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Thursday, March 16, 2017
Marlins pitcher Jose Fernandez to blame for fatal boating crash, investigation concludes
Miami Marlins pitcher Jose Fernandez, drunk and speeding, was behind the wheel and to blame when his boat plowed into a jetty off South Beach, killing two others, police concluded in a report released Thursday.
Had Fernandez lived, he would likely have been charged with a host of crimes including manslaughter, according to the final report by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission.
Investigators made the conclusion because the physical damage to Fernandez’s body matched the damage on the boat’s center console. His DNA was also found on the throttle and steering wheel.
The boat, investigators concluded, was traveling at more than 65 miles per hour — just over the top speed of the vessel.
RoyalsRetro (AG#1F)
Posted: March 16, 2017 at 11:05 AM | 115 comment(s)
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As to Fernandez being drunk (and responsible), I recall catching a lot of flak from the usual suspects for even just suggesting that might be the case.
Hah! Told ya so.
Congratulations. This is obviously a proud moment in the Cultist household.
Well thank God you've been vindicated in this matter. That's what really counts.
EDIT - Coke, SoSH, yadda yadda
I really don't get this impulse.
No one here "knew" Jose Fernandez - the biggest connection any of us had to him was that he was a very good baseball player and as we all like baseball, we obviously enjoy watching good baseball players play baseball. So our "loss", such as it is, was the loss of seeing more good baseball played.
Taking some sort of joy or satisfaction in pointing out that a dead guy none of us knew or had any connection to beyond the entertainment value he provided WAS also responsible for two other deaths (who none of us also knew) just seems weird.
I'm no stranger to schadenfreude and who doesn't love a good toldja so! -- guessing the right dead person among three dead people as the cause and thus source of such just seems odd and morbid.
EDIT: I suppose we'll just make it the Cokes all around thread
It's a shame because two people are dead.
Look, sh^t happens, he made a mistake and it turned out to have horrific consequences. But there's no need to sugar coat it.
Some of us DID raise the (quite reasonable) possibility at the time that Fernandez was at fault and we were shouted down. To what end?
It doesn't mean he was a terrible person. It does mean that he wasn't a saint, that he made some terrible decisions that night that cost him and his friends their lives, wreaking havoc on three families. His friends probably should have made better decisions themselves. But it is what it is.
Bullshit. They were giving me ####, and they were giving Ray #### for defending my speculation. People were doing the smart thing in that thread in that they were ignoring you.
Original thread.
They were giving me ####, and they were giving Ray #### for defending my speculation. People were doing the smart thing in that thread in that they were ignoring you.
In that case, I formally rescind my congratulations, Cargo. Better luck patting yourself on the back following the next tragedy.
That's not the actual shame.
Why does his innocent daughter deserve the money any more than the innocent wives and children of the other guys?
What happened, did you crop out the Young Masters Steinbrenner from the top step there?
That seems crazy then I realize with signing bonus he only made $6.5M from baseball, unknown amounts from endorsements.
When he couldn't reach agreement on an extension from the Marlins, I assume that his agent put insurance in place for a career ending injury, but that doesn't include life insurance?
Agree entirely.
If he didn't have life insurance, he was being very, very foolish. He had something well north of $100M of expected future earnings to protect.
A $50M 20 Year Term policy for a very healthy 25 y.o. male would be around $20,000 a year.
Agree entirely.
If the other two guys were also drunk and high (and I have no idea), I can't really say that I would entirely agree philosophically with that moral calculus.
EDIT: That is to say, I don't think anyone would deserve it more than any other, including those widows and children. I guess that's subjective and harsh, but, it doesn't mean all that much other than my opinion.
This. I'm also pretty sure that the proceeds of a life insurance policy that named his daughter as a beneficiary could not have been seized by the families of the survivors (if I'm wrong on this, I'm sure one of our resident lawyers will correct me).
It doesn't matter whether they were drunk or high if they weren't driving the boat.
My own (personal, fully granted) liability calculus - inasmuch as it conveys to financial recompense for the relatives of all parties - does not sway in any specific direction if they themselves were too drunk and high not to get on a boat being driven by someone else who was drunk and high.
