Jose Fernandez, Arnold Palmer, a sad Sunday and some thoughts

It was one of those moments for which I'll always remember where I was. I was half-awake in bed Sunday morning when my friend texted me that Marlins pitcher Jose Fernandez had died. I don't know why he threw in the "Marlins pitcher" part, because I've never known Fernandez to be anything else. Either way, I was reflexively skeptical. I didn't have a "breaking news" notification on my phone for it. He wasn't trending on Twitter when I searched his name. But when I did, the first tweet I saw was Ken Rosenthal confirming multiple reports of Fernandez's death. My heart fell to the depths of my stomach.

Fernandez was my favorite pitcher. The energy he brought to the mound every fifth day was palpable, and it seemed to transfer into his pitches. His fastball was a thing of beauty, and his slider was called "the defector." And as great a pitcher as he was, he was only getting better. 2016 was his first full season in the big leagues, ever. He was on an innings limit as a rookie in 2013, then needed Tommy John surgery halfway through 2014, which kept him out for half of the following year. At 24, Fernandez was blowing away the league in strikeouts per nine innings (12.49). But I loved his energetic personality even more than all of that. He made baseball look fun, no matter what. As someone who all too often got myself down when I wasn't in good form, I looked at Fernandez wanted to carry myself like him.

So even though I never met the Marlins' ace, I was reeling from the bad news. I tried to contemplate it at church, but mass moved too quick for me to really reflect and pray. I scoured Twitter and read nearly any stories I could, just to make sense of it all. I've dealt with death before: Family members, priests, even other ballplayers. But the combination of Fernandez's athletic prowess, sociocultural significance and closeness in age to myself was beyond jarring. I've never felt anything like what I felt Sunday morning. I spent the rest of the day mindlessly bouncing between televised football and golf and my awful fantasy team and the homework I put off until this suddenly gloomy day.

The golf tournament was wild. Rory McIlroy won the TOUR Championship and, as a result, the FedEx Cup, making him season champion after picking up his first win of the year just two events prior. It was a pivotal moment for McIlroy's career: He'd never won the FedEx Cup, and in doing so he reasserted himself as the most dominant force in the game, Dustin Johnson and Jason Day be damned.

But even golf made me sad on Sunday, because Arnold Palmer died at age 87. On the list of all-time greats, Palmer is somewhere outside the top five but firmly in the top 15. On the list of the game's iconic figures, though, he's behind only Tiger and (maybe) Jack Nicklaus. For the second time in 12 hours, I scarfed up tweets and stories, and this time there were video montages as well.

Somehow, however—and I don't even know if this is a good thing—Palmer's death helped me understand Fernandez's. Palmer's death was heartbreaking because he positively impacted the lives of so many others; Fernandez's death was heartbreaking because he was on his way to doing the same.

We've all heard stories for years about how great a person Palmer was. He signed every autograph (legibly), he always made eye contact, and he always made time. He was a friend to millions. Fernandez's exuberant, bubbly personality may have been well known, but after his death came the stories of how positive his own influence was. He often hung out with sick or underprivileged kids before games, and smiled at them the same way he smiled at his teammates. His love for his family and his wife and his unborn child was clear as day. But because he died at 24, his reach couldn't extend nearly as far as Palmer's, and the lives he can't impact anymore sting so much more than the strikeouts he can't rack up or even the dollars he can't earn.

I've spent too much time thinking about Fernandez and Palmer since Sunday morning. I think the next stage past mourning over their deaths is to try and live my life the way they would have. Both loved what they did, and loved inspiring people. I'll never be an All-Star pitcher or a Masters champ, but maybe on some small scale, I can emulate these two legends.

I'll start with a smile and a thumbs-up.

The Mamba Slithers Away

Kobe Bryant is a legend. This much has been clear for at least a decade.

But “legends” come in levels. And in his final game on Wednesday, he reminded the world that he was right on that top level.

Kobe Bryant is such a legend that he can shoot the ball 50 times without making anybody mad.

Kobe Bryant is such a legend that he can name himself after a predatory snake and everyone will just go along with it.

Kobe Bryant is such a legend that he can successfully create space with nothing but jab steps and shot fakes, even when his defender and everyone in the building knows he’s trying to create space with nothing but jab steps and shot fakes.

And then he makes the shot. And another, seconds later. And another, seconds later.

He’s done this for 20 years, in a career that included five NBA titles, two Finals MVPs, and a list of accolades that reads longer than War and Peace. He’s one of the 10 best players ever to step on a court—where he slots is up to you—and has inspired countless fans with his countless moments of glory.

