Nick Adenhart’s Death
Close to Home & Preventable
This wasn’t something I planned to write about, but a friend of mine called and mentioned that he hadn’t seen anything on the site about it. He asked if I was going to write since it happened so close to home and since I’m an Angels fan. So here it goes. Forgive me if this becomes a bit of a wandering rant. I promise I will keep on point as well as I can, but we all know how well I do that most days.
By now most of you have heard that Angels pitcher Nick Adenhart was killed by a drunk driver last night. Obviously this news hit close to home because, well because it happened close to home. The accident happened literally up the street from my house and right in front of the gym where I work out (when I do) and where I take the boys swimming. It also hit close to home because as Angel season ticket holders, we have heard a lot about this young man over the past year. The team and the community expected great things from him this year and down the road. All of that, along with the lives of this two friends ended late last night in a heartbeat.
As I said, this wasn’t something I was going to write about. I saw it when I logged on and quietly passed information back and forth to Mrs. Rog via texts. We didn’t turn on the news or listen to the press conference because I just don’t know how my oldest son is going to react to something like this. We aren’t sheltering him from death, but I am also not ready to emerce him into the 24/7 news cycle that is already turning this event into THE story of the day. Even as I write this, the intersection where is happens is closed and news choppers fill the sky. I can’t help but think that this is a very big deal over something that happens far too often.
Before I continue down this road let me make something very clear. From all accounts, Nick and his friends were fine young people. He was a very promising young pitcher and more importantly a decent guy. I don’t want anything I say from here out to be taken as a way of diminishing what happened to him or to the agony his family is feeling. As a father I can hardly stand even thinking about what it would feel like to lose either of my sons.
That said, this happens every day in every state in the union. Drunk drivers kill people as often as handguns in this country. They kill sons, daughters, fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters and friends more often than we can count. They do so without much fanfare most of the time. So today the LA news market is flooded with stories of this pointless death. ESPN is devoting plenty of time to the death of a 22 year old major league pitcher. I’m not upset about the amount of coverage this is getting, but I hope we don’t let it slip by without thinking about the bigger picture. (Remember Chris Brown a few weeks ago? How quickly we forget the bigger issue when the lights dim and we find the next thing to fill our screens.) Let us just remember that ever question asked about this incident should be extrapolated out to the thousands of other deaths that pass by without the cameras, the press conferences and without a major sports franchise stopping in its tracks.
The guy who caused this death wasn’t a first time offender. He has twice been convicted of drunk driving and killed these people while driving on a suspended license. Did our system fail Nick Adenhart? Could this have been prevented? There isn’t really much we can do to keep people from climbing behind the wheel of a car. He wasn’t legally allowed to drive one and that didn’t stop him. It didn’t even slow him down. Should he have been free to drink and drive in the first place? Should he have been behind bars? That’s a question for lawyers to sort out. Ultimately responsibility lies on his shoulders. He chose to drink as much as he did and he chose to drive in that state. What happened from there may be a series of random occurances that lined up to create tragedy, but ultimately he did this. He killed three people and he has to live with it. It wasn’t an accident. Accidents happen without fault, but this story has a villain and to place all blame at his feet is not an exaggeration.
That the accident happened where it did is not lost on me. I go through that intersection two to five times a week. Mrs. Rog does as well. Granted, not at midnight, but that doesn’t offer much comfort. As I have thought about this today I am struck by how random life and death can be. Last night at 9PM Adenhart left the mount at Anaheim Stadium probably feeling like the world was his. He had pitched well in his first game and had every reason to be thrilled. What happened in the hours between the game and his death are a mystery, but I can only hope that the young man enjoyed his final hew hours and had a chance to hear from the people who loved him.
I did a lot of thinking today about the fact that this young man’s life is over at 22. I’m 41 years old now and if I were to die tonight I would feel like I had left an awful lot on the table. Looking back at 22 I am just amazed. At 22 I was just finishing college and hadn’t even considered reviewing adult movies. Everything I have accomplished in this industry has come since I was that age. In fact every non-mall or video store job I have ever had has come since then. Every wedding I ever shot has come since then. I hadn’t even met Mrs. Rog yet and the two sons I love so much were still years away from even being that proverbial glint in my eye. I suppose the life I have led since I was 22 would seem dull and insignificant to many. It certainly hasn’t been as spectacular as what may have lay ahead of Adenhart, but those 19 years worth of memories are enough to make me feel very sorry that he was robbed of that much.
Ironically enough Thomas Gallo, the man accused of causing this preventable situation is also 22 years old. It will be easy to forget about the pain he and his family will face, but we should consider for a moment that his too is a life ruined. This isn’t his first hayride so it is harder to feel sympathy for him. He chose to drink, he chose to drive and those stupid, selfish, evil choices led to the death of three young people. In that way he is no different than 16 thousand other drunk drivers who killed people last year. What makes it different is the one of the young men he killed is a famous athlete with a whole community ready to rally behind him.
As a father it would be easy enough for me to spit venom in young Mr. Gallo’s direction. Too easy in fact. What he did (allegedly) was unforgiveable. I don’t know if I would be able to forgive someone who took my children away. The choices he made were wrong and as a direct result of his actions three families lost children. His own family has also lost a son. Mr. Gallo will likely spend a good portion of his life in jail if he can manage to escape the gas chamber. His family’s pain is no less real than those of the Adenharts. Nothing that can be done to him will bring those children back. The Angels will find another pitcher to replace Adenhart. The fans will remember him for a while, but eventually his name will fade from our memories. At that point he will become like the thousands of other drunk driving victims, mourned forever by loving families.
I just hope that while we take a moment to honor Nick Adenhart tomorrow night at the Angel game that everyone will take a second to remember that kind of thing happens every day and it is preventable every single time. Maybe that will make people think twice before having that extra beer and getting behind the wheel.
Sorry if this steered off course.
RIP Nick Adenhart
