In the spring of 1993, in a different ballpark, a knuckleball left the fingers of Hialeah High’s Charlie Hough, stitched the air like a dragonfly does for a generous called strike, and Marlins baseball was born.
Twenty-four springs later, Opening Night on Tuesday at Marlins Park launched the franchise’s Silver Anniversary season, the celebration and hope of it tempered by the residue of grief. His clubhouse locker has become a shrine, its contents frozen in time behind protective Plexiglas. Nobody needs a reminder that ace pitcher Jose Fernandez died in that awful September boating accident, but there it is.