D2 EZ SU THE WASHINGTON POST.THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 5 , 2019
BY JESSE DOUGHERTYAaron Barrett needed a moment or
maybe two to gather his thoughts and
let the tears pass.
He was standing in the Washington
Nationals’ clubhouse Wednesday
morning — of all the places in the world
he could have been — and everything
came rushing back. That happens often
for Barrett, a reliever for the Nationals
in 2014 and 2015, then a pitcher with a
broken arm and too much faith to quit.
Barrett underwent To mmy John
surgery to repair his right elbow in
September 2015. The following summer,
while throwing a simulated game in
West Palm Beach, Fla., he reared back
for a fastball and his humerus snapped.
Just like that. Witnesses described the
sound of his arm breaking as a gunshot
or a wood panel cracking in half. Barrett
leaped around the mound, already
sobbing, and asked “Why me?” o ver and
over before the ambulance arrived.
Then he began a long journey back to
that very spot.
“It’s been incredible. She’s been my
rock,” Barrett said, his face red and eyes
watering, of the unrelenting support
from his wife, Kendyl. “Not only her, my
family, this whole organization has been
incredible. Sorry.”
Barrett had no reason to apologize.
Four years away is a long time. The
logistics of his call-up were pretty
simple: The Nationals opened a 40-man
roster spot by placing Austen Williams
on the 60-day injured list. They decided
to fill it with Barrett, whom they drafted
out of Mississippi in 2010, but not just
because of his fight back.
The 31-year-old had a 2.75 ERA and
31 saves for the Class AA Harrisburg
Senators this season. He became the
team’s all-time saves leader, a title he
didn’t necessarily want, and
Washington particularly likes how his
slider plays against right-handed
hitters.
The moment he was recalled Tuesdaywas emotional for many reasons.
Assistant general manager Doug Harris
drove to Harrisburg to see it in person.
Matt LeCroy, the Senators manager,
called a team meeting.
He called Barrett onto the field, the
club’s token old guy, and announced
that there would be an annual award in
Barrett’s name. Barrett thought that
was pretty cool. Then LeCroy told him
he was going back to the majors for
Wednesday’s 1:05 p.m. game against the
New York Mets, and Barrett thought
that couldn’t be true.
He called Kendyl right away. She and
his daughter, Kollyns, were at Nationals
Park on Wednesday. So were Barrett’s
parents, grandparents and brother, who
flew in to Washington on Wednesday
morning.
“Pretty surreal,” Barrett said, just a
few spots down from his old locker. “I try
to picture back when I first got called up
in [2014], making the team out of camp,
kind of what that experience was
compared to this. And I honestly think
this one might be better than the first
one.”
The right-hander couldn’t stop
smiling in the clubhouse a few hours
ahead of first pitch. He shook the hand
of each reporter who surrounded his
stall, either introducing himself — “Hi,
I’m Aaron” — or saying: “Good to see you
again.” He opened the safe above his
locker and took out WD-40, a long-
running joke that he needs it for the
screws in his arm.
Orthopedist James Andrews, who
inserted those screws during a six-hour
surgery, texted Barrett on Tuesday and
told the pitcher he was unbelievable.
Te ammates, old and new, filteredthrough to say hello and
congratulations to Barrett as warmups
neared. Then the pitcher slipped on a
pair of cleats, grabbed his glove and
headed out to the field, where he hopes
to contribute to a pennant race in the
coming weeks. His sinker is back into
the low 90s, sometimes humming a hair
harder, and his slider again grabbed the
front office’s attention. Harris is
adamant that Barrett earned this
promotion by what he did on the mound
this spring and summer. And Martinez
echoed that before Wednesday’s game.
“I talked to him this morning. I said,
‘Hey, you’re going to pitch,’ ” Martinez
recalled. “ ‘I saw what you did against
right-handed hitters this year. Your
slider was really effective, so just be
ready to pitch.’ And he says he’s always
ready. So I’m looking forward to that
moment.”
