Cardinals OF Oscar Taveras dies in a car accident

[Hollyw00d]

Too bad..

Feel for the cardinals organization and his family. Way too young

[Spirit]

This got a lot of laughs a couple years ago.

 

This was Oscar. 

 

 

[Lhalo]

What's up with his arm in that pic?

[MVTrout]

Never heard of the guy, but major bummer!

[ItzTacosYerrp]

wow this dude was a huge prospect

 

 

fuark

[m0nkey]

Unbelievable

[Guest]

My heart is in my stomach reading this. I have no words.

same here. this is just an awful tragedy–very sad. 

[Agalloch]

Wow, I had to read the heading 2 or 3 times on facebook....I can't believe it.

 

RIP

[Ender]

Damn. Baseball doesn't matter a lick in the grand scheme of things.

 

RIP man.

[DW711]

I really hope a drunk driver wasn't involved like with Adenhart.  It's still incredibly sad though.

 

I hope even more he wasn't the drunk driver.

 

His girlfriend was also killed and hope she won't be a footnote

[Tank]

absolutely terrible news. my best friend is a cards fan. this'll be pretty upsetting.

[Docwaukee]

horrible tragedy.  

[Tyler]

Very sad. Had a very promising life ahead of him. RIP to the girl as well.

[Brent Maguire]

Absolutely horrible news. He had his whole career ahead of him and had the potential to be a wonderful player. 

 

My thoughts and prayers are with him and his family. 

[Mark68]

Sad. He had his whole life and what would likely have been a great career ahead of him.

[Diaz15]

Terrible news. Thoughts go out to his family

[ELEVEN]

They were younger than my own kids.

RIP

[The Ghost of Bob Starr]

I feel for the victims' families, as I do all victims who lose their lives prematurely. I've dealt with it myself, losing friends at 14 and 30 to cancer.

There's an interesting observation here. People die in car crashes every day. We also have a lot of senseless deaths. In Southern California over the last 10 days or so we've had numerous kids killed, one out in IE, a 9-yr old killed in gang crossfire in Santa Ana I believe, a toddler killed by a drunk driver, a hit and run near a school.

Nobody really bats an eye. I could look in the hangout forum, but I doubt many of these would are in there.

But you throw a jersey on someone who meets the same unfortunate fate, and there is an outpouring of emotion and thoughts. The commentary is quite quizzical.

This isn't an observation on this board per se, as i began noticing this on Twitter as the accident news unfolded yesterday. 95% of it felt disingenuous to me. Having worked in news for a long time I used to write this copy. Aside from the minimal normal level of grief for the loss of a life (which waned over time) I wrote these same sentiments on a nightly basis.

It really appeared to me that the baseball writers I followed, were throwing out a lot of "heartfelt messages" when really they were trying to jump the gun and report it before the next scribe.

Obviously the sentiments were sincere for anyone who met this man, or worked within the Cardinals organization. And I'm not saying that any of the posts yesterday from others were filled with false mourning.

Just amazes me how much feeling and sentiment someone has when a person in a sports jersey dies or meets the same fate as a non-sports entity.

If I posted a story about man dies in a common crash on a local freeway in the Hangout, I might expect comments on the freeway, the car he was driving, the time of day, and the traffic headache the accident caused. I doubt Id see the outpouring of grief that I've read on these three pages of posts.

Slap a sports uniform on him, and then the posts become a lot more emotional. Very interesting, at least to me.

[Jobu]

Some of it has to do with Angels fans being able to relate, and therefore being especially sympathetic.

[MVTrout]

SOTO - totally agree, said the same thing on Twitter and was attacked!

[The Ghost of Bob Starr]

SOTO - totally agree, said the same thing on Twitter and was attacked!

 

I didn't even get into the lack of sympathy this country has for our soldiers who die for this country, and how most of America doesn't give two shits.   Wrong kind of uniform I guess.

Edited October 27, 2014 by SOTO

[Lhalo]

Twitter: a source of logic and deep thought

[Sam Sanchez]

The thing is, it's a shallow and obvious observation. It's not novel to notice that people that pass away that have some sort of connection to you whether it's something as dreadful as your own friends and family or something as minuscule as being related to a hobby of yours, in this case, sports, strikes an emotional chord. It makes sense. Is it unfortunate that the same chord isn't struck when an unrelated 9-year old gets killed even though it's as equally devasting? Yes it is but I don't think it's wrong.

 

I'm pretty sure if someone here had family in the military, it would strike a chord with them when soldiers get killed. It's not specifically because Taveras plays sports, but the connection we have to the sport. We can relate. Similar when actors pass away or a classmate you once had in high school but hadn't talk to 10+ years passes away.

Edited October 27, 2014 by Sam Sanchez

[Angel Oracle]

Spot on what Soto said.     All innocent deaths are tragic!  

 

On the baseball side, brings back all too clearly the passings of Halos pitching prospect Bruce Heinbechner (sp) in 1974, shortstop prospect Mike Miley in early 1977, and of course Nick Adenhart in April 2009.   

[wopphil]

Soto, you make some good points, but just because someone doesn't post about a 9-year old dying doesn't mean they don't feel sympathy. It is also far more common for a 9-year old to get killed than a pro baseball player, so there is a certain surprise factor here that doesn't exist with the 9-year old. But that doesn't mean the 9-year old's death isn't just as tragic.

For me, this reminded me of Adenhart's death, naturally. When he was killed, I personally felt cheated as a fan, having a promising player on my team taken away. I am sure Cards fans feel the same today. I also remember feelimg terrible for his father, who one minute was watching his son pitch, and the next was saying his goodbyes. And I felt terrible for the players, particularly guys like Moseley and Weaver, who really seemed impacted.

So I don't think it is wrong that people are seemingly making a bigger deal over this than certain other deaths. It is just the public nature of it all.