I would agree they don't necessarily deserve the money more, but they don't deserve it less either.
Is it worse if they were sober and let some drunk and high guy drive the boat?
Presumably all three of them knew Fernandez wasn't in a condition to drive the boat (and that fast) How exactly you want to exactly parcel blame between the parties is subjective, but responsibility for the tragedy is shared to some extent.
But this sort of stuff just always brings me back to an old Royko column - sorry, the only one I can quickly find it via a google books link, but I'm guessing most people of a certain age are relatively familiar with it - that was a follow-up to grief he received following a sort of obit column he had written immediately after Belushi's death.
In essence, it's the sort of 'grave-dancing' aspect that is just beyond me... I just don't get it.
The problem is that engaging in reasonable speculation about why a tragedy occurred is not "grave dancing."
It's useful both for understanding what happened and for preventing future tragedies.
And for more accurately characterizing someone's life and death and character and decisionmaking abilities.
Driving severely drunk (car or boat) is a mistake that people often make. It doesn't make them the worst people in the world - so I don't get that approach to this either - but it's a terrible thing. Fernandez made his own decisions and I see no need to sugar coat what happened for the sake of preserving a whitewashed romanticized memory of him that he doesn't deserve.
Certainly there's no reason to romanticize his memory simply because he could pitch a baseball at a high level, which is all that's driving the fanboys who descend on these threads to attack everyone for sizing up the world as it is and the man as he was.
Fanboyism, and nothing but -- an eccentric trait indeed in middle and late middle-aged men.
Certainly there's no reason to romanticize his memory simply because he could pitch a baseball at a high level.
The opposite, actually. Athletes in the US are a far bigger threat to civilians than civilians are to athletes. On the nation's college campuses, the threat ratio is utterly absurd -- see, e.g., the recent horrors at Baylor. Which is why a sober observer can only chuckle on the extremely rare occasion that a civilian enters the playing surface at all of the "OMG he's on the field, WHO KNOWS WHAT KIND OF HORRORS HE COULD HAVE PERPETRATED!!!"
That's not patting, and that's not his back.
You know, the riff-raff. Hippies, commies, furriners, queers...
Sure - I guess I'm aiming the question... or statement of lack of understanding more at CC than anyone else, I suppose.
Though, so far as romanticizing his memory -- I guess I don't know that anyone is really doing that... at least, romanticizing his memory as a person. In addition to causing the death of two people, he might also have been a thoroughly rotten human being for all we/I know.
I guess I would just say that romanticizing of him is pretty much restricted to romanticizing his pitching and the fact that his pitching was pretty great at a young age and likely would have gotten better.
Not trying to pick a fight here because I don't think one really exists to be picked... Just saying my 'attachment' to him is no more than it is with everyone else: A good baseball player that people who like baseball would obviously enjoy seeing play baseball and it's a shame we won't get to see him play more baseball. Certainly bigger tragedies in the world, and certainly even bigger tragedies around his death and the deaths of two others that are beyond "us".
There's literally no sense in which they don't deserve the money. They suffered a wrongful death at the hands of the person from whom they seek money.
You yabbering on about a boat wreck on the internet contributes absolutely nothing to either "understanding" or "preventing future tragedies." Literally nothing..
I don't believe anyone is saying you're "grave dancing", only Cargo Cultist, who did literally say "Told ya so".
Well, no... literally it was HA! Told ya so.
The pushback in the original thread linked above came from Darren, Wahoo Sam, Tin Angel, Jose is el absurd pollo, Scott Lange, and lars6788, guys who rarely if ever post in OTP*. They aren't the usual anything. The OTP regulars were mostly making or defending the speculation: me, Ray, Clapper, SOSH. It's just more CC trying to make everything be about him.
*I have no idea what SBB and RETARDO said.
Sometimes you don't need to snipe back at Ray just because he's Ray.
A very well-publicized incident of drunken boating leading to death can absolutely help prevent future tragedies. There is definitely a sentiment that drinking while driving a boat is not as bad as drinking while driving a car, and that's probably not true.
