RIP Oscar Taveras

I do too. We were going to see the Astros play Seattle that night, and several of the Houston starters who'd played with Kile while he was there, Bagwell, Biggio and a couple of others, begged off. They hung his old 'Stros jersey in the dugout. Bagwell did come out to pinch-hit and hit a game-winning RBI single in the 12th inning.

 

Kile was just a kick in the nuts for anyone forced to confront his own mortality.
The guy was barely 30 and died of an ailment that could kill any person at any time.

 

He was beyond the prospect stage at the time, but, Lyman Bostock. Wrong place, wrong time.

 

Just fucking terrible news.

Professional athletes are no more immortal than anyone else, but it just seems to hurt worse to see such great potential snuffed out.

He was driving a Chevy Camaro that looks pretty destroyed. Haven't seen any details of the accident, but speed and recklessness had to play a huge part. So sad.

 

Cory Lidle, NYY P, plane crashed into an apartment building in NYC in Oct 2006.

 

I covered the last game he pitched, game four of the ALDS in Detroit

 

I had never heard this before, but Joe Sheehan pointed out that Yankees utility man Enrique Wilson changed his travel plans at the last minute after the Yankees lost the 2001 World Series. Wilson had been scheduled to fly home to the D.R. after the World Series championship parade, but moved his flight up a few days after the Yankees lost.

Wilson was originally scheduled to be a passenger on American Airlines flight 587 on Nov. 12, which crashed in Queens shortly after takeoff and killed all 260 people on board.

There's also a famous story about Seth Macfarlane having a ticket for one of the 9/11 flights out of Boston, but missed the plane because his agent told him the wrong departure time.

 

Young people crashing Camaro's is a sad cliche. It's too bad that Chevy brought
them back. Powerful engine, llght back and young male driver is a bad combination.

Same for the Vette. I'm reminded of Jerome Brown.

 

Great Jim Passan piece on the Giants' Juan Perez, a close friend of Taveras' who hit the two-run, 8th-inning double (and near-homer) an hour or so after learning Taveras had died.

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/juan-perez-delivers-key-hit-after-learning-his-good-friend-oscar-taveras-died-074707879.html

 

I believe the Notre Dame women's basketball coach, Muffet McGraw, also had a seat on a 9/11 plane.

 

As a Cardinals fan, I was shocked when I saw the news last night during the World Series, and I immediately thought of Kile and Hancock. A tragedy for Taveras and his family.

Just to get one thing straight, however — Taveras was not a five-tool player. He had one tool: hitting. His defense was poor, his speed mediocre, his arm mediocre at best. He had a long, long way to go to be an everyday elite player.

Still, shit. Twenty two is too young for anyone to die.

 

Good point about the Camaro. I drove a new one in a muscle car challenge at Charlotte Motor Speedway last year. I did 4.3 in the 0-60 test. On a speed test on the backstretch I was going 123 mph before my instructor told me to lift when I entered the high-banked Turn 2. The car had plenty left. And to think it was a street version. Yikes.