Nick Adenhart Memorial

Nick Adenhart
Nick Adenhart
(1986-2009)

At age 17, Baseball America named Nick Adenhart its 2003 Youth Player of the Year. Projected as the top high school prospect in the spring of 2004, Nick suffered an elbow injury that threatened to derail his career. The Anaheim Angels selected him in the 14th round of the June 2004 draft, and offered to pay for his surgery.

After a year of rehabilitation, Nick made his professional debut on June 26, 2005, pitching two innings for the Mesa Angels. Nick quickly rose through the system to become the Angels' top pitching prospect. Baseball America ranked Nick the Angels' #2 prospect in 2007 and 2008, and its #1 prospect entering the 2009 season.

Due to injuries at the parent club level, the Angels rushed Nick to the big leagues for three starts in May 2008 at age 21. Next spring, with three Angels starters beginning the 2009 season on the disabled list, Nick earned an Opening Day selection to the Angels roster and membership in the starting rotation.

On April 8, 2009, Nick made his first start of the year, at Angel Stadium against the Oakland A's. He pitched six shutout innings, showing the baseball world a glimpse of his potential at age 22.

After the game, Nick and three friends were on their way to a nightclub when their car was struck by a drunk driver. Nick and two of the passengers died.

This Web page is a permanent memorial in his memory.  Any thoughts, reminiscences or other comments you may have about Nick can be added to this page by e-mailing home@futureangels.com.

Nick Adenhart Memorial Fund

The Adenhart family has created a memorial fund. Checks should be payable to “Nick Adenhart Memorial Fund”. The address is:

Nick Adenhart Memorial Fund
c/o Geier Financial Group
2205 Warwick Way
Suite 200
Marriottsville, Maryland 21104

On July 1, 2009, the Hagerstown Herald-Mail reported that the Nick Adenhart Memorial Fund donated $5,000 to Nick's Little League organization. It was the Fund's first donation.

Video Clips

FutureAngels.com followed Nick Adenhart throughout his career, recording video of starts in Mesa, Rancho Cucamonga and Arkansas.  To watch, you need Windows Media Player and a broadband (cable modem, DSL) Internet connection.

YouTube.com has several video clips related to Nick Adenhart's career and his passing:

MLB.com Memorial

Major League Baseball's MLB.com web site created a permanent web site in rememberance of Nick Adenhart. Click Here to visit the MLB.com web site.

Nick Adenhart Commemorative Patch

The Angels are selling a Nick Adenhart commemorative patch (above). The net proceeds will be distributed by the Angels Baseball Foundation to local charities in honor of Nick.

Orem Owlz Memorial

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The above banner was hung on the left field wall just to the right of the foul pole at the Orem Owlz' ballpark during the 2009 season.

Nick Adenhart Pitcher of the Year Award

The Angels announced on June 21, 2009 that they established a Nick Adenhart Pitcher of the Year award, which will go to the major league Angels pitcher who had the most outstanding performance during the season, as selected by his teammates.

Fan Memorial At Angel Stadium

In the days after the tragedy, impromptu fan memorials were established at the crash scene in Fullerton, and at the main gate of Angel Stadium in Anaheim. FutureAngels.com took photos of the stadium memorial as it appeared Friday morning, April 10, 2009.

Click Here to view the photos of the fan memorial at Angel Stadium.

“Alone With His Grief in Baseball Cathedral”

The below article was written by Los Angeles Times national baseball writer Bill Shaikin and published on April 10, 2009. It is reprinted here with his permission.

As darkness gave way to dawn, the doctors delivered the awful news: There was nothing more they could do to save his son.

Jim Adenhart found his sanctuary where his son found joy.

The hospital was no place for a grieving father, not in the hour after death, not when there was solace in life, and in baseball. And so the Angels unlocked their stadium, and their clubhouse, for a private sunrise service Thursday morning.

Nick Adenhart had walked through those doors just eight hours before, all smiles. Jim Adenhart walked through those doors, just past 7 a.m., all tears.

Mike Butcher, the Angels' pitching coach, led Jim to his son's locker. Butcher stepped back, leaving a respectful distance.

This would be Jim's first memorial service for his son, all his own.

He saw. He touched. He prayed. He cried.

Ken Higdon, the Angels' clubhouse manager, handed him the jersey his son had worn Wednesday night, when Nick pitched six shutout innings, the finest game of his young life. He was 22.

Perhaps Jim thought about what his son had told him a few days ago. He lives in Maryland, but his son urged him to fly to California for his first start in this new season.

"You better come here, because something special is going to happen," Nick told his father, according to agent Scott Boras.

If the son had not been looking out for the father, then the father would not have been minutes away from the hospital when he got that 3 a.m. call, with the horrible news that his son had been critically injured in a traffic accident.

Jim was not alone in those predawn hours. Butcher was at the hospital. So was Tim Mead, the Angels' vice president of communications. So were Boras and two of his lieutenants, Mike Fiore and Jeff Musselman.