That is literally a great word.
Indeed. "But he has a daughter who deserves the money too" is not an element of a damages calculation in a wrongful death suit.
The calculus focuses on the lives of those LOST.
The daughter has literally done nothing to "deserve" Jose Fernandez' millions of dollars. She was born to a rich father. There's no deserve in that. Standard play rules of inheritance say she gets the money when she comes of age, but she doesn't *deserve* it in any real, moral way.
The men who chose willingly to go out partying with Jose Fernandez on his boat were not coerced nor forced into those actions that anyone can tell. As such, their accidental deaths are on them, not him, nor his family.
The extended family of those men have literally done nothing to deserve Jose Fernandez' money. "My son got on a boat to drink and blow lines with a baseball superstar" is not a valid argument for them to "deserve" money from the Fernandez estate. The fact that our society has set up the assumption that "my brother got killed with a famous rich person, so we get to sue that person now" is bad, not good. But regardless, deserve's got nothing to do with it.
Also, this is literally impossible. The listed "top speed" of 65 MPH is clearly wrong if the vessel was traveling faster than that.
Neither of the others had a wife. Children, well, I can't say for sure, but there is nothing in any report that mentions that either had a child.
Both had alcohol in their systems, but both were also under the legal limit. One also had cocaine and the other didn't.
I don't know how that changes the calculus. Just sayin'.
I'm guessing they meant that's the rated top speed. Like an aircraft. Above that, #### might start falling apart, or not be controllable.
Almost certainly. As semi-professional writers, they should have said that.
I'm just explaining to you how the law works. Your preferences are not codified therein.
A person doesn't need to be famous and rich in order for a plaintiff to bring a wrongful death suit.
You seem to be upset that Fernandez's memory and legacy are sullied. And they are. But the fault is not with those who point to the facts of what he did and render the conclusions that follow about him from those; the fault is with him. When he drove the boat drunk and had a huge hand in the deaths of two people -- and not just a little drunk but severely inebriated -- he forfeited the right to have his memory and legacy purified. And I don't care for fanboys here demanding that that be done so that they can continue to live in whatever 15 year old fanboy world they are living in. The real world is out there. People can live in it, or not.
Not saying it makes things any less sad for parents/siblings/etc... just curious.
I'm not upset at all. I was sad to see a very talented, joyful baseball player die too young. Otherwise, it has no bearing on my life whatsoever. The only thing I'm picking nits about here is you prancing about all holier-than-thou with your moral Puratinism yammering on about the dangers of drugs and boating, or whatever it is you and the Cultist are preening self-righteously about today.
I've only seen Cultist preening. Ray (and to a lesser extent, Misirlou) are just saying that they had previously been criticized for openly speculating that Fernandez was drunk. (Ray is also explaining how wrongful death suits work, but I don't see any moral judgement there, just descriptions of the current reality.)
I still don't know why his being drunk matters. I mean, morally. To the lawyers chasing the water ambulances, sure. Commissions are big on these sorts of cases, yeah?
Of course this is how the lawyers think. It's still wrong. If you punch me, I will beat your ass. If you crash my car, you owe me medical and a new car. If you kill me, my family can probably take care of what they need out of it, but I will be dead and not personally deserve anything ever again. YOu continue to misuse "deserve."
Who besides you is talking about morality?
Interesting people? (CC, and one assumes SBB (he's plonked, so I can't say for sure) think they are, but they're generally idiot-trolls about everything. Ray tries to, but quickly loses his depth.)
So far only Cargo Cultist has done anything resembling moralizing (and his reaction was really more just being a dick than anything else).
EDIT: Coke to Misirlou.
Because he was grossly nrgligent.
If you're sober and driving a normal speed (either in a car or boat) and crash and kill someone, that's an accident. You didn't do anything wrong.
If you're many times the legal limit for alcohol, coked up to boot, and driving your vehicle past its maximum safe speed, you are acting with gross disregard for human life. It's not an accident if something happens. You are very much to blame if anyone gets hurt or killed.
I'd say that's certainly not true at night. Driving a boat at night is dangerous completely sober. It's easy to get disoriented.
