Such a shame. Photo via thestar.com
I have MLB.com notifications setup on my phone. Normally I get fun notifications about the Nats’ announced lineup for the coming game, or that so-and-so is a triple from a cycle, or information about Vin Scully‘s retirement tour. But I certainly wasn’t expecting early Sunday morning to see this alert: “Miami Marlins pitcher Jose Fernandez, 24, killed in boating accident.” It was pretty jarring, and obviously out of the blue.
I’m not going to quote Fernandez’s career stats like other publications have done; I think its tacky and not unlike printing some football player’s career rushing stats along with the announcement that they’re being charged with sexual battery. The story is that a young player is suddenly gone; one week he’s in discussions about whether he’s in the running for the 2016 Cy Young, the next we’re seeing instagram pictures of his pregnant girlfriend and putting ourselves in her shoes and considering the awfulness of the situation. Watching the news lately is already awful enough (every story is about a shooting in a mall or a god-awful political race that can’t end quickly enough); now this adds to the overall awfulness.
Unfortunately, we live in a TMZ-driven society where the death of an athlete, or a celebrity, or a politician of note is given tons of media attention while similar deaths are given no attention at all. An actor commits suicide and its in the news cycle for weeks; a military vet with PTSD commits suicide about once an hour in this country and its just another stat in an ever growing national crisis. There’s nothing more or less tragic about Fernandez dying in an accident; its just that he was a larger than life figure thanks to his unique occupation. Like other baseball players who have died suddenly (Nick Adenhart or Cory Lidle recently, Thurman Munson from my youth for example), its hard to separate the tragedy from the celebrity.
My thoughts are with his family, and I’m saddened that such a vibrant exciting player who clearly had an elan for the game is taken so soon.