Don Mattingly talked through tears and pain in a sad and slow manner. The Miami Marlins' manager tried to explain the joy of Jose Fernandez amid his death. And his passion. Always there was passion, Mattingly said, a smile trying and failing to climb his face.
"When kids play Little League, something like that, that's the joy Jose played with ..." Mattingly said when his voice hesitated, then stopped, and finally gave out altogether.
He had no more words for this. No Marlin did. Mattingly wiped a tear. And soon they were all crying, all the team's top executives, Mattingly and president David Samson and head of baseball operations Mike Hill, side by side by side.
Around them, the team's players stood in black jerseys, wiping their eyes. It was early Sunday afternoon, and they had expected to be playing a meaningless baseball game against the Atlanta Braves.
Only now that game was canceled and any game felt meaningless with the news Fernandez was found dead early Sunday morning after a boat accident off Government Cut.
"Why?" second baseman Dee Gordon said, as he stood with teammates, using the only word that made sense on a day that felt so senseless.
Fernandez was just 24. Just coming into his life. Just reaching his baseball potential. Just living the full American Dream -- a Cuban-American in a Cuban-American town -- in the manner those born into captivity always seem to do best.
"He'd say, 'you were born into freedom. You don't understand freedom, really,' " Samson said.
Fernandez's girlfriend was pregnant. He'd just told everyone with a photo on social media, his hand settled on her expanding stomach and the smile on their young faces showing the future they should have had together. And now they won't.
Fernandez became one of the best pitchers in baseball.
"Not the best?" he asked once when I phrased it that way.
"Not yet," I said.
"We'll see," he said, smiling a smile that let you know he was just having fun. Just joking. Sort of. Maybe. But not really.
At first, his way could put you off, come off as arrogant, rude. But it quickly became obvious it was just him. He was fun that way. Openly, wonderfully fun. That's a dwindling commodity in sports.
He was the player who joked with five teammates on a walk through the clubhouse, who showed his emotions in a game -- sometimes too much.
Remember the scene against Atlanta when, as a rookie, he admired a home run he hit too long? How he was met at home plate by Braves players airing him out? How the benches emptied?
Fernandez apologized for that, and he said he had to grow up. But that's just it. His passion for life and love of baseball always had him in the middle of something. Everyone felt it, even a town that has trouble warming up to baseball.
"Jose Day," his starts were called. The fans came out then. He rewarded them with a staggering 29-2 record at Marlins Park in Little Havana.
With nowhere to place their grief, fans came to the ballpark with flowers Sunday morning. The gates were closed. The game canceled. But they had to bring their sorrow and their questions somewhere, and so they were directed to a corner of the stadium outside the park.
Memories came easy on a day like this. Trying to find answers was harder. Really, there was just one question repeated, Gordon's question, every way imaginable: Why did this have to happen?
Why? Why? Why?
Sports is the toy department of life, the place where "heartbreaking" refers to a bad loss and "devastating" typically refers to the kind of season-ending injury Fernandez suffered a couple of years ago.
Not death. Not a 24-year-old man gone overnight.
"One of the guys told a story today, how Jose told one of his teammates, the last game he pitched against the Nationals was the best he ever pitched," Marlins third baseman Martin Prado said. "And now he's gone."
Prado dropped his head. "It's hard."
His eyes began leaking then, the way they were leaking across South Florida, across baseball and beyond.
Sports on 09/26/2016