This is the time of year where farewells in baseball seem to run in abundance. Moreover, Thursday night marked just that for Felix Hernandez in Seattle.
Furthermore, Hernandez pitched admirably in his final start in Seattle against the Oakland Athletics. While the is not the major crux of this story – it’s important to note that left it all on the field for his fans last night. Hernandez went 5 and 1/3 against a good Athletics team and stretched his workload to 106 pitches.
Still, the real part of this story that gets you is what happened when Hernandez left his start. Now, we have video of that below; and it’s okay to get a little melancholy in your feels over this.
Crying in baseball is absolutely allowed if you’re King Felix pic.twitter.com/HWMbcNAEeh
— Barstool Sports (@barstoolsports) September 27, 2019
Without question, one of the greatest pitchers in Seattle Mariners history was saying goodbye to a packed stadium of his fans; The King’s Court as it was called.
The 66-93 Mariners have Hernandez’s career body of work for selling out this late in the season, and even as the losing pitcher of record; he delivered a worthy performance.
Finally, the take home message(s) here are simple. Sports are awesome, baseball this time of year is a little sad with some of the farewells. Additionally, it’s hard watching the greats get old and leave. Hernandez’s rookie year was in 2005. Suddenly – as I write this post – I ask myself where did the time go?
There are some talents you wish you could freeze forever at age 25, some of the guys who are great enough to make us wish that. During some points of Hernandez’s career, he was that big of a spectacle every fifth day.
It was an awesome send-off for one of the best pitchers of this generation.