When I first saw Jose Fernandez pitch, it was his first career start, against the Mets. He pitched fire, three hits and only one earned run in five innings. He was the man of the future. Between 2015 and 2016, he was undefeated at home, but that’s only the way he played.

The happiness he brought to the game was astounding. He was astounding. If you look at him when Giancarlo Stanton hit a homerun, the energy was indescribable. And when he recorded his last out, against arguably the best hitter in the NL East, he was basically having a party with his hitting coach Barry Bonds.

When I first learned of his death, I was talking with my dad on our way to New York City. The Mets were facing him, a guaranteed loss. I looked at my phone, and the #1 thing trending on Twitter was Jose Fernandez. What happened? I thought, as I searched it. The first tweet that came up was from a Marlins beat reader, who tweeted “Sadly, I can confirm that Marlins pitcher Jose Fernandez was killed in a boating accident.” This had to be a joke. It had to be. He couldn’t be dead. But as more sources came piling in, eventually coming from the Marlins twitter account.

Then, the shock turned to confusion. How did he die? “Boating accident” is very broad. The Coast Guard came on for a press conference at 10:30. They said that the boat he was on crashed into a jetti. Then it flipped 30 feet in the air and landed upside down.

As the emotion lacking RIP Jose Fernandez tweets came in, the confusion turned to sadness. “There has to be something we could do,” someone said in my Mets group chat, “I feel like there has to be something we could do.” “We can’t resurrect him,” another one said, “But we could do the next best thing. Write about him. Tribute videos, memorial tweets, doesn’t matter.”

As the Mets game came on, Keith Hernandez, a legendary Met from the 1980s, tearfully reminded us to not take life for granted. “Hug your family,” he cried, “because their lives could be cut abruptly short.”

As the day went on, it was as if people forgot Jose Fernandez even existed. The group chat was now talking about football, and the trend had disappeared from the rankings. But the next day, he surged back to the top.

The pregame ceremony happened at Marlins stadium. Everyone was crying, including Giancarlo Stanton, the huge, strong power hitter. The first batter in the game was the very fast, but not very powerful, lefty Dee Gordon. When he stepped up to the plate he batted right handed. A tribute to Jose Fernandez, who was a righty. And then this happened…

#BiggerThanBaseball