The men accompanied Jim to the stadium and into the clubhouse, then left him alone at his son's locker. Five minutes passed, then 10, then 15.

And then cellphones started ringing, almost all at once. The word had gotten out. The world demanded confirmation, details, reaction.

The Angels arranged a news conference. Jim chose not to attend. General Manager Tony Reagins and Manager Mike Scioscia spoke, not easily but without losing composure.

Boras lost his.

He is the agent fans love to hate, full of lengthy discourses on why his players deserve millions upon millions. He can speak dispassionately, almost robotically.

On this day, he could not suppress his raw emotions. He could barely get through a sentence.

He choked up. He paused, then spoke haltingly. He stopped midway through his first sentence, pulling out a tissue, wiping away his tears.

Boras, an agent for 25 years, said he'd never had a day like this one.

"As you could tell," he said. "This is an industry that is largely youth. We're just not very prepared. It's just shocking to get the phone call."

The Angels, sadly enough, get more than their share of those calls. They're already wearing a memorial patch this season in honor of scouting consultant Preston Gomez, who died this year at 86.

"It seems like, for a while there, something happened to the Angels every year," Cincinnati Reds Manager Dusty Baker said.

Pitcher Donnie Moore committed suicide at 35, three years after giving up the home run that kept the Angels out of the 1986 World Series.

Outfielder Lyman Bostock was murdered at 27. Michelle Carew, daughter of Hall of Famer Rod Carew, died of leukemia at 18. Coach Deron Johnson died of lung cancer at 53.

Pitcher Dick Wantz died of a brain tumor at 25. Three players died in car accidents in the 1970s: infielder Chico Ruiz at 33, infielder Mike Miley at 24, pitcher Bruce Heinbechner at 23.

This is not a curse. That is the stuff of feeble minds. This is a tragedy, not the loss of a baseball player but the loss of a son, the greatest tragedy that can befall any parent.

Jim Adenhart did speak Thursday, not to the media but in a closed-door team meeting. He made a second trip to the clubhouse, eight hours after his first, to thank the players and coaches who had befriended his son.

After a few minutes, Mead escorted him onto the field, where the flags had been lowered to half-staff.

This was the middle of the afternoon, when the players normally would be stretching, playing catch, taking batting practice.

There was no game on this day; the Angels were to have played the Oakland A's, but it was postponed.

There was no one else on the field.

Jim Adenhart, wearing a red Angels pullover, walked slowly to the pitcher's mound. He lingered for a few minutes. He crouched, appearing to cry.

He stood up and looked to the heavens. He fixed his gaze there for a few moments. He bid farewell to his son, from the very place that made him so happy.

“One Man's Lessons in Life, Death and the Ability to Persevere”

The below article was written by Pittsburgh Post-Gazette writer Colin Dunlap and published on May 10, 2009. It is reprinted here with his permission.

Pitt assistant baseball coach Ryan Leahy is only 27, and he's already been considerably scarred.

You can see the one scar, right there on his neck, from his battle with thyroid cancer. The darkened red mark runs about 4 inches down from his left ear, takes an abrupt 90 degree turn and juts directly across his neck 5 more inches, the remnants of surgery in 2007.

There's another scar you can't see; a profound, emotional one that prods deep into his spirit.

And that scar is only about a month old.

Leahy is still dealing with the sudden death of one his closest friends, and former minor league teammate and roommate, Nick Adenhart. A pitcher with the Los Angeles Angels, Adenhart — along with two friends — was killed in a car accident by an alleged drunk driver just after midnight on April 9, only hours after, and about 7 miles from, where earlier he had thrown a marvelous game as his team defeated the visiting Oakland A's.

"Just doesn't make any sense, does it?" said Leahy, who was part of another traumatic event, as he played in a minor league game for Arkansas when Tulsa first base coach Mike Coolbaugh was hit and killed by a line drive in 2007.

"Did I ever think I'd be someone who had cancer? Did I ever think Nick would get killed? No way. Some things you can't explain; they just happen. Crazy things happen and you have to deal with them, I guess."

Then again, most would have thought it crazy that a guy such as Leahy had the professional baseball career he did. He was too short (5 feet 9), too slow, didn't have enough "pop" in his bat or strength in his arm and, quite frankly, didn't look good enough in a uniform to get drafted after his fifth year at Boston College.

So when Tampa Bay and the Angels were the lone two teams that offered him a free agent contract, he signed with the Angels because, as he said, "I figured they gave David Eckstein a shot, why not me?"

Leahy, a utility guy, didn't go on to have anywhere near the success of Eckstein, but he did overachieve, playing in the Angels organization for five seasons and rising as high as Class AA ball with the Arkansas Travelers.

And it was as he was preparing for the 2007 season — his next to last as a professional — that a routine morning shave turned into the discovery of cancer, as he felt a lump on the side of his neck and was encouraged by a friend to have it checked by a doctor.

