Shockingly, Los Angeles Angel pitcher Nick Adenhart died in a car accident hours after making his 2009 debut against the A’s Wednesday night. He was 22 years old.
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I feel like someone punched me in the stomach.
Yeah, what you guys said. This sucks — especially on top of the sucker-punched Angels fan dying.
I was so excited about baseball again after last night. Kind of takes the wind out of my sails.
Awful, awful, awful.
Drunk, red-light-running, hit-and-run … hard to fathom that level of stupidity.
At least they arrested the guy.
News conference at 10:45 (15 minute delay from scheduled time) with live streaming here (sorry it’s TMZ).
Tonight’s game cancelled.
Minivan driver on a DUI-suspended license.
Courtney Stewart – driver, Adenhart’s girlfriend (?) – other identified victim.
Boras in tears.
That’s going to be a LOT of jail time. Especially if he was drunk this time.
Police report blood alcohol level “indicated that he had been drinking”.
Then the Bar Exam answer could well be murder (on a recklessness theory). I’m sure that won’t be what happens, but I doubt he gets off without a felony term (>1 year)
Good. Lock him and throw away the key. DUI is the most preventable, stupid, reckless thing that anyone can do. No reason for it, not ever ever ever.
I’d actually argue that the simple act of running a red light, whether drunk or sober, is worse/more risky and more preventable.
Yes, I’m splitting hairs.
Yup … and very likely uninsured. A financial turnip. Plaintiff’s Bar inconsolable.
ugh, that is awful.
This is unbelievable.
MaEl:
“If they want to play, we’ll be there.”
“It’s really, really sad. Twenty-two years old, his whole life and career ahead of him.”
Can I reach through the internet and hug MaEl? ‘Cause I could use a hug (from him).
Ugh
Without wanting to minimize the sadness associated with this situation, I heard “Fresh Air” on NPR today in the car. It’s an interview with a NYT reporter who recently wrote a book on umpiring. I thought it was interesting.
As there’s no game tonight, Bay Areans can hear it again on KQED 88.5 at 7 PM. It’s also podcast at their website link.
You’re worried about this comment minimizing the sadness, and not the one you made a few hours ago preemptively jabbing anyone who might sue on the families’ behalves?
Yes. The entry to which you refer was really a commentary on the very large claim the families would have against the idiot driver’s assets, if he had any — just another element of loss in this tragedy. The one immediately above felt to me more like it needed an acknowledgment, given the coincidence of the rebroadcast timing.
Your mileage may vary, I guess.
That’s why we’re all KRAUTHORS … and why i dld’ed’ed’ed
Swear to Ba’al, first time I scanned this I thought you said “recently wrote a book on urinating.”
Sal and I both need to cut back on the caffeine.
In former Soviet Union, the caffeine cuts back on you.
{deep breath}
Okay, I’m going to say a few things here and they may offend you. If so, please accept my apologies beforehand. And if you have had a strong emotional reaction to the day’s events, may I please suggest you stop reading here?
It’s sad that he died, there’s no doubt. And I’m about to stumble onto inappropriate ground, and I hate being the chaotic evil voice of self-servyness, but….the fact that this young man died affects my life only in the fact that the A’s game was canceled.
I understand he was young, it was pointless, and the whole situation brings gravitas to the opening of this young season. But I listened to this guy pitch against my team. One time. Last night. And bad things happen every single fricking day to countless numbers of people.
The rain falls on the just and unjust alike, and I hate hate hate maudlin for maudlin sake. There’s enough in this world to truly be sad over without having to act sad when some guy I do not know nor would I ever know dies. I would be tremendously more affected were one of you to die, and I’ve never met any of you face-to-face.
And I know this isn’t the time and/or the place, but I despise holding my tongue in these situations. We all die. It’s the defining characteristic of life. It’s sad he died. Meanwhile, about 150,000 other people died today, and none of them are on every Sportscenter. None of them get this outpouring of emotion. None of them seem to make us hold our tongue.
