Adenhart's Influence Reaches Beyond Baseball

Maybe we just are not meant to understand.

One of my most vivid memories of this past baseball season came when the season was still young. I spent hours on end reading about it and thinking about it.

At 22 years old, Nick Adenhart was dead. I had been hearing about Adenhart since he was a sophomore in high school. Then he was gone, all the potential and promise cut down after Angels fans caught a glimpse, a gleaming one at that, of things to come.

The youthful Adenhart whistled fastball and snapped off curveballs on his way to six shut-out innings against the Oakland Athletics on April 8. If the bullpen had not blown the lead late, he would have tallied his first win of the 2009 season.

Instead, he had thrown his last pitches and his life was over hours later.

The bitter reality that we remember through the death of Adenhart contains two truths: athletes are mortal just like the rest of us and a life can be taken before it has been truly lived.

After Chris Henry of the Cincinnati Bengals died last week, it came back to remind me that even those athletes who seem so superhuman on the court, field or ice are no different than anyone else. The sad truth with the death of both Adenhart and Henry is that two live who showed such promise for the future are gone in the blink of an eye.

Henry, despite his off-field problems, had cleanred up his act--as evidenced in the words of a tearful Chad Ochocinco. Who is to say the difference Henry might have had in making efforts to help young kids avoid the same mistakes he made. Now we will see how the Bengals respond to this situation.

The inspiring thing to me was the response of the Angels players to Adenhart's death. The display of the human spirit from his former teammates put a baseball-sized lump in my throat.

Seeing the Angels celebrate their division title by running out to the memorial to their fallen teammate on the outfield wall of Angels Stadium was one of the most moving images I have witnessed in professional sports.

The amazing thing is that despite the tragedies of deaths like Adenhart's, the human spirit perseveres. How it happens, maybe we are not meant to understand that--but it does.

Tragedy is bound to befall everyone, but in the midst of those dark moments light can be found. Just ask anyone of the 25 members of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim baseball team.

Make that 26 members.