Called my mother with the awful news Sunday morning.
Cheap
Authentic Nike Shoes Sale . Had such a hard time getting out the
words that she thought something terrible had happened to me.I know how much she
loved Jose Fernandez. As a player. As a personality. As a symbol of strength and
pride for our people. Marlins management has extinguished Moms love for baseball
one move at a time over the last two decades. Fernandez was the only thing that
brought her limping back to that ballpark to climb those stairs in her old age.
The only thing. Such was the reach of his arm and his joy and his story. It
could bring even a betrayed 72-year-old Cuban lady in for what felt like an
embrace, grabbing her firmly by the heart.There was a lot of silence on the
other end of the phone when I told Mom that Fernandez was dead at 24. But I
could hear that she was crying. I didnt have the words to soothe her. So I
started crying too.These kind of emotional connections in sports are so rare. We
didnt know him. But we did. Fernandezs exile story was our story, from fleeing
to freeing, so we mourned as a family and asked questions with no answers and
appreciated life and love a little more than we did a few minutes earlier. My
chest hurt, and my mother wept, and my groggy father awoke in a confused and
grieving fog, asking What happened? This was how the early hours of Sunday felt
for a lot of South Florida, so much of South Florida, too much of South Florida,
morning turned to mourning.Fernandez made us care. Damn it, this emotional
investment. Why? Damn it. Why? Fernandez took us with him for the emotional
ride. And it was such a fun party. A carnival. Watching him work was a pleasure,
his joy birthing our joy, contagious and expanding and shared -- hell, yes,
multiplying joy -- so Sunday mourning felt like the horror of watching the
parade route end in a wreck and a funeral. So sudden. So fast. Too fast. Why?
Damn it. Why?An uncommon joy has been extinguished. Fernandez had found freedom
on one boat, and now his life had ended on another. There will be uncomfortable
questions about that in the coming days and an investigation, but nobody wants
to hear about that during the grief of the eulogy. This feels so cruel, so
wrong, so unfair. It is the worst kind of awful, young life extinguished with
thudding finality before it can really be lived, but it is somehow made harder
because it was this life.Im not talking about his promise or his pitching
potential, even though he was on his way to a $200 million contract, and the
loss of his baseball value is crippling to the franchise. Im talking about his
personality, his energy, his soul. Fernandez had so much joy and enthusiasm and
gratitude and passion pouring from him -- for being in this country, for getting
to do what he loved, for squeezing every ounce of fun out of the day -- that it
could move even the repressed and the sour. His smile and laugh routinely thawed
stoic statues like Giancarlo Stanton. Jesus, even hitting coach Barry Bonds was
always kissing him in the damn dugout.In the history of South Florida sports,
only Dontrelle Willis has matched his contagious enthusiasm and charisma. And I
say matched it because I know of no human way for his joy at work to be topped.
He loved what he did, loved it so hard and so big, loved it so much that he
forced you to love it too. Fernandez played the way the best Latin music feels.
He acted like a little boy in a sports world soaked with adult problems and
cynicism that can make us lose sight of the root verb at the center of what he
did for a living. To play. You expected him to throw his glove into the sky at
the end of successful innings. And you know what watching him work felt like to
South Floridas Cubans? Freedom.All around that ballpark, in the bodegas and
restaurants where people dont speak English, you will find a slice of his story.
So much of Miamis economy and vibrancy and culture and flavor is built atop it.
He tried to defect from Cuba four times, once saving his drowning mother during
an attempted escape, the desperation on that rotting island such that he kept
literally throwing his life to the wind to escape it. He was jailed after being
caught but said the first few months of freedom in this country were harder on
him than even the incarceration in that one. Such can be the difficulty of the
transition for immigrants, exiles and dream-chasers.He didnt understand how the
faucet sensors worked in Americas airport bathrooms. He knew so little English
that he didnt even know where to put his name on a high school test. He so
missed the grandmother who raised him, a grandmother who would later go to the
roof of her apartment in Cuba to hear him pitch in the All-Star game on her
tinny radio, that he would wander off into the woods to cry for hours at a time.
But his golden arm reached across that ocean and got abuela here in an emotional
reunion two years ago. He was just beginning to share and live the best parts of
his realized American dream. He had his first baby on the way. He worked so hard
and sacrificed so much to get to the top of this mountain, and he barely had
time to enjoy the view.Thank you, Jose.For sharing your joyful time with us.For
telling your story and our story with so much color and flair.For making us care
in a way that can be hard to see today through our tears.
Cheap
Authentic Nike Shoes Online . The winner Saturday will remain in
the elite 10-team field next year. "We talked about wanting to be disciplined
and stick with our game plan and good things will come," Draisaitl said, who had
two goals for the victors.
Authentic Nike Shoes Wholesale Suppliers .Y.
-- Knicks coach Mike Woodson said Wednesday that J.
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a Manhattan federal court hearing, attorney Jordan Siev said his law office has
gotten more evidence nearly every day to support its lawsuit accusing MLB and
Selig of going on a "witch hunt" to ruin Rodriguezs reputation and career. He
said the defendants went "way over the line. SAN FRANCISCO -- Calaen Robinson
scored 23 points and made a pair of free throws with 37 seconds left as Portland
State beat San Francisco 82-78 on Friday night.Robinsons free throws gave the
Vikings a 79-78 lead. The Dons Jordan Ratinho missed a 3-point shot on the
ensuing possession and Matt McCarthy grabbed the offensive board. McCarthy was
fouled, but he missed both free-throw attempts with 3.2 seconds remaining.
Traylin Farris split a pair of free throws and Robinson added a layup to seal
it.Robinson was 7 of 11 from the floor and made five 3-pointers.
Cheap
Authentic Nike Shoes Wholesale. Farris had 17 points.Chase Foster
scored 16 points and Ronnie Boyce added 14 to lead San Francisco (7-2).San
Francisco had a 13-point lead before the Vikings (5-4) used a 23-13 spurt to
take its first lead of the game, 67-66 with 8:42 remaining. Neither team held
more than a two-point lead until the final seconds.
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