Driving a boat at night drunk is crazy. Driving a boat at night at top speed while drunk is a death wish.
No one on that boat was coerced into that party.
You seem to be doing the most ridiculous moralizing, now. So because they, too, were drunk and willingly got on the boat, then it's their fault they died?
If someone is drunk and gets murdered by someone else in a bar, is that their fault, too? Or if one drunk person rapes another, is that not a crime?
Why wouldn't and why shouldn't they be? The only reason it's even an issue is because he could throw a baseball fast -- i.e., pure unadulturated fanboyism.
And I don't care for fanboys here demanding that that be done so that they can continue to live in whatever 15 year old fanboy world they are living in. The real world is out there.
Bingo.
More or less, yes.
That's not a fair comparison. Getting murdered is not a foreseeable consequence of drinking in a bar.
The two other people on the boat regardless their levels of inebriation, knew that Fernandez was acting recklessly by piloting a boat drunk/high at high speeds. Presumably, they could have taken steps to stop him. Like I said above, how you want to parcel the blame is a matter of opinion, but their level of culpability is a hell of a lot higher than if Fernandez had killed two people in a different boat.
At the risk of sending this conversation completely off the rails*, I find the law regarding inebriation and consent to be quite fascinating. If two drunk people have sex, are they both guilty of rape?
* Let's face it, that's its destiny.
Um, dude, the three major times you've windbagged about morality include the following:
1. Slaves in the antebellum south had no moral right to freedom, but only to whatever crumbs positivist law gave them.
2. Kin of people killed in self-defense have the moral right to kill the person who killed in self-defense.
3. Driving a boat drunk and UTI of blow, and thereby negligently/recklessly killing two other people, is of no moral weight.
I guess you can call that kind of dizzy eccentricity, "interesting," but it's "interesting" only in the way that people pounding Larouche pamphlets on street corners, or rapidly doing Rubik's cubes in rubber rooms are.
Ahhhh...
I see -- you're looking for Ihatebaseballthinkfactory.org.
Yeah, that's a fair interpretation. It's far from Rickey's, though.
And I will note that I sometimes share your fascination with the consent laws in the same way.
Is having sex with a drunk person (when you're sober) definitely always rape?
I see -- you're looking for Ihatebaseballthinkfactory.org.
It's quite possible to both like baseball (or any other sport) and not be a fanboy.
Most baseball players, particularly in this era, are maladjusted, single-minded cads. I see no reason that should matter to enjoyment of the activity, any more than the personal lives of movie stars should matter to our critical appreciation of film.
Even the somewhat laudable things Jose Fernandez did off the field are the kind of things done by people on a routine basis and deserve no great kudos. The zenith of this kind of nonsense was, perhaps, when Tiger Woods's father died and golf commentators and others made it into some great thing that he was able to "overcome" it after like six weeks off, as if millions of people don't have parents die and then get themselves back to work effectively far quicker than six weeks.
If one is of the mind that baseball players are maladjusted, single-minded cads -- not entirely sure I see why this era is any different than previous eras... even setting aside the sins of the Ansons, the Cobbs, etc -- even the Mantles and the Ruths were hardly NOT maladjusted, single-minded cads.
The difference in eras is that athletes are now pampered and steered to athletics-uber-alles at earlier ages than previous eras. The singlemindedness has become even more pronounced.
Moreover, the paying public -- regardless of any hypocrisies to the contrary -- wants their athletes to be maladjusted, single-minded cads.(*) And, in major league sporting entertainment as elsewhere, eventually the customers get what they want.
(*) There's no serious constituency whatever for athletes to be modest and respectful and diligent. See, e.g., Mike Trout and the San Antonio Spurs.
I stop following once the players step outside of the white lines.
I don't care what they do off the field -- including in the clubhouse and whether they are eating chicken wings or have a barcalounger -- what their political views are, who they're sleeping with, whether they're gay or straight, whether they are born again. I used to lionize players when I was 15; I don't anymore. Certainly by adulthood people shouldn't be worshipping baseball players.