That was late November 2006. He had surgery Jan. 8, 2007 in Boston, near his hometown of Salem, Mass.

About a month after the successful surgery came a radioactive iodine treatment where, as Leahy put it, "They come into the room in 'Haz-Mat' suits, take this pill out of, seriously, this metal case and I'm like, 'Oh, OK, so you have those suits on but you are going to put that pill in my body?'

"But at that point, you just have to trust the doctors."

Which he did, and even as the prognosis kept coming back great, he was frightened — not so much for himself, but for his two younger brothers, who he knew looked up to him.

"There were times I had to fake it for them," Leahy said. "Was I nervous? Yes. Was I scared? Hell, yes. Could I let my younger brothers see that? No, so I had to fake like it didn't bother me."

The cancer, for the most part, hasn't bothered him since. He still gets a blood test once a month, is forever reminded by the hot and cold spells he goes through, that long scar on his neck and the 100 milligrams of Synthroid he takes each morning, but now, cancer is something that he's pushed to the back of his mind.

"Knowing what he's been through, it puts life in perspective," said Pitt outfielder Matt Litzinger, a senior from the New Homestead section of Pittsburgh. "You have to respect him, not only because he's your coach, but because of everything he's dealt with in his life."

Playing in the minor leagues and beating cancer would have been enough for Leahy to demand the admiration from these Pitt players — but then there's the most recent blow, that car crash that killed Adenhart.

Leahy and Adenhart, even though Leahy was five years older, shared an apartment in Arkansas when they played together, Adenhart helping Leahy through the rigors of fighting back and playing baseball after a bout with cancer, and Leahy teaching Adenhart, an Angels can't-miss prospect at the time, how to grow up and become a professional.

"It was," Leahy said, "a perfect match."

From the fishing trips, to the video games, to the horsing around after games and, of course, the baseball side of it, Leahy and Adenhart meshed swimmingly.

So that's why it all stung so deeply when, after watching most of Adenhart's final start on a computer screen in a Louisville hotel on a Pitt roadtrip, Leahy was told the next morning that his friend had been killed.

It couldn't be — the two had just shared a room a few months earlier as part of the same wedding party in Nashville. They had text-messaged each other, back and forth, the day before Adenhart's final start.

And Leahy remembers, vividly, the final time he spoke to Adenhart — it was in the afternoon of that final start.

"He was having lunch with his dad," Leahy said. "So I just said, 'Nick, good luck tonight.' I never thought that was the last time I'd talk to him. He's an inspiration now."

Funny how that works. In this case, it takes one to know one.

“Fans Find Comfort Zone at Adenhart Shrine”

The below article was written by Orange County Register sports columnist Mark Whicker and published on October 11, 2009. It is reprinted here with his permission.

A few hours after everyone learned about Nick Adenhart, someone parked at Angel Stadium, walked to a spot in between the bulbous red hats, and left a flower on the concrete.

It was a Thursday afternoon. The Angels' game with Oakland had been postponed. They played Boston the next night, and by then there were more flowers, and eventually some caps, and pictures of Adenhart.

Quickly it mushroomed into a circular shrine, and a spontaneous one. Angels management hasn't had much to do with it, other than consult a local mortuary about caring for the flowers. The club tidies it up every few days, with assistant ticket manager Susan Weiss taking the lead. But it's really a creation of the people.

Two hours before Friday's playoff game, groups of fans dropped by and stood quietly. There was one guy who wore a loincloth and bellowed "Take Me Out To The Ballgame," without anyone requesting, but someone took his picture and justified his existence, and he moved on.

Fans don't come to games to watch fans, as we all know. But the shrine has drawn them, forced them to take a moment before they visit the merchandise shop. It is an island of real life, and death, amid the noise and commerce.

Baseball caps make up the circumference of the shrine. Fans have written their tributes, inside each bill.

One wrote, "Six Great Innings To Last A Lifetime," referring to Adenhart's victory on that Wednesday night.

Brian and Alex Walker signed a cap this way: "Heaven Must Have Missed An Angel With a Big-League Curve. You Belonged."

And behind all those caps were T-shirts from local fire departments, all sort of Rally Monkey trinkets, a flag from the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes Booster Club, where Adenhart once pitched.

The reason it's remarkable is that everything is so personal. Angels fans were just being introduced to Adenhart.

He had started four major league games and would not have turned 23 until August 24. Scouting director Eddie Bane was adamant that Adenhart, given major-league medical care, would be a rotation horse.

When Bane is in town, he stops by the shrine once a week. Bobby Wilson, the backup catcher who became Adenhart's friend in the minors, has only stopped once or twice.

"It's nice to see what people say about him and how much they cared," Wilson said quietly. "You can tell that they put a lot of themselves into it. I just haven't been out there much. It still hurts. It's tough."