When Barrett got back to the mound
this spring and Ryan Zimmerman made
it a requirement that the whole team
stick around to watch him, Barrett
broke down in tears in an empty spring
training clubhouse. Each step of this
process — throwing for the first time,
training his mind and arm to sync back
up, taking another climb through the
minors — has been a reason to reflect
and celebrate. But he still knew there
was one more step to go.
His first baseball dream returned. He
wanted to get back on a big league
mound — the mound at Nationals Park
— to be the pitcher who once appeared
in two postseason games. He wanted
that feeling again.
“There were times where I didn’t
know if I’d get through it, just the pain
was too much. There’s just so much
going on, I couldn’t take it,” Barrett
began. “But I’m not a quitter, never have
been, and I found it in myself to keep
pushing forward.
“A nd I said it all along: When I make it
back, it’s g oing to be a hell of a comeback
story.”
[email protected]QUOTABLE“It’s age and the fact
that it’s three out of five
sets and you are nine
months into the
season.”
PAUL ANNACONE ,
Roger Federer’s former coach, on why
Federer has success during the
summer hard-court season but has
not won the U.S. Open since 2008.
NATIONALSAn emotional return to D.C.
PRO FOOTBALLBY CINDY BORENA 2017 comment by Robert Mc-
Nair, the Houston Te xans’ late
owner, cut so deeply that the
team’s star wide receiver said it
made him feel “like I’m a slave
again.”
As NFL players and owners de-
bated player activism that fall in
the wake of controversial protests
during the national anthem, Mc-
Nair told fellow owners “we can’t
have the inmates running the p ris-
on,” according to an ESPN report.
The comment infuriated players,
threatening the already fragile re-
lationship. The Texans’ DeAndre
Hopkins, o ne the l eague’s t op wide
receivers, was so offended that he
sat out a practice and seriously
considered sitting out a game. In a
GQ interview p ublished this week,
he described the cultural divide
between NFL o wners and a mostly
black workforce.
“It’s hard for people to under-
stand what that means, when your
family was slaves. You can’t relate
to something like that if your
great-uncle’s not telling you sto-
ries about their parents or their
grandparents and what they went
through,” Hopkins said in the GQ
story. “Not even too long ago, peo-
ple couldn’t even drink out of the
same water faucet. Not even
100 y ears ago.”
McNair’s comment during that
October 2017 meeting came as
owners and players sought to re-
solve a situation that had Presi-
dent Trump repeatedly criticizing
players who were taking a knee or
otherwise demonstrating during
the national anthem. Hopkins
said he seriously considered sit-
ting out when the Texans played
the Seahawks the following week
in Seattle.
“People don’t understand,”
Hopkins said. “I’m from South
Carolina. I’m from a real cultured
state, where there’s still racism
daily. Still, places are segregated. I
really didn’t want to play in that
game, dog,” he said. “I was like,
‘[Expletive], this is bigger than a
game, man.’ I’ve got to stand for
something [to set an example for
his children]. If their daddy don’t
stand up, then what the hell am I
going to tell t hem?
“It feels like I’m a slave again.
Getting ran over. Listen to the
master, go to work. But I took into
consideration that [McNair] was
older — RIP, his soul. He was a
good man, but some people they
don’t really... When you grow up
certain places, you talk a certain
way.”
McNair, one of the l eague’s most
active and i nfluential owners, con-
tinued to speak out against player
protests, saying in early 2018 that
NFL playing fields are “not the
place f or political s tatements” a nd
that teams needed to d emonstrate
to angry fans that they “respect
our flag and respect our country.”
McNair, the original owner of the
Te xans when Houston got its ex-
pansion franchise in 1999, died in
late 2 018 at a ge 8 1.
[email protected]Houston’s
Hopkins
felt ‘like
I’m a slave’
BY CINDY BORENEleven days after Blanca
Fernández Ochoa, a n Olympic ski-
ing bronze medalist in 1992, went
missing in the mountains near
Madrid, triggering a search by
hundreds of officials and volun-
teers who combed the p ine-forest-
ed area for days, her body was
found Wednesday.