And yet, that's what the media does ad nausem -- cover these players off the field, or present them as heroes or villains. "Justin Verlander is dating Kate Upton." "Matt Harvey is dating this model." "Derek Jeter is the bestest bestest who ever bested." "ARod is a terrible person because he used steroids." "Oh, look at what Player X had to overcome in his life to get to this point." "So and so has such great character!!" And so much of it is BS. The tv cameras obsessively cut to Player X's wife, tell us about his family, the announcers tell us cute little stories about what "Derek" told them in the clubhouse. I. Do. Not. Care.
This is the NBC-Olympicsization coverage of sports. I detest it and tune it all out. (It's why I don't watch the Olympics. I do not care about the backstories of the athletes, and while I'd be happy to watch the athletes perform and compete I can't stomach sitting through the irrelevant fluff.) I simply don't care what any of these people do off the field, what lives they live or don't live, what they believe in or don't believe in, what they overcame or didn't overcome, what their sexual orientation is. I follow the game like I would follow a DMB league, and that's probably why I enjoy playing DMB.
So when it comes time to say "Jose Fernandez is at fault for recklessly driving his boat while inebriated and killing two people plus himself," I acknowledge the fact and don't have any hero worship to stand in my way. These are not great people just because they are great players.
Uh, how many times have you posted in this thread and the previous one? You sure have a funny way of not following what's going on...by posting repeatedly about it on the internet and getting into numerous arguments.
What a brilliant gotcha!
And yet it's here.
"What they had to overcome" is also interesting to me. Knowing that Tim Duncan grew up a swimmer in the USVI and didn't start playing basketball until 9th grade gives me that much more respect for his accomplishments, and also helps explain why he entered college as an unpolished player. I would also think that if you're interested in comparing players across eras, you'd want to consider the training, nutrition, equipment and medical care available to them throughout their lives.
Show me. Where?
What's complex about it? No one would even be giving it a second thought if the boat driver wasn't a guy who could throw a baseball fast. If it was a surgeon or a lawyer driving the boat that intoxicated and that ridiculously the local people might see it in the paper and think, "What an ####### he was for doing that," and move on to finish their bowl of Corn Flakes or Count Chocula. The accident doesn't take on some extra superduper gravity just because the boat driver could throw a baseball fast.
And of course it's tragic -- three young lives were lost. No one has remotely suggested otherwise. The pushback is against all the people who think Fernandez's life was somehow more inherently worthwhile than the two people his recklessness killed.
WTF has said anything approaching that?
There are multiple people dying right now, at this very moment. There are probably multiple dying right now in ways and for reasons far worse than a drunken boating accident. Is there some special place on the internet where you go to mourn them so that your preening is anything more than that?
It's hardly defective or some sort of character flaw to 'notice' and be... IDK, disappointed is even too strong a word - when someone who provides leisure entertainment you enjoy passes in an untimely way, even when that untimely passing is ultimately of his own making.
Gimme a break... no one here is starting a Go Fund Me for a Jose Fernandez memorial statue... and no one here is feeding any sort of hero worship by remarking on the fact Jose Fernandez was good at baseball and it's a shame we don't get to watch him throw a baseball really well anymore.
Is there ANY topic where you don't have this weird need to stake out a good seat in the "How can I most piss off the most people in an iconoclastic preening sort of way?"
What a troll, piss off.
Wait, what? That's not right unless all 3 of them were driving the boat at the same time. Just because you are drunk or high or both doesn't make you responsible for the accident if you weren't driving the vehicle. Unless you reached over and grabbed the wheel or something equally dumb.
I assume most of us have been on a boat before. Has anyone mentioned how insanely fast 65mph is on a boat? It's just crazy time stuff. Any sort of wake or swell will send a boat flying at that speed. Do be doing that at night, in a harbour, whilst intoxicated is just really, really stupid.
It's hard to speculate about who "deserves" what based on what we know. Maybe his passengers were similarly incapacitated (the report says they were below the legal limit for alcohol, but one had cocaine in his system) and had no concern about the fact that Fernandez was piloting the boat while drunk and high. Or maybe they had their wits about them, and tried to convince him to stop, but he refused. Or neither of the above. This is why these cases go to court.
