Nick Adenhart is just a 22-year-old kid, just a young ballplayer. He was one of two others who got killed early Thursday morning by a drunk driver. All three have a story and just because Adenhart was a major league pitcher doesn’t change that it was a tragedy for all of them. This isn’t even a sports story — it’s just a sad story of life. Hearing people all day long talk about him like they knew him seemed disrespectful to the family and Adenhart himself. Without a doubt, there’s one comment that I heard twice Thursday morning that irked me to no end. On ESPNews shortly after the story first came down, I heard anchor Bram Weinstein ask in an interview how the death would impact the Angels’ rotation and pitching staff. As if that wasn’t enough, I later heard the same thought on 710 ESPN on my drive into work.
I couldn’t believe my effing ears when I heard that. At times like these, don’t pretend to know someone if you don’t. Just tell the uninformed what happened — that’s what you’re there for. I can’t believe how insensitive some people can be. In the worst moment ever for a family, and an awful moment for a team and an entire organization, we still had media members asking how the tragedy would impact the play on the diamond. Would you give it a rest until at least after the funeral? How cold can you possibly be? What kind of gumption and idiocy would possess one to ask such a meaningless question at a time like that? Only two hours after the sad story comes down you’re already wondering what the rotation was going to look like? Not even Mike Scioscia nor Tony Reagins probably thought that, and this is their job. I would have nothing other than the good sense to fire the people whose first thoughts as a reaction to this story was “How does it impact the Angels’ rotation?”
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This entry was posted on Friday, April 10th, 2009 and is filed under Policing the Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
damn younger than me… a sad day in sports… in what was supposed to be his first full year in the bigs
I couldn’t agree more Larry. A person died, and something like that is much more important than who will fill his rotation in the pitching staff. Someone should ask Bram who is going to replace his shift on air when he dies in a car crash.
Well said Larry,
Before reading your post, your headline worried me for the very reasons you mentioned.
at some point that question will get asked…this was not the point to do it!
Maybe some good will come from this and drunk driving penalties will
increase. So much is said about losing 4000 soldiers in Iraq over 6 years…but little is said about losing nearly 15,000 people to drunk drivers every year. Maybe this attention will go a long way.
Larry,
Same thing here, headline surprised me as well, but I totally agree with you, very insensitive and disrespectful. I understand that they have a job to do but a little bit too soon.
Alcohol leads to pain and more pain only. Nothing good about it period!!