Tim's Two Cents-December 18

In light of the Chris Henry passing, today's edition will focus on athletes whose lives come to a tragic end way too soon.

Events like these show us the true mortality of life.  The truth is only one person out there knows when our time will come.  Sometimes our time is short.  For others, they are fortunate to live a long and hopefully happy life.  When tragedies like this occur, I'm reminded of the Eagles song, "New York Minute," which is about appreciating the things you have and living in the moment because in our lives, "everything can change in a New York minute."

In Henry's case, it seemed he had been working on turning his life around after some rough patches in his life.  Not only does Henry leave behind a fiancee, but three children as well.

Henry was not the only young sports figure to die this year.

In something that hit a little closer to home for me, the Angels experienced their own tragedy earlier this year with the death of Nick Adenhart.  Adenhart, 22, was killed in a car accident three days into the 2009 baseball season as a result of a drunk driver.  Adenhart was supposed to be one of those can't miss prospects who was just coming into his own.  Instead, we are left wondering what could have been rather than what really happened.

I remember when Adenhart died I was in shock as a Angel fan myself, but it didn't really hit me until later that day.  I was on my way to meet a friend at the movies and I was listening to the official radio station of the Angels, AM 830 KLAA.  They were talking about the latest information on Adenhart's death.  Before going to a commercial break at some point, they started playing "Calling All Angels" by Train.  If you've been to an Angel game, I'm sure you're familiar with the song.  Anyway, when they played the song at that time, it definitely had a deeper meaning than usual.  It wasn't until then that I really choked up.  

Photo coutesy: Wikimedia Commons and Evan Wohrman under cc-by-sa 2.0 license