Not to speak for SOSH, but I suspect the point was more like "Does that mean it was probably a crapshoot as to who ultimately ended up behind the wheel?"... and I think there is something to that.
Since it was Fernandez's boat - and he was driving - he's certainly at the top of the list... but having been young and stupid myself, yeah - I thank my stars none of my stupid young choices ended in tragedy - but my admittedly hazy memory of such stupid young situations is that it wasn't ever a matter of one especially stupid young person making a stupid decision. It tends to be a group decision of stupid and young + only one steering wheel.
As a public service to those who apparently think these threads can serve some sort public service - I suppose just let me say for any of the young and stupid who may be reading, and with a nod towards the analytics bent of this site, let me just say: Even if you don't roll the tragedy and/or criminal snake eyes - you'll still regret it. You only get so many good - or even not bad - rolls at life and it's really stupid to waste one on something like this. Whether it's you driving, riding with someone who is, or even just letting someone drive/operate/etc who is when you can stop it - it's the life equivalent of having your #2 hitter sac bunt after a leadoff single in the top of the first.
No, what I was saying (though I wasn't the person Hugh quoted above) is that if driving a boat at insanely high speeds while drunk is dangerous and stupid, which it is, then it's also dangerous and stupid to be a passenger in a boat driven at insanely high speeds piloted by a drunk (and whether they were drunk or sober is ultimately immaterial). I suppose it's possible that they had no agency in the whole series of events, but that strikes me as unlikely.
Does that absolve Fernandez of any responsibility?* Nope. But his passengers share some culpability in their demise.
* Blame, unlike effort, does not max out at 100 percent. Noting that the passengers had something of a hand in their deaths doesn't mitigate Fernandez's guilt.
I'm just saying that my recollections of such experiences where the inebriation is spread across the victims and victim/perp is that it's never been a matter of the passengers being coerced or dragged into the situation and more a matter of everybody universally agreeing "#### it, I don't want to wait for a cab"... or in a case like this "Open it up!"
Of course, we'll never know precisely how the fatal minutes went down... I'm just saying my very strong suspicion is that no one was saying "Please, Jose, slow down". Doesn't absolve him or his memory in any sense, of course... legally or morally... just saying that such stupidity never tended to be dictatorial or even majority rules in my experience, but rather unanimous assent.
Hopefully they realize there are no winners in this conflict and settle out of court.
Agree 100%. At some point you must take responsibility for your own actions and being a part of total stupidity has it's price sometimes.
The quote I referenced initially clearly stated that the poster thinks the responsibility should be shared equally because they were all drunk. I disagree with that as I see a distinction between driving the boat and "only" being a drunk passenger. The drunk passenger nonetheless, as you stated, must accept some of the blame for their own demise as going 65mph on a boat, at night with a totally wasted guy driving is just plain nuts.
I too had a misspent youth and count my lucky stars how many times my friends and I got lucky and didn't harm anyone else, and like Zonk, you look back and just think, "what an incredibly stupid f*cking thing to do."
It's just sad for all involved but I think it's a bit much when someone is going...SEE, I WAS RIGHT, THEY WERE DRUNK! It's just churlish and there's no place for it.
Yeah - now being in my 40s, there's certainly no shortage of those words of advice that went in one ear and out the other... "turn the lights off when you leave the room"... "I'm not paying to air condition outside!"... "start contributing to that IRA immediately".... that became more prescient with age and experience... But that's honestly the biggest one I'd pass on. There's no shortage of stupid things to do with far lesser repercussions when you're young and these situations tend to be the sort that are really easiest to pass on/prevent. I never even got in a snake eyes situation, and I also have plenty of stupid and young situations that I would acknowledge as stupid, but I secretly or not-so-secretly treasure nonetheless. The ones that culminated in me/me as a passenger/me as someone who could have said 'gimme your keys' - nothing but regret even though tragedy didn't ensue.
I think a big part of why discussions that involve that such situations go to #### so easily is that it's something that feels so... just wasteful.
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