It’s September 25, 2016. 9:02 a.m. A beautiful Sunday morning. The night before, I stayed up late talking to my friends. I fully expected to have some texts from the group chat, so I check my phone. There were no notifications from them, only one from MLB.com At Bat. It simply said, from what I remember, “Rob Manfred discusses the loss of José Fernández.”
Now, this was 13-year-old, “always looking at the brighter side of life” me. My first thought was that he was injured. I thought about it more, though—why would Rob Manfred speak about an injury?