NEW YORK — The crowd around Yoenis Cespedes’s locker grew larger with each passing minute, with cameramen jostling reporters amid the jumble of bags and suitcases being packed postgame. There is nothing unusual about that scene after a Mets game; Cespedes has regularly been the center of attention since he came to New York. But on a chilly Sunday afternoon in Queens—the day of the Mets’ final regular-season home game of the year—Cespedes wasn’t facing questions about at-bats or pitching matchups. As the Cuban superstar finished getting dressed and drew himself up before the assembled media, what everyone wanted to talk about was his countrymate, Jose Fernandez, the Marlins pitcher whom Cespedes would never again face.
‘Everybody loved him:’ Mets reflect on the death of Jose Fernandez
