A Loss in the Sports Family

Baseball recently lost three personalities--Angels pitcher Nick Adenhart, longtime Phillies broadcaster and NFL films narrator Harry Kalas, and the eccentric and charismatic former Tigers pitcher Mark Fidrych. I didn't actually know any of these guys, but hearing about each death for the first time made my swallow catch in mid-throat.

I didn't know anything about Adenhart, but the fact that he was killed by a drunk driver (according to police) was really discouraging to hear. I'll miss the rich, soothing voice of Harry Kalas on NFL Films and on commercials, and I was fortunate enough to hear his play-by-play on a couple of Phillies playoff games last season thanks to MLB Gameday Audio (which I had to get because I can't get radio reception in my house thanks to swamp gas or something). As for Mark Fidrych, it was only a month or two ago that I first learned of his existence when I saw a Monday Night Baseball telecast on the MLB Network in which Fidrych pitched a complete game against the New York Yankees. The Detroit faithful in the stands were like rabid concert-goers, reacting wildly as Fidrych talked to the baseball and patted the dirt on the mound to his liking and otherwise showed a genuine enthusiasm for the game that nobody really seems to have anymore--or if they do, they don't show it. And I'd never seen anything like it. It was just a regular season game,and practically the entire stadium stuck around after the game for a Mark Fidrych curtain-call. I've never seen a baseball player not named Rick Vaughn (who's fictional, anyway) work a crowd into that much of a clamor on an ordinary night without breaking a record or reaching some milestone. But Fidrych seemed to have the right stuff. That game is the extent of my knowledge of Fidrych, but based on that one game, it hurt a little bit inside to hear that such a passionate individual died.

So what's the deal with this? How could I be this affected by the death of guys I don't know, and didn't even really know that much about? I've been in arguments over the years regarding whether or not the deaths of athletes or celebrities should be given the attention they receive. After all, these athletes and celebrities are just people like you and me. Why does if affect us so much when they die?

I can't speak for everybody, but the passing of such people gets to me because I allow these folks to become big parts of my life. I don't know them personally, but I still get emotionally invested in what they do--they literally become a part of my extended sports family. I hear their voices or see them perform once or twice (or more) each week. They entertain and inspire me and grow to be important to me. And then when they're gone, I miss them, the same way I would miss family or a friend. Their departures leave a very real void--things just aren't the same without them.

There are three big sports-related deaths that will always stand out to me--the kind that had such an impact on me that I remember where I was and what I was doing when I first heard about them. The big three are Owen Hart, Jack Buck, and Darryl Kile.

It was a Sunday evening, and my brother and I had tickets to see WWF Monday Night Raw in St. Louis the next night. There was a pay-per-view called Over the Edge going on in Kansas City that Sunday night. I was on the internet checking out wrestling websites to see if I could dig up any clues to what we might expect to see the next night in St. Louis. Instead, I got a big headline telling me Owen Hart had died at the pay-per-view that night in Kansas City after a harness designed to suspend him above the ring malfunctioned and he fell to the mat below. Pro wrestling ain't a sport, but it was a grim, slap-in-the-face realization that not everything in wrestling is fake. Owen's death changed everything for me--wrestlers weren't invulnerable superheroes and villains anymore, and since then so many more have died (mostly from drug-related incidents, but not always). It is always so weird to go back and watch old wrestling events on tape or DVD and see so many ghosts--guys like Rick Rude and Curt Hennig and Chris Benoit and Eddie Guerrero and a host of others--competing against each other.

In 2002, I think most everybody knew Jack Buck's time on this earth was short. My parents told me about his death the morning after it happened. Dad and I had tickets to the Cardinals-Angels game on the day of his funeral, and we listened to the proceedings on KMOX on our way to St. Louis. You wouldn't think that an announcer's death would have much of an impact on a person, but when you listened to that guy call about a thousand games or more over the years, he becomes a part of your life. It also helped that Mr. Buck was a funny, classy, stand-up kind of guy. Which is why to this day, almost seven years later, I still have to fight tears almost every time I see a Jack Buck tribute or hear "Go crazy, folks!" or "I don't believe what I just saw!" Not sad tears...just tears of good memories of good people.

Darryl Kile's death came when Cardinal Nation was still reeling from the loss of Jack Buck. I walked into the living room on a Saturday afternoon and Dad told me the game had been postponed, but nobody knew why--something had happened. We had the TV and the radio on at the same time, just trying to figure out what the deal was. I thought there was maybe a bomb threat or something--I never would have guessed what Mike Shannon told us next, that "Darryl Kile has passed away." Dad and I went over to my grandparents' house to mow their lawn shortly after, and I spent the entire lawnmower ride not thinking about how the Cardinals would recover from this tragedy, but rather about Kile's wife and kids. Yeah, they would probably be okay financially, but they lost their husband and their dad.

That was the part that hurt. No amount of celebrity or money will make that go away. They may have been famous and they may have been well off, but these guys were all more than big contracts and pictures in the paper. They were dads, husbands, grandfathers, brothers, uncles, and friends. To us fans, they were mentors and role models and entertainers and inspirations. We didn't have really close, personal sorts of relationships or anything with these people, but they do become a part of our lives with their home run calls and performances on the field. It can be painful to lose someone from our sports family, but the memories will always be there.

"Smith corks one down the line...it may go...."