A Turn for the Worst

After my workout this morning, my fiance called and told me the horrible news that 22-year-old Los Angeles Angels pitcher Nick Adenhart was killed in a hit and run accident at 12:30 am this morning. When it comes to sports figures, we often hear the negatives such as Plaxico Burress shooting himself, Michael Vick fighting/killing dogs, numerous baseball players using steroids, and so on and so forth. However, we now have a young man, who pitched six innings coupled with no earned runs and five strikeouts last night before being murdered by a cowardly driver shortly after his first game of the 2009 season.

When sports stars commit such crimes or make mistakes, we give them a lot of face time in the media while poking and prodding every facet of their life and trial until we are blue in the face. This is an unfortunate tragedy in which the sports star is on the other side of the fence. That being the case, I want the coward that ran the red light and took the life of three men and left another critically injured to be put in the spotlight along with his family and friends like the media does to athletes when they have lapses in good judgment. His entire life should be unfolded for the nation to see and have a regular Joe get the negative facetime that athletes get when they mess up.

We give murderers, rapists, arsonists, burglars, and other menaces to society the first news story or the biggest articles in papers, but lets focus on the positive for once. Let us not forget Nick Adenhart and the other two men whose lives were taken unjustly on an Orange County road Thursday morning. Until next time...

Branden E. Jones