No Man Is An Island

I went into my CBS Sportsline Fantasy Baseball site last night and I checked out the list of free agent starting pitchers - those pitchers that were not drafted by any of the 10 participants in our league - and there it was: the name of Nick Adenhart. I put my finger on the "add" button. It would've entailed my having to part with an active player - someone who still lives and breathes - "maybe Joe Blanton for Philly," I thought. "He had a bad start the other night." Then I thought more about it. I wanted Adenhart's name on my roster so badly. I wanted him to remain on my reserve list for the entire season. But how bad might I feel, if later in the year, it became necessary for me to add someone to the roster and there was no one else I could afford to drop? I would have to drop Adenhart and then I would feel awful. I did not add Adenhart to my roster.

Baseball is a game. There is joy and frustration, good luck and bad, some are paid handsomely to play, and some, like myself, pay to play. Baseball is springtime and summertime. Baseball is rejuvenation and rebirth. Baseball is youth. Baseball is life. Death is not supposed to be a part of it, but from time to time, in particular with the Angels organization, it becomes so. Then the game and all who are part of it and all who follow it, mourn. I never had a son and I can only imagine what it's like now to be Jim Adenhart, at the apex of pride and joy on Wednesday night and at the bottom of the deepest pit of devastation only hours later. Why? I know this is part of life, but why does it have to be? 22 years old and full of life, and his two young friends, their parents also mourning today. I feel regret when I hear of the deaths of people I've never met , untimely and otherwise, but when a ballplayer dies, I feel it more. Why is that? I think of the irony - all his proud friends and loved ones and teammates filled with aniticpation about his promising beginning only to be shocked by his sudden and unexpected end. A red light, an idiot drunk driver, three lives lost and one precariously holding on. Torii Hunter is right. We must take nothing for granted regarding those we care for. When I think of how everyone closely or loosely involved with baseball feels right now and how deep our sorrow is for the families of Nick Adenhart and his friends who perished with him, I'm reminded of John Donne's Meditation XVII: "No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main ... any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore, never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee." It sounds cliche, but a little of each of us died with Nick and his friends last night. We will go on, baseball will go on and some young pitcher will live the life Nick Adenhart was supposed to live. Good bye, Nick.

The Dodgers? Was there a game yesterday? Apparently there was, but no one told the bats. They're 2-2 against a fairly strong Triple A team with a tough 3 game series against the Snakes in Phoenix beginning tonight. Wonder what Plaschke has to say about their bullpen now? Aw, whatever. Today, anyway, it just doesn't seem that important.