Fernández, 56, Spain’s first fe-
male medalist in the Winter
Olympics, was reported missing
Aug. 24.
Fernández reportedly often
liked to take long hikes in the
mountains, so no one g ave it much
of a thought when she told her
daughter, Olivia Fresneda, that
she was going o ut Aug. 23. S he was
last spotted on surveillance video
at a shopping m all Aug. 24.
She had not taken her cell-
phone, however, and family mem-
bers grew concerned when they
lost contact with her. Their worry
grew when her Mercedes was
found Sept. 1 parked at a popular
hiking spot in Cercedilla in the
Sierra de Guadarrama moun-
tains, about an hour northwest of
Madrid. In it were her driver’s
license and 15 euros. “I think she
must have gone to the family’s
favorite area,” her sister, Dolores,
said this week. “I am sure she
decided to go there and some-
thing has happened to her. I can’t
think of any other e xplanation.”
Fernández, who won a bronze
medal in Alpine skiing at the
Games in Albertville, France, was
one of five siblings who competed
at t he Olympics for t he Spanish ski
team. Her late brother, Francisco
Fernández Ochoa, was the first
Spaniard to win a gold medal at
the Winter Olympics, w inning the
slalom in 1 972 in Sapporo, Japan.
In a 2014 interview w ith El Pais,
Fernández said she had become
more interested in golf than ski-
ing since retiring.
“I ended up burned [out] with
skiing,” she said. “What I really
like is golf.”
News about Fernández’s death
brought reactions from NBA star
Pau Gasol, the Real Madrid or-
ganization, Formula One driver
Carlos Sainz and others who
praised her as a legend of Spanish
sports.
[email protected]
OLYMPICS
Missing
Spanish
skiing star’s
body found
JOHN MCDONNELL/THE WASHINGTON POST
Aaron Barrett endured Tommy John surgery in 2015 and an arm that broke during his rehabilitation the next summer.Barrett’s four-year journey
back to the major leagues
capped by September call-upwashingtonpost.com/sports
HOCKEY
D.C.’s Henderson going
into U.S. Hall of Fame
NHL Commissioner Gary
Bettman and longtime
Washington youth hockey figure
Neal Henderson headline the
2019 class of the U.S. Hockey Hall
of Fame.
Bettman, Henderson, former
Boston Bruins goaltender Tim
Thomas , longtime NHL forward
Brian Gionta and U.S. women’s
star Krissy Wendell will be
inducted at a ceremony Dec. 12.
Bettman was inducted into the
Hockey Hall of Fame in To ronto
last year.
In 1978, Henderson co-
founded the Fort Dupont Ice
Hockey C lub, the oldest minority
hockey club in North America,
and was part of the NHL’s launch
of its “Hockey is for Everyone”
initiative.
Thomas in 2011 became the
second American and the oldest
player to win the Conn Smythe
Trophy as playoff MVP when he
led the Bruins to the Stanley Cup.
He made headlines for skipping
the trip to see President Barack
Obama in the White House and
has been virtually invisible since
walking away from hockey in
2014.
Gionta put up 595 points in
16 NHL seasons and won the Cup
with New Jersey in 2003. He
represented the United States in
the 2006 and 2018 Olympics.
Wendell won two NCAA titles at
Minnesota and served as captain
at the 2006 Olympics....
Clayton Keller signed an
eight-year contract extension
with the Arizona Coyotes. T he
forward will receive an average
annual salary of $7.15 million....
Forward Adrian Kempe
agreed to a three-year, $6 million
deal to stay with the Los Angeles
Kings.SKIING
Marcel Hirscher ’s biggest
wish was to leave Alpine skiing as
a winner.
On Wednesday, the two-time
Olympic champion from Austria
did just that.
Hirscher, the first skier to win
eight overall World Cup titles,
made a live announcement on
Austrian national TV that he is
retiring after dominating his
sport for more than a decade.