"But the other thing is how deeply it affected the players who didn't really know him," Bane said. "Jered Weaver hadn't been around him, but he wanted to room with him this year, wanted to talk pitching with him and bring him along. I just think it was Nick. People sensed he was a good person and wanted to be with him."

Whether Adenhart's memory is helping the Angels win is too nebulous to even discuss. They are playing together, true. They have enough belief in each other to take pitches. They left one man in scoring position Friday. They've scored seven runs in the two seventh innings, which is when a bullpen reaches a fork in the road.

And we're talking about only two games.

But anytime a team of such varying personalities does anything together, including grieve, it helps erase all the reasons a team can fall apart.

Why has Adenhart resonated so profoundly? Other teammates have passed on, even Angels like Lyman Bostock. Ex-Dodger Tim Crews, along with Steve Olin, died in a spring training boating accident while with Cleveland. And there's the impact of Hank Gathers, the Loyola Marymount strongman who collapsed during the WCC Tournament, and the Lions rode that wave — "an emotional hurricane," Jeff Fryer called it — to an NCAA regional final in 1990.

What we're mourning, with Adenhart, is the death of possibility. As tragic as the deaths of Thurman Munson and Pelle Lindbergh were, the Yankees catcher and Flyers goalie had already defined themselves professionally. Adenhart stood on the verge of everything he had ever wanted.

And he had done exactly what we tell everyone to do — hang in there, put the work in, be patient, take it day by day, and rewards will come.

What came, instead, was a guy drunk enough to turn his car into a weapon of murder.

It wasn't just a loss. It was a robbery. So whether the Angels use Adenhart's inspiration to win a World Series isn't the real issue. What's important is the shrine.

As long as it makes one fan stop on the concrete, and think about what Adenhart would be right now, and whether that second beer in the fifth inning is really such a good idea, it has to stay.

“Angels Are Touched by a Rookie Lost, and Never to Be Forgotten”

The below article was written by Washington Post staff writer Dave Sheinin and published on October 15, 2009. It is reprinted here with his permission.

WILLIAMSPORT, Md. His spirit is in good hands, kept alive and carried forth to all corners of the country by his Los Angeles Angels teammates. Thanks to them, Nick Adenhart has a fully equipped locker, home and road, a spot on the dugout bench, a featured role in every champagne-soaked celebration — everything short of an actual roster spot. "Nick lives on," pitching coach Mike Butcher wrote in a text message to Adenhart's father after the Angels clinched their division back on Sept. 29.

His body, though, lies here, and the Angels may be pleased to know it is in good hands as well. Rod Steiner, Adenhart's high school baseball coach, stops by the grave site a couple of times a week just to spend a few quiet moments, maybe tidy up a little, sometimes replacing the luminaria bag and light a new candle inside it.

One of those candles, lit a few evenings back, was still flickering at 8:20 Wednesday morning to greet the day's first visitors, the rush-hour hum of I-81 gaining strength beyond the fence, the red and yellow leaves of nearby trees blown by a cold wind to the ground.

"Those fat ones," Steiner said, bracing himself against the cold and staring down at the candle over Adenhart's grave, "they'll burn for two or three days, easy." After a few more moments of silence, he shakes his head and says, "Of all the kids in the major leagues, for it to be one of ours — we've only ever had but one."

This might have been the week Nick Adenhart, the pride of Washington County, blossomed into a star, a household name — his debut on the grand stage. The Angels vs. the New York Yankees, at Yankee Stadium in New York — the American League Championship Series, a trip to the World Series at stake. The rookie right-hander, who grew up amid these hills in Western Maryland, might have started one of the games, might have shut down the mighty Yankees, might even have been the MVP.

He might have. But we'll never know.

It has been more than six months since Adenhart, just 22 at the time, was killed in Fullerton, Calif., when the car in which he was riding with three friends was struck by a suspected drunk driver, just a few hours after Adenhart had made a sterling 2009 debut — throwing six scoreless innings against the Oakland Athletics.

Until these last few weeks, it had been a fairly normal mourning process, even given Adenhart's status as a local celebrity. There were well-attended memorial services, the dedication of a Little League field in his honor a while later, a steady supply of flowers and candles placed on the grave, the hoopla steadily dying down.

And then, the Angels kept winning, becoming the first team in baseball to clinch a playoff spot, then wrapping up the division title, then knocking out the Boston Red Sox last week in the playoffs' opening round. At every step, the Angels have made Adenhart, their fallen teammate, a prominent part of the celebration, dousing his empty uniform with champagne and beer in the joyous clubhouse, gathering beside his picture on the wall at Angel Stadium to touch his face and pose for photos.

It's a beautiful, wonderful thing: Nick lives on. But to the folks back home, it's painful, too. Nick should be part of it all. But he's not.

"It's hard for me to even watch an Angels game," Steiner said. "But everyone here is doing it. Everywhere I go, people are talking about the Angels, and talking about Nick."

