Robservations: Card fans suffer pair of losses
No, your eyes do not deceive you.
For the second issue in a row, you’re getting a healthy dose of “Robservations.”
And what, you might ask, is the reason for such a surprising Sunday treat?
Your guess is as good as mine.
Anyway, 17 inches of white space along the side of this page would get kind of frowned upon by the powers that be. The show must go on, after all — even if today, it’s a more serious show than you may be used to.
• The St. Louis Cardinals family has had to deal with two very different, but equally devastating, forms of tragedy in the past few days.
Tuesday, Jack Buck, the longtime voice of the Cards, passed away after battling lung disease, Parkinson’s, diabetes and even vertigo for several years.
While saying good-bye to a broadcasting legend was by no means easy for baseball, and the Cardinals in particular, it was — to be blunt — an expected farewell. Buck, at age 77, had been near death’s door for quite a while, and during his last 5-1/2 months in the hospital, his passing was considered by many to be just a matter of time. Hopefully, and by all accounts this has been the case, his family and friends were prepared to deal with the fact that Buck was no longer with them.
The situation yesterday with pitcher Darryl Kile, on the other hand, came — pardon the pun — from out of left field, and caught no one prepared.
Kile, 33, apparently died of natural causes in his hotel bed in Chicago sometime during the night on Friday. A major league veteran for several years, he struggled a bit while with Colorado, but reportedly never lost his spirit of gamesmanship.
According to an Associated Press article expressing the reactions of others to the news of Kile’s death: “After losing, Kile never minced words, often saying simply: ‘I didn’t do my job.’
“Kile did the job more often than not. Featuring an exceptional curveball, he pitched a no-hitter while with Houston in 1993 and went 133-119 in 11-plus major league seasons.”
Anytime a man in his 30s passes away, especially for seemingly no clear cause, it’s tragic. As in Kile’s situation, young wives and children are suddenly left without a father, and young friends are suddenly left mourning the loss of one of their own — perhaps for the first time. None of them are ready for it. There’s no way to be ready for it.
And as sad as that situation would be for anyone who lost someone close to them, Kile’s case brings up another factor, that brings up even more emotion — fame.
You see, he wasn’t just some guy that no one outside his family and friends knew. He was an 11-year veteran of one of the world’s most popular sports. Just about anyone who seriously followed baseball knew his name, even if they couldn’t pick his picture out of a lineup.
And to die-hard fans, losing a member of your favorite team is almost on an equal plane as losing a family member. When you follow a squad religiously, the way so many Cardinal fans are known to do, you wake up with them, you live with them, and — in some small way — you die with them.
I remember back a few years ago when Harry Caray passed. Then, like with Jack Buck, it was somewhat expected. But, as a longtime fan who had grown up spending afternoons with him, it still felt like I had lost someone very close to me. In that same way, I’m sure Cards fans now feel they’ve lost not one, but two people who are very close to them.
Jesse Orosco, a pitcher for the L.A. Dodgers who spent a year in St. Louis with Kile, summed it up while talking about his friend.
“I’m really going to miss him,” he said. “It’s a hard thing. There are a lot of ballplayers and families who are going to be in mourning because of this.”