Josh Hancock: 1978 - 2007
It’s odd how you process things. My brother called me Sunday morning to let me know that he was coming back in town. He had just made a surprise visit to Lexington from Dallas to propose to his girlfriend. He called me to ask me where to drop off the car he borrowed from Mom and Dad, and to tell me that the Cubs - Cardinals game scheduled for that night was postponed. He off-handedly mentioned that a Cardinals pitcher had been in an accident. The last time the Cardinals postponed a game for something other than weather was in 2002 when Darryl Kile passed away of coronary atherosclerosis. Funny enough, I didn’t think much of it. Why? Heck if I know. A postponed game in Major League Baseball isn’t that big of a deal. It was a few hours later when I started seeing headlines that the enormity of the situation hit me. The Cardinals lost yet another young pitcher. The second time in 5 years.
5 years ago I was sitting in front of my computer, in the loft of my apartment. The Cardinals - Cubs game from Chicago was scheduled to show up on TV, so I was looking forward to the game. It used to be a rare occasion that I could actually watch a Cardinals game on the TV in Louisville. I turned on the channel, and was told that the game had been temporarily postponed. No reason had been given, and the weather report for Chicago was clear. I was extremely curious — and worried.
It wasn’t until later that afternoon that I found out that Darryl Kile had passed away unexpectedly overnight. He hadn’t shown up to Wrigley Field at his normal time, and a teammate went looking. They had to have the hotel manager open the door to his room so that they could check on him. He was a good, young pitcher. All the stories that were written about him were glowing about him. The Cardinals stood behind his wife and son, who were included in everything for the rest of the season. His son even stood with the team in the NLCS lineup during the National Anthem one game. It brought me to tears.
Now, it’s 2007 and the Cardinals have to deal with this all over again. Josh Hancock died after his Ford Explorer crashed into a flat-bed tow truck on I-64 late Saturday night. The police said he died instantly. I can only hope that the Lord was that merciful. The man was 29 years, 18 days old. Just a scant 2 months younger than I am. He was a great teammate apparently. He wasn’t a half-bad ballplayer either (from my recollection). He was released from Cincinnati just prior to the start of the 2006 season, and worked middle relief. The Cardinals are planning a memorial to him in the bullpen to sit next to the one for Darryl Kile. Tony LaRussa threatened the media against any “insincerity” with a fungo bat (there are times that I’m very proud of him).
I’m not going to dishonor his memory by trying to eulogize someone whom I didn’t know. My thoughts and prayers are with the Hancock family and the Cardinals. I’m wearing my St. Louis cap all week, and asked my wife to wear her St. Louis scrubs at some point soon. I had been thinking of getting Darryl Kile’s number embroidered on one of my caps. I’m definitely going to do that now, and add Josh’s number too.
Just in case you’re looking for some excellent articles on this, here are some suggestions:
Gene Wojciechowski is quickly becoming my favorite ESPN.com columnist. He had a nice article about why Tubby Smith should leave Kentucky of his own volition (basically based around the ill-treatment of him by the fans), and now this excellent article about the outpouring of support and grief from the Cardinal Nation.
I also found this article on Newsvine from AP writer Chris Jenkins. In the article, he talks about how the Cardinals dealt with the tragedy during tonight’s loss to the Brewers, as well as how Josh’s friends around the league honored his memory. In particular, Braves pitcher Tim Hudson, who was Josh’s teammate at Auburn. Tim wore “JH” above his heart on his jersey, and the initials of his grandmother on his shoes (who had passed away only hours before he heard about Josh’s death).
And finally, this article, by Dan Cichalski of MLB.com, includes a story that I love about an incident he suffered while he was with the Trenton Thunder. The set up is too long to put in here. Go read at least the first few paragraphs of the article, at a minimum.