On the day the Angels eliminated the Red Sox to advance to the ALCS, David Warrenfeltz, Adenhart's former catcher at Williamsport High and lifelong best friend, found himself thinking how cool it was that Adenhart could find himself pitching at Yankee Stadium in the playoffs.

"There are still a few minutes when you escape reality," Warrenfeltz said, "and you think of this perfect world where he's pitching in the playoffs. And then you come back to the reality that's it not going to happen."

Warrenfeltz saw Adenhart's grave site once — the day of the funeral — but hasn't been able to bring himself to go back. "It's just something — I don't know. In a way, maybe by not going back, it keeps the reality from sinking in." A pause, a sigh, a sniffle. "I guess I'm just not ready," he says.

* * *

At the Maryland Department of Corrections training academy, out in the farmland near Boonsboro, a stone's throw from Antietam National Battlefield, Jim Adenhart broke into a smile Wednesday morning when asked about the Angels' October run and the way the team has made his son a major part of it.

"It's great. It's a joyous thing," he said, clad in a plain, black T-shirt and black track pants as he took a break from a classroom training session. "I can't say enough about the way the organization has treated us. It's really special the way they've rallied around Nick and the way they've made us feel like a part of it."

Jim Adenhart, his face a startling resemblance of Nick's, is doing his best to carry on these days. A retired Secret Service agent, he is finishing his training as a corrections deputy sheriff — he graduates next week — and has been attending bereavement counseling. For a while, he found himself having strange dreams, in which Nick would appear before him — in a restaurant, at the house — then disappear.

"It's getting better," he said of the grief. "But then sometimes it reverts back, especially" — he hooks his thumb toward his fellow trainees — "when these guys start talking about their kids, what they're into, what they're doing. I have to step outside the room for a few minutes, just to collect myself."

Jim Adenhart watches all the Angels games — how could he not? — but he finds himself particularly drawn to the television when Jered Weaver pitches. Weaver, the Angels' scheduled starter for Game 3 of the ALCS in Anaheim, shares his late son's build. If he doesn't catch himself, Jim Adenhart will find himself tricked by a mind that still wants to believe that's his son out there.

"Weaver, he's so tall and lanky — and now that he's cut his hair . . . wow," he said. "It really reminds me of Nick."

At an August game at Baltimore's Oriole Park at Camden Yards, a bunch of Adenharts drove in from Williamsport as guests of the Angels, with seats directly behind the visitors' dugout. Angels General Manager Tony Reagins spent the better part of an hour talking with Nick's grandfather, who is also named Jim.

"Even the little gestures they've made — like wearing Nick's [uniform] number [as a patch] on their jerseys — it really means something to us," said Connie Adenhart, Nick's grandmother. "I'm sure Nick is out there, pushing them on. He loved baseball, and he'd love to be where they are now."

The two Jims are toying with the idea of going to New York this weekend for Games 1 and 2, but the weather forecast — lots of rain — has given them pause. What about going out to Anaheim for Games 3, 4 and 5 instead? There won't be any rain there.

"Well," said Nick Adenhart's father, "I don't know about that. I still haven't been out there since the accident."

* * *

Jim Adenhart was in attendance at Angel Stadium on April 8, beckoned to Anaheim, despite his aversion to flying, by his son, who told him "something special was going to happen." He congratulated his son after the performance, then said goodbye when Nick said he was going out with some friends.

In the aftermath of the accident, Angels officials accompanied Jim Adenhart to the hospital, consoling him when the surgeon delivered the grave news.

"That's why I'm not surprised at the way they're treating us, and treating Nick," he said. "They've been doing this since Day One."

Andrew Thomas Gallo, whom police say was drunk when he ran a red light and crashed into the car in which Adenhart and his friends were riding, was charged with three counts of second-degree murder, along with other charges. Last week, a Superior Court judge in Orange County, Calif., postponed Gallo's trial for six months at the defense's request, with a new start date of April 19, 2010.

Some five months later, in a jubilant clubhouse after the Angels clinched the AL West title, players doused Adenhart's jersey with champagne and beer, a well-intended gesture meant to symbolize his inclusion in the celebration.

"There isn't a guy in this locker room," Angels relief pitcher Jason Bulger told reporters in the middle of it all, "who isn't playing for his memory."

To most folks who understand baseball, including many of Adenhart's friends and family members, it never crossed their minds that the celebration could have been construed as out of line — because of the alleged role of alcohol in his death — until a handful of columnists, bloggers and fans raised the issue.

"Nick was a ballplayer," said Warrenfeltz, "and every kid who ever dreams of being a ballplayer also dreams of spraying champagne after you clinch a title. [The Angels' celebration] was an amazing way to honor him. The champagne is such a baseball tradition — this way, they just included him."

"That's baseball," said the younger Jim Adenhart, Nick's father. "If Nick were there, he'd have been throwing a few back as well."

Still, when the Angels closed out the Red Sox last week to move on to the ALCS, team officials made sure media members and television cameras were kept out of the Angels' clubhouse for the first few minutes of the celebration. When reporters finally entered, Adenhart's jersey was nowhere to be found.