“I always wanted to end my
career as long as I am winning
races. I didn’t want to oversee the
moment where things get worse,”
said the 30-year-old Hirscher,who won Olympic gold in giant
slalom and Alpine combined in
South Korea in 2018. “My
decision is two weeks old. I think
it is good the way it is. This feels
right.”
Hirscher’s retirement is no
surprise. At last season’s World
Cup Finals in March, he openly
questioned his own motivation
to chase more titles after
expressing similar doubts a year
ago.COLLEGE BASKETBALL
The NCAA upheld sanctions
against BYU’s program, which
was forced to vacate 47 wins as a
result of an improper-benefits
case involving former player
Nick Emery.
BYU’s appeal of penalties
announced in November was
denied by the NCAA’s Infractions
Appeals Committee.
The NCAA said a player, later
revealed by BYU to be Emery,
received more than $12,000 in
benefits from four boosters. It
ruled the school must vacate the
wins, and BYU was placed on
probation for two years.
BYU voiced its disappointment
in the NCAA’s decision in a
statement, calling the penalties
“unprecedented for a case in
which the institution had noknowledge of or involvement in
the infractions.”...
The University of Te xas will
retire the No. 33 jersey of Kamie
Ethridge, the first time the
school has so honored a female
athlete. T he university
announced that her jersey will be
retired at halftime of Saturday
night’s football game between
No. 6 LSU and No. 9 Te xas.
Ethridge was the national
player of the year in leading
undefeated Te xas to the 1986
NCAA championship.MISC.
Jonquel Jones had 22 points
and seven rebounds and the
Connecticut Sun beat the Dallas
Wings, 102-72, in Uncasville,
Conn., to clinch a top-two seed in
the WNBA playoffs after its ninth
straight home victory.
Connecticut (23-9) moved
within a game of first-place
Washington and three games
ahead of Los Angeles — with the
top two teams receiving a bye to
the semifinals....
Drew Hunter , a former All-
Met from Loudoun Valley High,
withdrew from this month’s
world track and field
championships in Qatar because
of a foot injury. Hunter had
qualified with a fifth-place finishin the 5,000 meters at July’s U.S.
outdoor championships....
Mikel Iturria couldn’t have
asked for a better setting for
his first professional cycling
victory. C lose to his home and
with his family watching, Iturria
used a solo breakaway to win the
11th stage of the Spanish Vueltain Urdax, Spain.
Iturria held on for the victory
after making an impressive solo
run with about 25 kilometers
(15 miles) to go of the 180-
kilometer (112-mile) ride from
Saint-Palais to Urdax in Spain’s
Basque Country.
— From news servicesTELEVISION AND RADIO
MLB
1 p.m. San Francisco at St. Louis » MLB Network
4 p.m. Los Angeles Angels at Oakland » MLB Network (joined in progress)
7 p.m. Washington at Atlanta » MASN, WJFK (106.7 FM), WFED (1500 AM)
7 p.m. Texas at Baltimore » MASN2, WTEM (980 AM)
7 p.m. Chicago Cubs at Milwaukee » MLB Network
NFL
8:30 p.m. Green Bay at Chicago » WRC (Ch. 4), WBAL (Ch. 11)
TENNIS
7 p.m. U.S. Open, women’s semifinals » ESPN
WNBA
7:30 p.m. Las Vegas at Atlanta » CBS Sports Network
10 p.m. Seattle at Los Angeles » CBS Sports Network
GOLF
5 a.m. European Tour: European Open, first round » Golf Channel
SOCCER
11:50 a.m. UEFA Euro 2020 qualifier, Group J: Italy vs. Armenia » ESPNews
2:30 p.m. UEFA Euro 2020 qualifier, Group D: Switzerland vs. Ireland » ESPNews
HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL
8 p.m. Trinity Christian (Tex.) at Parish Episcopal (Tex.) » ESPN2
WOMEN’S COLLEGE VOLLEYBALL
8 p.m. Marquette at Wisconsin » Fox Sports 1
WOMEN’S COLLEGE SOCCER
7 p.m. Georgetown at Virginia » ACC NetworkDIGEST