Marlins to Build Jose Fernandez Statue at Stadium Before End of 2017 Season

Miami Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria told Jerry Crasnick of ESPN that the team planned on having a sculpture made of deceased pitcher Jose Fernandez which, he hoped, would be completed in the next six months.

"We're having a big sculpture of Jose made for the plaza or maybe in front of the stadium," he said. "William Behrends is doing it. He did the Willie McCovey and Willie Mays sculptures out in San Francisco." 

Loria continued:

"

I went through hundreds and hundreds of photographs with the sculptor and gestures of Jose's face to try and make it perfect. No one else is going to get involved in a piece of sculpture other than me, right? I've spent 50 years in that world.

We're going to cast it in bronze and paint the glove the red-orange that Jose would like, and that will be the only color on it. I don't want to make it kitschy, but that was his favorite thing. Hopefully we'll see it in six months or so. It's a very long process to cast a sculpture that's 9 or 10 feet high, as opposed to 6 feet.

"

When asked why the statue would stand so tall, Loria responded, "Because Jose was larger than life."

Fernandez was just 24 when he died in a boating accident off of Miami Beach in Sept. 2016 along with Emilio Macias, 27, and Eduardo Rivero, 25. A toxicology report would show that the superstar pitcher was legally drunk and also had cocaine in his system at the time of his death. An investigation concluded that Fernandez had been operating the boat at the time of the crash.

"I know Jose to be a different kind of person," Loria told Crasnick. "I know there were reports. I know a different person. I know a kid who was fun-loving. I didn't know a kid who was involved with anything bad. The only thing bad he was involved with was trying to beat your ass right off the plate. That's the only thing I ever saw."

He said that he accepted the results of the toxicology reports, however. But moving on from the death of Fernandez, who he considered like a son, has remained difficult for Loria.

"I never moved past my sister's loss, and that's 22 years now," Loria noted. "And then to have this happen in the way it happened—so suddenly—it's not easy to comprehend or to deal with easily. I love this kid, plain and simple."

He added: "I must admit when I went down for spring training this year, I looked around for Jose, and he wasn't there. That's kind of hard."