* * *

At Nick Adenhart's grave site on Wednesday morning, there sat two crosses, three bouquets of flowers, four candles, an American flag, and a baseball.

"That ball?" Rod Steiner said. "It's been here for, oh, at least a couple of months now. I guess I'm surprised no one's taken it and put it on eBay or something."

Pick up the ball. It's inscribed, the weathered ink barely visible: "Nick, your Angel family will always miss you. Throw a great game every day." It is signed, "Your friend, Dan Radcliff" — the scout who signed Adenhart for the Angels out of high school.

Every time Steiner leaves a new luminaria bag with a candle in it, he inscribes it with a few words and an insignia — a No. 8 inside a heart. Get it? Eight-in-heart?

"I used to tell him, when he gets famous, that's how he should sign his autograph," Steiner said. "He never did it."

Pick up one of the other candles. Someone has written on the outside of it, actually three people — Adenhart's mother and stepfather, Janet and Duane Gigeous, and his half-brother, Henry Gigeous: "Nick, I love you and miss you . . . We will keep the faith . . . You are and always will be special . . . Love, Duane . . . I love you, Henry . . . Love, Mom."

Another candle has writing on it. Pick it up: "Nick," it says. "I love you . . . Grandma . . . You will always be my boy."

Nick Adenhart's grave site sits a Vladimir Guerrero home run blast from Springfield Middle School, where Steiner, a teacher for 31 years, taught Nick's parents, then Nick himself — not an unusual thing in a community where almost no one leaves. Williamsport High School is just around the corner, the sign outside reminding folks that Oct. 19-24 is Homecoming Week, and Oct. 24 is the pancake breakfast fundraiser.

At the high school's baseball field — where Adenhart once threw a no-hitter, pitched the Wildcats to the state championship game and drew dozens of pro scouts, with their radar guns and clipboards — two bouquets of plastic flowers adorn a fence behind the backstop. In the middle is a photo of Adenhart, wearing the Angels' home whites, No. 34.

He is in mid-delivery, his black glove tumbling through the air in front of him, the ball gripped in his right hand — fastball grip. He has three days' stubble on his face, handsome as the day is long, 22 years old and without question destined for greatness.

“Angels' Fans Couldn't Forget Nick Adenhart”

The below article was written by Los Angeles Times national baseball writer Bill Shaikin and published on December 13, 2009. It is reprinted here with his permission.

Red caps have faded toward pink. Sympathy cards have yellow tinges around the edges. The rainbow of stuffed monkeys -- red, blue, beige, brown, purple -- has dulled.

The tender loving care has not.

We lost Nick Adenhart eight months ago. The baseball season has come and gone, and still fans come to Angel Stadium, to celebrate and to mourn, to smile and to cry, at that special place in front of the ballpark.

"That's a new candle," Susan Weiss said the other day.

Weiss is the tender loving caretaker. She walks by just about every day, propping up the baseballs to prevent them from rolling away, straightening a row of caps blown apart in the breeze, extracting bits of broken glass from a candle holder or a stray beer bottle.

Out of tragedy has come this oasis of civility and grace.

It is in the dignity of the man who removes his cap, in the poignancy of the woman who sheds a tear, in the warmth of the parent who hugs his child as he tells Adenhart's story.

It is in the decency of the players from opposing teams, stopping all summer to pay their respects at this makeshift memorial. It is in the kindness of the 10-year-old boy who stopped Weiss one day as she was cleaning the area and asked whether he could help.

"He wanted to be a part of it," she said.

We all did, or so it seemed. Adenhart and two friends died early the morning of April 9 in a car crash not long after the 22-year-old rookie had thrown six shutout innings in his first start of the season.

Just hours later, as his father bid farewell from atop the pitchers' mound inside the stadium, a garden sprung from atop the brick mound outside the main entrance. Fans gently placed bouquets of flowers there, hundreds of them, along with candles, stuffed animals and personal notes.

"All of a sudden, it was just here," Weiss said. "We wanted to watch over it."

Weiss works in the Angels' ticket office, a few steps away. She has tended to the shrine ever since, with the help of her colleagues in the ticket office, the maintenance staff and, if you ask her, pretty much everyone in the organization, up to President John Carpino and owner Arte Moreno.

When the flowers died, she removed them. When the caps piled too high, she collected the weathered ones and put them in a bag, hundreds of them.

"You can't throw them out," she said. "We don't feel comfortable doing that."

When the damp evenings arrived, she either covered the area with plastic or packed everything up and moved it inside, then put it all back out again, ever so neatly. When the items got too dirty for her liking, they got a good wash.

Every item is special, from the handwritten poems to the cap from Adenhart's triple-A team, from the red cross to the cigar box with a Jr. Angels Kids' Club sticker on the outside and a child's cap, three small baseballs and a stuffed animal of indeterminate species on the inside.

