Joe Skipper/Getty Images(MIAMI) — The Miami Marlins held an emotional press conference early Sunday afternoon on news of the death of star pitcher Jose Fernandez in a boating accident.
Don Mattingly, the team’s manager, wept as he spoke of the joy with which Fernandez played the game of baseball.
“I see such a little boy in him –,” Mattingly said, pausing to compose himself. “The way he played. It was just joy with him, when he played. When you watch little kids play Little League, that’s the joy that Jose had when he was playing.”
Team president David Samson, fighting back tears, spoke of how Fernandez, who emigrated from Cuba, was a beloved figure in Miami who was intimately involved with the community.
Veteran third-baseman Martin Prado spoke on behalf of the team’s players, describing Fernandez as a fierce competitor on the baseball diamond.
“Just to see him go up there every time,” Prado said. “He didn’t care who he faced or who we were playing.”
He placed an emphasis on Fernandez’s battle to play American baseball, coming from Cuba. A 2013 story in Grantland described the perilous journey he took to reach American shores.
Fernandez, widely considered to be among the best pitchers in Major League Baseball, was killed when a boat that had apparently been speeding crashed into a jetty outside Miami Harbor, authorities said.
Fernandez was one of three males killed, authorities said. Two were found in the 32-foot boat and one in the water, the Miami-Dade County Sheriff Lorenzo Velos said at a press conference Sunday morning. None of the three were wearing life vests, Velos said.
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