Shocked.
I guess that's the best way to describe how I felt when I went to ESPN.com last week and saw the headline: "Angels rookie Adenhart killed in car crash." But I don't think shocked quite describes how I felt.
I was in the middle of a conversation with one of my roommates when I read the headline, and my jaw must have dropped, because he immediately asked me what was wrong. I had been keeping tabs on Nick Adenhart, the 22-year-old Angels pitcher with one of the brightest futures in the game, throughout spring training and was watching him just the night before in his first start of the year.
He looked good that night against the Oakland A's. He scattered seven hits and three walks over six scoreless innings, striking out five. He challenged hitters, threw breaking balls for strikes -- everything you look for from a young hurler. He did more than enough to help his team, but the bullpen blew it in the ninth, robbing him of the win. Then, a few hours later, he was robbed of his life.
Adenhart was in a car with several other people when it was broadsided by a minivan that had run a red light -- the driver of which was three times over the limit of a legal blood-alcohol level. Two people were pronounced dead at the scene; Adenhart died in surgery. In an instant, one of the brightest futures in the game turned to dust. A 22-year-old had become a ghost.
The whole thing is unreal. It's eerie. It's inconceivable. I was watching him the night before.
As I was watching the game, I was thinking what it would be like to be a kid whose biggest concern in the world was figuring out how to pitch to Jason Giambi. I was thinking about how I would probably add him to my fantasy teams if he continued his strong performances. I couldn't have imagined, "here's a kid that won't be alive come tomorrow morning."
When something like this happens, it makes you question everything. What the hell is the point?
Pitching is so hard. It requires throwing your entire body into the most unnatural of motions, and yet you're expected to have near-pinpoint control of where the ball goes -- even when that ball is breaking. To be able to do pitch at the highest level, one must dedicate countless hours upon hours to mastery of the craft. I can't imagine how much Adenhart slaved on the field to get to the majors, just for this to happen once he finally got there -- the very day he finally, truly made it.
But that's not even the real tragedy. He was a 22-year-old kid, as old as you or me. He had everything in front of him, and in a split second it was gone. As Torii Hunter said, "He probably had dreams of having kids and a wife ... not just baseball. This is real.
"Life is fragile."
I can't even begin to express my condolences for his family. The emotional ride that they must have gone through, from feeling so proud and full of joy during the game -- Nick was finally getting his big shot, a real chance to make the rotation, and he was showing that he should stick -- to the utter devastation of the next morning, is too much for me to handle.
I don't consider myself a religious person. Maybe I have no business writing about this in a sports column, but I don't care, I'm doing it anyway. My biggest problem with most religions is that they all look toward some type of afterlife: heaven, nirvana, what have you.
I don't think we should be waiting for anything in this life. Appreciate what you have now -- what you know you have -- while you have it. It could all be taken away in an instant. Literally.
Rest in peace, Nick Adenhart.
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David Heck is a junior majoring in philosophy. He can be reached at David.Heck@tufts.edu.