But perhaps no item is more special than the colorful painting on the easel, rising above the caps and balls and cards on the ground. The painting, by an Anaheim artist named Robert Holton, captures Adenhart in mid-stride, in colors bright and bold.

No one commissioned it. He just did it.

"It was a sad thing to see this person looking up at you while you're painting," Holton said, "and he's gone."

Holton stops by every now and then, stepping gingerly through all those caps and balls and cards so he can touch up those colors. When the picture needed a new frame, Holton showed up with that too.

"We were so sure somebody would end up taking that picture," Weiss said. "Nobody has ever touched it."

The impromptu town square touched all of us, a spot to pause in the daily rush from our homes to our cars and back again.

Not a day went by last summer when fans did not gather to reflect, to remember Adenhart and the other victims of that car accident -- Henry Pearson and Courtney Stewart, who also died, and Jon Wilhite, who survived even after his skull was torn off his spinal cord in the crash.

"Every time I look at it, I look at four people," said Tim Mead, the Angels' vice president of communications. "I recognize the living miracle of Jon Wilhite.

"I see the power of community. So many times, you think we're all devoid of collective passion and sensitivity. Collectively, strangers came together to build, develop and nurture that. That's a positive out of a very negative situation."

Leslie Murrill still has her ticket stub from the night Adenhart pitched. She stops by whenever she can, even now, perhaps "30 or 40" visits in all.

"To this day, I still have a hard time when I see it," Murrill said. "I don't know how you take down what people want to connect to."

In a few weeks, however, the Angels will do just that. The weather is turning poor. The new season is coming soon.

The Angels plan to collect everything, then let Adenhart's parents choose what they might like to keep. Whatever artifacts are left, some small number of them could fit into a permanent display case the Angels intend to install within the ballpark next year, along with items from his locker and perhaps the section of the outfield wall with his picture, the one his teammates raced to touch after clinching the American League West championship.

When the very last cap is picked up, the front of the stadium will have an empty look. Weiss will have an empty feeling.

"It's going to be really difficult," she said. "You're so used to seeing it. It's been a part of everybody.

"For us, it's been an honor to do this."

Weiss has worked for the Angels for decades, for a team far too often scarred by tragedy, from Lyman Bostock and Donnie Moore to Preston Gomez. She wonders if Adenhart's death resonated in a way the others did not because he had just arrived in the major leagues, had called his father here to watch "something special," had told his father he would go out and celebrate his big game with friends and come back before too long.

If you could not relate to the 90-mph fastball, you could relate to a son and a father and their dreams.

Weiss never met Nick Adenhart. She has gotten to know him through the fans, through the poster made by the family who wanted to thank him for stopping to say hello during spring training, through the photograph of the little boy with the wide smile and the pitcher's arm draped around him.

"He was a good person," Weiss said.

The words flow along with the tears, so many words inscribed on caps and balls and cards and signs. In one card, two messages:

"I know you're watching, another special Angel."

"Dear Nick, Protect us from the Yankees."

The below column was written by FutureAngels.com webmaster Stephen C. Smith in the days following Nick's death.

Memories of Nick Adenhart
April 14, 2009

Nick Adenhart works as a batboy during a Mesa Angels game, August 1, 2004
Nick Adenhart works as a batboy during a Mesa Angels game, August 1, 2004

When I first met Nick Adenhart, he was a batboy.

No, he wasn't ten years old, although he didn't look much older than that.

Nick was at the Angels' minor league complex in Mesa, Arizona, recovering from the “Tommy John” surgery to fix his elbow. He couldn't pitch, so the Angels assigned him to be the batboy for the Mesa Angels summer league games.

His teammates gave him the nickname “Doogie Howser” because they thought he looked like the fictional TV teenage doctor.

I nicknamed him “Skippy.” Why? He looked like a Skippy to me.

Whether it was Doogie, Skippy or some other nickname — they constantly come and go in minor league baseball — Nick was always a quiet, humble and polite young man. You'd never know he was once king of the amateur baseball world, dethroned by cruel fate just before he would have been a certain first-round draft pick and instant millionaire.

His professional career, and his life, ended with the worst of cruelties.

On Wednesday, April 8, 2009, Nick pitched six shutout innings against the Oakland A's at Angel Stadium. It was his first start of the season, and his first start after making the starting rotation out of spring training. Nick had made three starts under emergency circumstances in 2008, but he was clearly in over his head. Angels fans never had the chance to see Nick's full potential until that Wednesday night.

And then he was taken away from us.

Fans who didn't know Nick may sense the loss of a talented young pitching prospect who had his entire career in front of him. Some might cry, not knowing him personally but moved by the tragedy of the incident. Others, parents in particular, will understand the loss of a son just entering young adulthood.

But largely overlooked is the staggering loss to Nick's minor league baseball family.

In the minors, the lower minors in particular, we're all one big (and for the most part) happy family. Players, coaches, front office personnel, boosters and host parents forge a special tight bond that the casual fan doesn't know about.

