The death of a 22-year-old kid at the doorstep of what could have been a long big league career is rightly seen as a sort of tragedy. But it wasn't the only tragedy in the Angels' world this week. A young man who'd attended the team's home opener on Monday was killed in a fistfight as fans poured out of the stadium following the game.
According to a report in the LA Times, a poor sap named Brian Powers was involved in a melee with another man in a stairway leading out of the bleachers. As the two grappled, a third man slugged Powers from behind, causing him to fall and hit his head on the concrete. He died about four hours later. Neither of the other two men involved in the fight has been found.
Too bad Powers wasn't a righthanded pitcher possessing a good fastball and even better curveball and change-up, as Adenhart was. Because he lacked those vital assets, Powers' demise was noted only in a 185-word blip of a story in his hometown newspaper.
That's an apt little juxtaposition for this Easter weekend. Even though we're nearly three centuries past the Age of Enlightenment, we're still held in sway by messianic figures. We view big league athletes as gods descended from the heavens. When they deign to saunter into a restaurant or a Starbucks, the other patrons feel as though they've been blessed. They'll talk about the sighting for the rest of their lives.
Athletes aren't the only ones we revere, of course. Movie actors and pop stars are equally venerated. Study the coverage of Angelina Jolie, for instance, and you'll come away convinced that when her time on Earth is at end, she'll be assumed into heaven rather than experience something as mundane as merely dying.
Since I'm constitutionally incapable of being anything but contrary, I've repeatedly resisted the urge to fawn over celebrities. Once, I took my mother for lunch at Water Tower Place. After we ate, we strolled through the shops. In Rizzoli bookstore, I noticed a familiar-looking man walking in the front door. It was Sonny Bono with his daughter Chastity in tow. I immediately put on my own mask, that of blase cool, and nudged my mother. "Look who just walked in," I said, casually, as if it was her next door neighbor.
Ma's face lit up. She dashed toward the man with all the agility of a woman one third of her age She extended her hand and Bono shook it. Poor Ma. In all the excitement, she couldn't think of his name.
"Aren't you..., um..., uh...," she fumbled. Now she was panicked. "Oh dang it, aren't you... Chastity's father?"
Sonny Bono rolled his eyes slightly, then recovered his poise. He nodded. Ma came back to me humiliated. I'll bet she still remembers the incident and cringes.
Years later I was living with my old pal Frisbee Sid. While a student at Evanston Township High School, Sid was pals with classmates John Cusack and Jeremy Piven. He claimed to have worked with them on ambitious theater projects even as they were teenagers. Sidney crowed about his Cusack/Piven connection well into his 30s, implying often that anytime he so desired, he could pack up and move to Hollywood and become a member of their clique.
One day, Sidney called me in a state of near frenzy. He was at the Third Coast Cafe on the Near North Side, sitting with none other than John Cusack and Jeremy Piven. The Third Coast was my writing headquarters at the time and I was headed to the joint anyway. "Hurry up," Sidney almost yelled.
I walked into the place with a distracted look on my face, as if I were contemplating only the literary gems I was formulating in my head. Sidney, Cusack, and Piven sat at the bar/counter. Sid, rather unsuccessfully, was attempting to hide a case of hyperventilation. I took my sweet time setting up my laptop at a table in a far corner of the place. Finally, I moseyed over to the bar/counter. Sidney was clearly thrilled to be able to introduce his two buddies to me. "Big Mike, this is John, that's Jeremy," he said, grinning.
It was a dead heat as to which of the three of us looked most bored. I shook their hands with all the vigor of a man meeting his ex-wife's new husband. Rather than stand around and ask the two what it was like to have descended from the heavens, I quickly excused myself and retreated to my laptop, clearly conveying the notion that I was hard at work on next year's Pulitzer prize-winning novel. In truth, I placed my fingers on the keyboard and stared at a blank screen for ten minutes.
I suppose it's in our genes to adulate and idolize celebrities. Sometimes we go so far as to elevate them to a divine status. Silly, isn't it? So silly that we trip all over ourselves mourning the death of a baseball pitcher while ignoring the death of some poor schmuck fan.
So this Easter weekend, rather than celebrate the mythical resurrection of a messianic figure, I'll do my best to remember a guy named Brian Powers. He was a nobody.
