Thursday’s game was probably best followed on the web. Perkins played the Scott Baker role from last season, losing despite pitching extremely well. The box score says hitters were shut down by a turd-tosser who hadn’t won since last July. Didn’t bother to watch the 30-minute replay. What would be the point? The offense won’t be that putrid, as a rule. On to Chicago, a team that had its own batch of struggles in losing 2 of 3 to Kansas City.

It wasn’t really a day to focus on the field, anyway. The Nick Adenhart tragedy was jarring, jolting and disorienting. You read the story about how the 22-year-old rookie pitched on Wednesday nigth, telling his father that he should fly from Baltiimore to Anaheim because something special was going to happen. Then he pitches six scoreless innings and, according to his agent, “was so elated … he felt like a major leaguer.”

Hours later, he’s dead. Anyone who has lost a child or a young family member can relate to the disorientation described in this story:  Adenhart’s father, Jim, a retired Secret Service agent, walked onto the field in the empty stadium Thursday and spent several moments alone on the pitcher’s mound. Wearing a red sweatshirt, the Angels’ color, he briefly covered his eyes with one hand.

Jim Adenhart also spoke during a closed-door meeting of players and team officials. “He just wanted to say thank you for the opportunity, thank you for raising his kid in minor league ball on up through the system in the Angels’ organization,” outfielder Torii Hunter said.

Rooting for your team like it’s life-and-death is fine … as long as you know it really isn’t.

(Note: Weekend posts from here will be light, as a rule, throughout the season. Joe and/or La Velle will be blogging.)

This entry was posted on Friday, April 10th, 2009 at 12:57 am and is filed under Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.