Nick had family in Tempe, Orem, Cedar Rapids, Rancho Cucamonga, Arkansas and Salt Lake. Each were stops he'd made on the way to the big leagues. He'd impressed so many people not with his pitching skills, but his personality. Nick was quiet, humble, and even a little bit shy with those older than him. He was certainly different with his peers. But he always showed nothing but respect and humility to his minor league support group. Many of us thought of him as a surrogate son.



The Rancho Cucamonga Quakes painted two numbers on their field to honor Nick Adenhart — #28, his Quakes number, and #34, his Angels number.

In Rancho Cucamonga, only 45 miles from Anaheim, the loss was particularly acute. We are close geographically to the Angels in Anaheim, and to the crash site in Fullerton. Several people have ties not just to the Angels but also knew one or more of the other passengers in the car.

The Quakes painted two numbers on their field — #28, Nick's Quakes number, and #34, his Angels number. During their home opener, the Quakes played a montage on their video board to honor Nick.

Click Here to watch the Quakes video. You need Windows Media Player and a broadband (cable modem, DSL) Internet connection to watch.

After Nick struggled during his three 2008 starts, some fans on online boards dismissed him even though he was only 21 and was called up before he was ready. Nick showed the baseball world his true potential on April 8, when he pitched those six shutout innings. If nothing else, those who didn't appreciate his talent had a glimpse of the real Nick Adenhart that night, and what might have been.

But professional baseball is only a game, an entertainment industry really, not much different from the movie business. Baseball was his job, but it was not who Nick Adenhart was.

Nick's true character perhaps was best described by a caller to the Angels talk radio station the day Nick died. He told of how he'd taken his children to Tempe Diablo Stadium during spring training to get autographs, but they couldn't afford tickets so they only stood in the parking lot waiting for players to walk by. Nick stopped and asked if they were going to the afternoon game. When the father said he couldn't afford it, Nick went to the clubhouse and returned with four free tickets. After the game, Nick sought them out in the stands and gave the man's son an autographed baseball.

“I want his parents to know,” the man said, “that they raised a class act.”

Professional Reminiscences

If you would like to comment about Nick and you're in the baseball industry, please e-mail your thoughts to Stephen C. Smith at home@futureangels.com. Your comments will be posted here, along with your name and affiliation. Your e-mail address will not be posted.

Fan Reminiscences

If you would like to comment about Nick and you're a member of the public, please e-mail your thoughts to Stephen C. Smith at home@futureangels.com. Your comments will be posted here, along with your name and city/state. Your e-mail address will not be posted.

Nick Adenhart was a fine young man. His on the field exploits were dwarfed by his professionalism, drive and loyalty to his fans and organization. The news came as a shock to baseball fans and Southern Californians alike. Just 3 weeks ago, my family and I were in Tempe to take in a couple of Spring Training games. We were lucky enough to meet Nick and share a laugh. He was very gracious to all the fans; signed every autograph and posed for every picture. My 2½ daughter was exceptionally fond of him. She twitched with excitement as he signed for her and later referred to him as “her boyfriend.” Nick was lost at an all too early of an age. Let us never forget #34!

— The Boisseranc Family
Murrieta, CA

Every fan knows that baseball can break your heart. You believe in the game and in the team you've chosen to root for — and then, at a crucial point, it disappoints in some amazingly grievous way. If you're an Angel fan, you recall the bitter outcome of the 1986 playoff series against the Boston Red Sox (Never could bear to turn in the World Series tickets I had bought). And more recently, the serial playoff embarrassments against, again, the Red Sox. But these are on-the-field disappointments — and whenever the next big one occurs, an Angel fan can hold tight to the memories of 2002, when the Angels, 50-1 to win the World Series, epitomized how to play the game with heart and brought the championship home to Orange County.

But how do you cope with a loss like Nick Adenhart's? A senseless, wrong-place-at-the-wrong-millisecond death? This morning, as I struggle to face the fact that the confident young pitcher I watched on television last night, is dead, a couple of thoughts come to mind:

The game's historians tend to frown upon referring to your home team as "my team." Technically they are right: the Angels are Arte Moreno's team. Yet in a larger sense, we fans do own our team, emotionally, and, it can be argued, financially: no fans, no MLB. This morning, I call the Angels my team.

Last month during spring training in Arizona,, one of my favorite baseball historians looked around at the colleagues we see yearly and said, "You know, we've become like family." Then he paused, and added, "Only better, because we get to choose each other." You bet. So it is for me with the Angels. In October 2002 the joyful sense of family was palpable at Angel Stadium. This morning the sense of family you can feel for your team and its players is no less obvious, as grieving fans call in to radio talk shows while I wander the house attempting meaningless small chores. Nick Adenhart was family and we have lost him. No amount of wins this season, even all through this October, can heal that pain.

— Jean Hastings Ardell
Corona Del Mar, CA