At 22, Nick Adenhart was far too young to go. He was a precocious pitching talent, dominating 18 year old travel leagues at the age of 14, and the night of his death had made his first start in his first full rookie season (he had a few starts last year but is still considered a rookie this year). However according to teammate Dustin Moseley, Nick Adenhart's talents went far beyond a pitching mound and a baseball diamond. He was a bright young man who according to his father was everything a dad could dream of as a son. The most convincing thing to me in the day following Adenhart's death was the reaction of his agent Scott Boras. Boras is known as a hardass to say the least. One who doesn't take anything from anybody, and whose sole purpose in life is to make money for his clients and in turn himself. When talking about Adenhart, Boras completely and utterly broke down in tears. Not shed a tear; broke down in tears. A man who some believe has a heart of stone was crying uncontrollably at a microphone and could only compose himself long enough to say, "we lost a great young man."
Although the promising life of Nick Adenhart was cut short, life for the rest of us, and for his teammates goes on as did their season. Friday night the Angels played their first game since Adenhart's death and what I saw was simply unbelievable. With a memorial of his image in centerfield, his number 34 on the mound, and heavy hearts all around, the Angels took the field motivated to get a win for their comrade, something they had failed to do despite his brilliant performance a few nights earlier. I didn't get to watch the game but I did see highlights, and I really didn't need those. All I would have needed to see was a single picture of Angels' starter Jared Weaver's eyes to know how much this meant to him and the rest of the team. I have never seen a player in any sport be more in the zone than I saw Weaver Friday night. To say he wasn't going to be denied would not be doing Weaver justice; simply put, failure was not an option and it never crossed Jared Weaver's mind.
It would have been very easy, and will be very easy, for the Angels to just go through the motions this year, and really no one could blame them. The baseball season is 162 games long and during the 8 months a year baseball players are together they become family. And although Nick Adenhart was only a rookie, he played with many of the young Angels players in the minor leagues and was there through all of Spring Training this year. He was a brother, and a younger brother at that, to everyone on the Angels roster, and instead of going through the motions they went out and played in their fallen brothers memory.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, sports has an ability to bring people together after tragedy unlike anything else in the world outside of music. Sports and music both allow the mind to escape into the world of a game or a song. After 9/11, all of New York held its collective breath as the Yankees advanced to the World Series. After Hurricane Katrina, the citizens of New Orleans wanted nothing more than to have their Saints back. And a year later when they finally did, the buzz in the Superdome was far greater than Bourbon Street (or anyone on it) during Mardi Gras. And while these situations were far greater tragedies in terms of numbers, the loss of Nick Adenhart hit the Angel and Major League Baseball families just as hard. I expect the Angels to keep playing for their teammate and despite the fact that their on field talent isn't nearly what it has been in years past, I now expect them to be around in October. And when this season is over, I think they will be proud of how they represented a teammate, who's life was cut far too short, and who now, as a fan put it at a make-shift memorial outside the Angel's Stadium, is playing with another team of Angels.
R.I.P Nick Adenhart
1986-2009
