Called my mother with the awful news Sunday morning. 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. http://www.eaglesrookiestore.com/Hoodie/ . -- Tony Stewart is 20 pounds lighter and has a titanium rod in his surgically repaired right leg. http://www.eaglesrookiestore.com/Eagles-Malcolm-Jenkins-Jersey/ . Calgary scored on the first shift, and Michael Cammalleri scored twice as the Flames cruised to a 5-2 win over the Washington Capitals on Saturday. http://www.eaglesrookiestore.com/Eagles-Mack-Hollins-Jersey/ .Y. -- Leading 3-0 with only 11:25 left, the Colorado Avalanche committed a seemingly meaningless penalty to give the New York Islanders a power play. http://www.eaglesrookiestore.com/Customized/ . Roman Josi had a goal and an assist to lead the Predators to a 4-1 victory over the Dallas Stars on Monday night. http://www.eaglesrookiestore.com/Eagles-Caleb-Sturgis-Jersey/ . -- James Young couldnt wait to apply those tweaks to his jump shot, and the first one he made against UT Arlington told him it could be a good night. Mercedes boss Toto Wolff says his team is being uber-cautious when it comes to the reliability of its two cars over the rest of the season.With four races remaining, Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton are in a straight fight for the title with 33 points separating them ahead of Sundays U.S. Grand Prix. Hamiltons campaign has been dogged by a series of reliability issues, including an engine failure while leading the Malaysian Grand Prix last month, and on Friday night in Austin, Mercedes mechanics broke their FIA-imposed curfew to change the fuel system on his car.We just saw some data we were not sure of, whether it was all right, Wolff explained. Our main aim is to give them a reliable car so they can fight it out on track, and we are being maybe uber-cautious at the moment.Hamilton said he was trying not to think about the potential problems.I didnt know [about the fuel system before qualifying]. I dont know why I didnt know -- I was just focused on the job. I wasnt actually aware so I didnt have any concerrns at that point but I am conscious of it.ddddddddddddMaybe you should ask Toto about it and why theres a knock-on effect.When Wolff was asked if there could be any ramifications to the fuel system change, he said: Generally this season we have more mechanical reliability situations which we need to get on top of, and we are trying to contain that at the moment.Following the engine failure in Malaysia, Mercedes decided to delay the introduction of new engines for its customer teams while it investigated the issue. Despite its customers fitting new engines this weekend as well as Rosberg taking a fresh power unit, Wolff admitted the big-end bearing failure at Sepang is still not fully understood.No it hasnt been fully understood yet. Its still under investigation. Weve seen this season that sometimes the complexity of the kit makes it difficult to pinpoint down one single thing. 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