Wednesday night’s game was peak Kobe. He took shot after shot after shot after shot, and kept his team in the game almost by himself. It was a performance that almost justified those ridiculous ticket prices.

The Lakers were losing, because the Lakers are bad. They entered this game 16-65, limping to the finish line after a train wreck of a season. They trailed the Jazz by 9 points with under four minutes to play. The cute little Kobe send-off was coming to a close.

But then Kobe went off one last time. He scored 17 consecutive Laker points, which brought his total from 43 to 60. In the middle of this spurt was a 26-footer that cut the lead to one, followed immediately by a 20-foot fadeaway for the lead.

With 30 seconds to play and the Jazz clinging to that one-point advantage, Kobe Bryant had the ball. Then, for the 50th time in the game, he shot it. And for the 22nd time, he nailed it.

97-96. The Lakers went on to win. Kobe made it happen. Because of course.

Sports are entertainment. And Kobe entertained us for 20 years. There were people who loved how he went about his business, and there were people who hated it. But behind that hate was a layer of respect, to which everything gave way at some point during this performance.

60 points on 50 shots. It was a sendoff performance befitting only of Kobe Bryant. Peyton Manning left as a champ, but his last flash of greatness was long before his final game. Same for Tom Watson, who at 65 missed the cut in his final British Open and Masters appearances. Derek Jeter came close with his walk-off single in his final home game, but he played three more relatively underwhelming games as an encore. Only Kobe could walk away like this.

He’ll probably focus on his business next, but I wouldn’t mind if he took up poetry. His Players’ Tribune piece was thoughtful and a very interesting read. But we both know he’ll always be that kid with the rolled-up socks and the garbage can in the corner.

3.

2.

Shoot.

1.

“Kobe!”

Buzzer.

Swish.

Reacting to UNC-Villanova

Okay. About the happenings of Monday night.

This story could have been about North Carolina’s three-point shooting. The Tar Heels were 7-of-9 from downtown in the first half. Joel Berry was playing the game of his life. Justin Jackson and Marcus Paige were playing like champions.

Then it was supposed to be Phil Booth’s night. The sophomore guard racked up a career-high 20 points and was making circus shots that pushed the limits of human physical prowess. As Villanova pulled away late, he was in line to be anointed a hero.

But then UNC came back, and Marcus Paige nailed a double-clutch three to tie the game with 4.7 seconds to play. It was the kind of shot that makes sedentary people jump up and emit primal noises.

Kris Jenkins rendered all of those things irrelevant.

The final shot (and play, for that matter) will follow the parties involved forever. It’s one of only two buzzer-beaters the championship game has ever seen, and is the farther shot by nearly 25 feet. It brought tears of joy to millions, and tears of agony to millions more (not to mention the virtual tears on the face of Crying Michael Jordan).

And the dude beat his brother. The parents of UNC point guard Nate Britt, who was on the bench for the final play, legally took custody of Jenkins while the players were in high school. They said they had talked about this game as a possibility, but now they’ll be talking about it as a reality for years and years and years to come.

This was a great game. If you want to sell it short, you call it “one of the best” college basketball games ever. If you like to overreact, there’s a reasonable argument to be made that it’s right at the top, and that nobody has ever made a greater shot than Jenkins.

But the whole thing was special. The entire tournament, 66 games of excitement and brilliance, built up to this. The national anthem was sensational. The player intros were over-the-top. Bill Raftery brought out the best of his memorable catchphrases.

Ryan Arcidiacono brought it to the biggest game of his career. So did Joel Berry. So did Phil Booth. So did Marcus Paige. And so did Kris Jenkins.

I was rooting for Villanova, primarily because UNC was my dream school until it was “unable to offer me admission.” I’m no longer bitter, because I ended up happy at Maryland, but I still spent the whole season dreading the possibility of a Tar Heel title. The last thing I wanted was to watch UNC’s celebration and think “I could be there, too, if I worked a little harder in high school.”

So as the confetti poured down from the rafters, the Wildcat team piled on Jenkins, I did feel some sort of relief. I also felt a little guilty seeing Paige and Brice Johnson and even Roy Williams truly heartbroken. How could I have wished that upon them?

But any personal vendettas took a backseat to what I had watched as a sports fan. This title game was exhilarating throughout, and in the end it was won rather than lost. I’ll never forget Monday’s contest. And neither will anyone else who saw it.

Sports are great.