Cardinal Red to Funeral Black

"It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone".

-- Bart Giamatti, former MLB Commissioner, from "The Green Fields of the Mind" in the Yale Alumnus Magazine during his tenure as Yale President in 1977.

I love the above-referenced quote, but I despise using it. It's never used in happy connotations; only the sad, morose, deeply tragic moments of life. This is no different.

Very early today, journeyman starter and long reliever Josh Hancock, who only last year became a St. Louis Cardinal, died in a violent traffic accident along Highway 40 in St. Louis. Hancock's Ford Explorer struck nearly full force the rear of a 20,000+-pound tow truck in the far left lane of westbound 40. Hancock, from all reports, died instantly, but not before perhaps seeing the tow truck and at the last minute - but sadly too late - attempting to turn away from the fatality.

I write today not with the doubly grief stricken heart with which I posted five years ago on our family's now defunct website, facing the deaths of two Cardinals so close to one another. So many are citing the feeling we had with the sudden and unexpected loss of Cardinals' ace Darryl Kile in June of 2002, who died as a result of a coronary artery blockage in a Chicago hotel room. But I would submit that Kile's death was so much more tragic because just days before, Cardinal Nation faced the horrible loss of longtime announcer Jack Buck, accepted by millions as one of the leaders of Cardinal Nations, the true voice of our summers for so many generations.

But today, as St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist Bernie Miklasz so correctly wrote in his column, while this isn't two times the grief we faced two years ago, this moment still reopened old wounds from Kile's (and Buck's) death that really had never healed. Not to downplay Jack's death, but he'd lived a long & fulfilling life, and he'd been ill for some time prior to his passing. Kile's death was sudden, literally shaking fans and disinterested onlookers in much the same way - a young man in the prime of his life who just days before had been on display, showing the amazing God-given talents he'd been provided. And then, like a lightning bolt, we were jerked from the escapism of professional sports back to the reality of the fragile nature of life. We're guaranteed nothing, short of forever in Heaven with Jesus if we're saved. Beyond that, everything's a crap shoot.

Five years is a long time. Five years ago, our oldest son was just 2 1/2 and David was still a newborn barely able to coo. But in one flash, one blink of an eye, it was June of 2002 all over again. Another Cardinal-Cub matchup called off because of a player's tragic and sudden death. Kile's was untimely, but we're told, hopefully peaceful. Hancock's was the spectrum opposite - violent and more than likely at least momentarily painful.

Should there be an upside to this - and we struggle to locate one - it's that Hancock leaves no wife, no kids behind. I still remember the images burned into my head of Flynn Kile with her two children by her side at the memorial for Darryl in the old Busch Stadium a few days after his death. Somehow, when the old Busch Stadium was torn down, I think we all hoped the memories of a player's death and subsequent moment of silence or memorial service were distant memories.

Unfortunately, just five short, short years later, we face those memories again.

Hancock won't ever be remembered as a star with the Cardinals. The standing ovations rarely - if ever - came his way. To a man, there's no one in Cardinal Nation who would - with an ounce of honesty about them - claim that Hancock received the same ovation received by a Chris Carpenter or an Albert Pujols.

But no one can claim he's not due the same amount of respect.

In Tupelo, Mississippi, his hometown, Hancock's mom and dad are already preparing for a day no parent should ever be forced to face...the day of their son's funeral.

As a parent, I can't even begin to imagine the pain they're feeling at this moment. May God have mercy on his blood family and his professional family over the next few days, weeks, months, and years.

How odd...just hours earlier at church - still unaware of the horrible news from St. Louis - several friends and I had separate conversations with the same general tone: "Are you worried about the Cardinals this year?" To a man, I answered, "Yes, I'm getting there pretty quickly."

I'm still worried about them, but for a much different set of reasons.

Again, for the second time in five years, fans are paying tribute at the Musial statue outside of Busch, and Cardinal Nation is draped in Funeral Black.