76 starts the young pitcher was on track for a Hall of Fame career.

Just after 3:15 a.m. Sunday, Florida Coast Guard personnel found Fernández and two of his friends among the remains of a 32-foot vessel crashed into rocks outside the port of Miami. News of his death devastated his manager Don Mattingly, coaches, and teammates, who will remember him for much more than his right arm.

“The magnanimity of his personality transcended culture, religion, and race—I mean it just did,” Marlins President David Samson said at a news conference Sunday surrounded by visibly shaken team officials and players. “José is a member of this family for all time. His story is representative of a story of hope, and of love and of faith, and no one will ever let that story die.”

The Marlins and Atlanta Braves canceled their Sunday afternoon game at Marlins Park to give Fernández’s family, fans, and teammates time to grieve. Major League Baseball Commissioner Robert Manfred issued a statement Sunday saying the baseball world was “shocked and saddened” by his death.

Born in Santa Clara, Cuba, Fernández tried and failed to flee his country three times before succeeding in 2008. As a teenager, he spent a year in prison for illegally attempting to leave Cuba. But on his fourth attempt, he escaped the flying bullets of the Cuban coast guard with a group of immigrants on a speedboat. During the perilous trip, someone said a passenger had fallen in the water. A good swimmer, the 15-year-old Fernández jumped into the ocean in the dead of night to save the woman. It was not until he had her in his arms that he realized he saved his own mother, Maritza.

Fernández told the Miami Herald in 2013 the experience affected him for the rest of his life.

After arriving safely in the United States, Fernández became a pitching phenomenon at Braulio Alonso High School in Tampa, Fla. The Marlins selected Fernández in the first round of the 2011 draft, and he made his major league debut with the Marlins on April 7, 2013.

Fernández earned an All-Star appearance that season and went on to win the National League Rookie of the Year Award and finished third in voting for the NL Cy Young Award.

This year, Fernández was a bright spot for an average Marlins team not expected to appear in postseason play. He bolstered the Marlin rotation with a 16-8 win-loss record and a 2.86 ERA. His 31.2 percent career strikeout rate is the best among any major league pitcher in history who pitched at least 100 innings.

Yet, for those who watched him play, those numbers hardly reflect Fernández’s impact on baseball.

MLB.com columnist Anthony Castrovince wrote Sunday that news of Fernández’s death is an “incomprehensible ending” to what had been one of the game’s more uplifting stories.

“People from all walks of life and dots around our planet, in every clubhouse and fan base, admired the jubilant, refreshing, and inspired gift that was José Fernández,” Castrovince wrote. “Fernández was pure joy personified.”

Castrovince explained Fernández’s elation, talent, and passion for the game made him one of the most exciting pitchers in baseball.

Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission spokesman Lorenzo Veloz said Sunday that Fernández was a passenger of the crashed boat. Officials have not determined if drugs or alcohol contributed to the accident.

Just last week, Fernández posted a photo on Instagram of his pregnant girlfriend, announcing they were expecting their first child.