I’m not cold-hearted. I’m quite emotional, in fact. But this seems so very very false to me. It’s like some grand dance we do when something tragic happens or someone famous or loved dies. And quite frankly, I don’t understand it. Donne’s point was that they ring the bell for those remaining alive, right? Am I missing something? Am I just a callous bastard?
I hear you.
Life and death are largely defined by brutal, pitiless caprice. Not just when and how you die, but where you are born and what talents you possess and how much your parents care about you. As a matter of pragmatism, we put this out of our heads, as it can be debilitating to dwell on such things.
When something like this happens, it hits you right in the face, this realization that you might live to be 100, but might also trip walking down the stairs and die tomorrow.
So I understand the grief and the flailing and the sudden bouts with cosmic self-awareness (“life is short”, etc.) when a 22 year old kid we all watched pitch a few hours before gets killed by a drunk driver. It’s awful and pointless, and it could be you or me tomorrow, and there just isn’t much we can do about it.
But you’re right. What begins as a sympathetic outpouring becomes very maudlin very quickly. We turn the tragedy into a symbol and the kid into a saint. Then we forget about it all in a few days.
I encourage fans rendered inconsolable by this to read the news more frequently. I don’t mean that as an admonition, at all. Rather, as a plea for proportion, and a suggestion for coping, strange as that sounds. Context can be a bulwark against despair, an antidote to existential shock. And one thing is certain: grappling with the problems of existence via the lives of famous people is a sucker’s game, tumultuous and unsatisfying and ultimately empty.
Great posts LeoB and 74mk, thanks to both of you. The Coliseum mood will be somber tonight, between this and the OPD slayings. Going from shock to collective grief to lasting personal context is a process people handle in many ways…but for me, at least, step 2 needs to be a means to step 3, and not an end unto itself.
Ditto all that.
And, heck, Ratto all that, too.
Agree with FSU — thanks for posting these. I had similar, although not identical thoughts, and I’m glad you both shared. The bouts of cosmic self-awareness are bad enough when somebody I know unexpectedly dies. I’m not sure I can afford to disable myself even further by dwelling on a stranger’s death, although I often will.
And hey — it’s FK, not **. We don’t have to do maudlin for PR sake.
If it was **, I’d ask if “brutal, pitiless Caprice” is cindi’s main rival.
See, you do miss your yin.
Excellent thoughtful and thought-provoking posts both.
I hope (and this seems to be borne out) that LB’s prefaced apology is unnecessary here.
With the same understanding of the spirit of FK, I was also sorely tempted to edit 74mk’s post to replace “saint” with “hero” …
I’ve always thought the Speaker for the Dead idea is really appealing.
I know that puts me in a minority (probably with some of you guys), but I wish we as a society could be sad without being dishonest.
Very well phrased form both of you.
I will admit I did think about it throughout the day, and I do see it as a senseless, dumb, for lack of a better term tragedy. But I can find one of those on numerous pages in the paper every day. Feeling that you have to throw yourself in a well of despair because he had ability to throw a ball past a hitter is over the top. (And again, I say it as someone who has made comments on a few sites ovffering sympathies and talking about the tragedy.)
And if this was **, the correct actions would be to start a new thread, tell everyone two days in advance that you will be making a comment that might bother them, wait for several people to display outrage that you bothered them, and then read through 3000 comments about why it was or was not ok to say it in the first place.
Man, I want some victory cabbage tonight.
Victory cabbage is tasty.
…
Holy fucking crap.
From the comments to Jeff’s piece
He subsequently took it down, but by then the damage was done.
Wow.
Maybe
wehe don’t deserve all the technology we have.Ed note: fixed –salb918
That act negated the (temporary) good will I had towards him. LOSER!
Rev Halofan: the Michelle Malkin of baseball blogging
“It was an easy decision
I woke up and said OH SHIT WHAT DID I DO? And I had the good fortune to be able to undo it.”
Rev spin is so predictable.
Murder it is.
Also:
“Hospital tests indicated that Gallo had a blood-alcohol level above the legal limit of 0.08, Hamilton said.”
And of course this:
To bad OC has a sleazy DA. Quotes like this are unnecessary and a violation of ethical obligations:
Not as sleazy as the OC Sheriff.