RIP Jose Fernandez

I think it's gotten decent play. MLB Radio dedicated its entire pregame show to it, in the heat of a pennant race.
The newsbreak happening three hours before an NFL kick didn't help.

 

That's true, as well. That tamped down the play early on, and the Arnie death tamped it down by nightfall. Within a matter of hours, it was an afterthought in the website headlines. Possibly the best pitcher in baseball this year.

 

I would not have bet folding money that I knew Jose Fernandez pitched for the Marlins. I can say with certainty that I never saw him pitch.

 

Dick, my wife told me the news, and she hates baseball. I tend to think if an event has made some impact with someone like that, it's usually been played right.

My problem with the story is the lack of details still

 

Enjoyed reading this from Le Batard.

For South Florida Cubans, watching Jose Fernandez pitch felt like freedom

 

I'm sure it was a very challenging night at my former paper with all the Scully/Dodgers stuff, Arnie, Fernandez, Rams.
Centerpiece on A1 was Scully/Dodgers written by a columnist. Arnie was the next big presence down the right rail, a 4-incher plus infobox referring to Sports 1. At the bottom was a Fernandez sell with a mug referring to Sports 4. Under the centerpiece was a debate pre, a business story and a refer to whatever was on Local 1.
Sports 1 had an ear with a different Fernandez mug referring to Sports 4. Sports 1 was Arnie across the top with story and column with smaller heads. Centerpiece was Dodgers gamer stuff, another Scully column by the media writer below that. Rams down the right rail, gamer stacked on top of column.
For their purposes, Fernandez was probably the least important of all the major news, but they still gave it good play.
The whole package was pretty damn impressive. Glad I wasn't there to help.

 

Fernandez has been the No. 1 story -- both sports and news -- here in South Florida since the news broke yesterday morning and probably will remain so for a few days.

Aside from refers at the bottom of the page to tonight's debate and the Dolphins game, the Miami Herald devoted its entire A1 to Fernandez (news story, column by a metro columnist and two photos). There's more coverage both inside A. As for the sports section front, it's always a Dolphins/NFL wraparound on Mondays. On the second sports front, devoted to non-Dolphins/NFL news, there are two more Fernandez stories, with a Palmer obit in the lower right corner.

Haven't seen today's Sun Sentinel and Palm Beach Post yet.

I'd imagine all three papers will have a lot of Palmer follow-up tomorrow (it pushed their deadlines a bit last night), as well as more Fernandez.

 

Here in SEC West country (Mississippi/Louisiana), we also had to deal with the Les Miles firing and the Cowboys' game. Dak Prescott is a thing for us right now. We only have a two-page section on Mondays, with one of those an agate/jump page that has a couple of elements that make design tricky. I wasn't able to get Fernandez in anywhere. Had a local story, Miles, and then a briefs package with Palmer, Cowboys and the NASCAR race.
Definitely one of the busiest news Sundays in a long time.

 

I'd have probably scratched the NASCAR in the briefs to get something in on Fernandez. That's a pretty big story to not have anything at all in your paper on it, though your space and content issues are respectfully noted.

 

My wife told me, too, after she read it online.

 

Yeah, I trimmed down the NASCAR to about three paragraphs. I had 475 words to fit in that, Palmer, the Cowboys, and anything else. I tried to tweak the agate page to fit in Fernandez, but it just wasn't working with the other stuff we had to get on there. Not my finest hour, but sometimes stuff happens.

 

Bloody hell, this is such good reporting from Jeff Passan of Yahoo ... and heartbreaking:
The tragic final night of Jose Fernandez's life