FanPost

FPF: Happy Félix Day

Otto Greule Jr/Getty Images

Here is former staff writer and forever friend of the blog Isabelle with a love Félix FanPost.

What is it about certain memories that makes our minds carve out such specific space for them? It seems reasonable to recall big moments in our lives with utmost clarity, but what about those brief snapshots of insignificant moments? The utterly generic activities that you can readily recall perfectly. Are they preserved so wholly by chance, or do we subconsciously tuck them away, anticipating that they may carry greater import down the road?

For me, one such memory is from September 28, 2014 - or rather, I suppose, September 29th, in the dawning hours in Norwich, England. I don’t know why my mind has chosen to so carefully remember this moment, but it feels as real today as it did on that solitary early morning. My small laptop is propped on the inexplicable wood corner by the head of my bed, and I’m lying on my side as tears stream down my face. I can smell the distinctly industrial stuffiness of the room, feel the wood platform pressing into my right hip through the paltry mattress, and hear the crowd’s roar, tinny through computer speakers, as Félix Hernández walks off the mound. Everyone at Safeco Field is on their feet, and the King emerges from the dugout and into the sunshine, arms outstretched.

Six months after that, my mom came to visit me in Italy, where I was studying for my second semester. Along with vitamins and Peeps and pictures of my dog, she brought a copy of Sports Illustrated’s 2015 MLB Preview. You remember the one. Félix is roaring and Robinson Canó is in the background leaning back, seemingly in awe of the Mariners’ future and, perhaps, of the King. "TIME TO BELIEVE" is stamped resolutely across them both. I read it in a pool of sunlight on a balcony in Rome, and dreamt wildly. Later, I carefully separated the cover from the body of the magazine and tucked it flat in the bottom of my suitcase.

That cover has truly traveled the world, papering walls from Bologna, Italy to Carlisle, Pennsylvania to Seattle and, yes, to Cooperstown, New York. At first I treated it as a cynical reminder to measure my expectations, but over time the melancholy dissipated and I came to view it as a complex distillation of hope; a recognition of the absolute sweetness of anticipation and its sometimes disappointing conclusion.

Félix was supposed to be our hero; the representation of the reward for loyalty; the desired happy ending that even the most cynical of us cannot fully banish from the darkest recesses of our minds. It was how I, and thousands of others, wanted his story to conclude. Instead, he’s a reminder of, well, life.

How you can craft all the narratives your heart desires but they won’t always fit, no matter how frantically you try to bend and shape circumstance.

How sheer hope has little influence on the actions of others.

How progress isn’t linear, but neither is regression.

How you can fail in the estimation of many, but still live a damn good life.

So thanks, Félix. We’ll see you around.