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A tragic reminder that players are people too....
By Michael Silverman of the Boston Herald:
FORT MYERS — Most news items that flow north from Fort Myers qualify as nothing more than trivial and inconsequential in the grand scheme of a baseball season.
A player goes 1-for-4 with a double.
A pitcher has an accident with a fishing knife.
A beard is shaved.
Then comes a day like yesterday, when Sox reliever Rich Hill brought everyone to their knees in delivering a piece of news about his late arrival so heart-breaking and spirit-crushing it begged to be misheard.
Lifting his eyes up and over the heads of the reporters circled around him, Hill gazed toward an obscure spot in the corner of the clubhouse.
Focusing on a memory that for a parent is as unimaginable as it is inextinguishable, Hill’s wide, unblinking and slightly moistened eyes spoke far more plaintively than the words he offered for why he had arrived in Red Sox camp one week into the Grapefruit League season.
His baby boy died.
“We had a son on Dec. 26 and he was born with multiple issues that we confronted and had to deal with, as we were moving through the last couple of months at Mass General,’’ said Hill, speaking in a steady voice that trembled far less than you’d think. “Unfortunately he succumbed and he has passed. He taught us a lot of things and unfortunately things didn’t work out.”
Just because baseball is no stranger to tragedy doesn’t make its sudden and entirely unexpected arrival any less numbing.
Tony Conigliaro getting beaned in the head by a pitch, Bryce Florie getting struck in the face by a line drive, Ryan Westmoreland’s brain surgeries, Curt Schilling’s battle with cancer — the Red Sox have had their share of awful and sobering moments, the kind that topple baseball from its perch as America’s pastime and put the trivial and inconsequential into their place.
What’s too obvious is that the suffering being endured by the Hill family at this moment is beyond cruel and pointless. It’s beyond reason, which is why the determination of Hill, a native of Milton, to still make the drive with his wife and 21⁄2-year-old son from Boston to Fort Myers, is the starting point to whatever comes next for him and his family.
Hill’s a grieving father, but he’s also still a baseball player and he and his family chose to reunite with baseball.
More than ever, Hill needs to play baseball games.
“I’m absolutely excited to be here and be playing baseball again, to get back into the normalcy of my profession and to be around a great group of guys,’’ said Hill, who described his wife, Caitlin, as being “extremely strong’’ during their son’s ordeal. “Just to take that next step, a one-day-at-a-time approach. That’s where we’re at. Just really enjoy every day.”
Hill pitched for the Red Sox from 2010-2012, a stint that included Tommy John surgery, the kind of injury that barely raises an eyebrow anymore. Hill’s recovery went virtually under the radar and his stint with the Indians last season was a quiet one.
Yet the New Englander badly wanted to return to the Red Sox this winter and his minor league deal with an invite to spring training was announced in late January.
“It was a strong correlation there — fortunately I had the opportunity to come back,’’ said Hill. “The Red Sox have been tremendous with this whole part of our life.
“I fully feel that the opportunity is here. I think that was also with a blend of the opportunity that is here and obviously with our family situation that we had. With the opportunity that is here, for myself to make the most of it and do everything I can on a daily basis to perform.”
That Hill is a New Englander, that he is a 33-year-old left-hander vying for a spot in the bullpen, that he is one of the kindest, most thoughtful and genuine men to ever wear a Red Sox uniform only compounded the grief that flooded a clubhouse that just moments prior had been all about chewing gum, profane T-shirts and checking out the latest on YouTube.
When Hill was finished speaking, he stayed at his locker, eventually sat down and pulled out his phone to compose a text before heading out to the field for his first workout.
He is one player among many, each with his own family, each going through his own set of battles, most of which no doubt will forever stay shielded from the public eye.
Yesterday, for the worst of reasons, Hill’s news pushed aside everyone else’s.
Today, tomorrow and the next day, Hill will blend in, as much as he wants and as much as he can, with his teammates, and Red Sox baseball news will resume its steady drumbeat.
Nobody will wish for news to go back to being its typically trivial and inconsequential self more than Hill and his family.
It’s why he’s back here.
Hopefully with enough time, baseball will help Hill and his family find what they’re looking for.
By Michael Silverman of the Boston Herald:
FORT MYERS — Most news items that flow north from Fort Myers qualify as nothing more than trivial and inconsequential in the grand scheme of a baseball season.
A player goes 1-for-4 with a double.
A pitcher has an accident with a fishing knife.
A beard is shaved.
Then comes a day like yesterday, when Sox reliever Rich Hill brought everyone to their knees in delivering a piece of news about his late arrival so heart-breaking and spirit-crushing it begged to be misheard.
Lifting his eyes up and over the heads of the reporters circled around him, Hill gazed toward an obscure spot in the corner of the clubhouse.
Focusing on a memory that for a parent is as unimaginable as it is inextinguishable, Hill’s wide, unblinking and slightly moistened eyes spoke far more plaintively than the words he offered for why he had arrived in Red Sox camp one week into the Grapefruit League season.
His baby boy died.
“We had a son on Dec. 26 and he was born with multiple issues that we confronted and had to deal with, as we were moving through the last couple of months at Mass General,’’ said Hill, speaking in a steady voice that trembled far less than you’d think. “Unfortunately he succumbed and he has passed. He taught us a lot of things and unfortunately things didn’t work out.”
Just because baseball is no stranger to tragedy doesn’t make its sudden and entirely unexpected arrival any less numbing.
Tony Conigliaro getting beaned in the head by a pitch, Bryce Florie getting struck in the face by a line drive, Ryan Westmoreland’s brain surgeries, Curt Schilling’s battle with cancer — the Red Sox have had their share of awful and sobering moments, the kind that topple baseball from its perch as America’s pastime and put the trivial and inconsequential into their place.
What’s too obvious is that the suffering being endured by the Hill family at this moment is beyond cruel and pointless. It’s beyond reason, which is why the determination of Hill, a native of Milton, to still make the drive with his wife and 21⁄2-year-old son from Boston to Fort Myers, is the starting point to whatever comes next for him and his family.
Hill’s a grieving father, but he’s also still a baseball player and he and his family chose to reunite with baseball.
More than ever, Hill needs to play baseball games.
“I’m absolutely excited to be here and be playing baseball again, to get back into the normalcy of my profession and to be around a great group of guys,’’ said Hill, who described his wife, Caitlin, as being “extremely strong’’ during their son’s ordeal. “Just to take that next step, a one-day-at-a-time approach. That’s where we’re at. Just really enjoy every day.”
Hill pitched for the Red Sox from 2010-2012, a stint that included Tommy John surgery, the kind of injury that barely raises an eyebrow anymore. Hill’s recovery went virtually under the radar and his stint with the Indians last season was a quiet one.
Yet the New Englander badly wanted to return to the Red Sox this winter and his minor league deal with an invite to spring training was announced in late January.
“It was a strong correlation there — fortunately I had the opportunity to come back,’’ said Hill. “The Red Sox have been tremendous with this whole part of our life.
“I fully feel that the opportunity is here. I think that was also with a blend of the opportunity that is here and obviously with our family situation that we had. With the opportunity that is here, for myself to make the most of it and do everything I can on a daily basis to perform.”
That Hill is a New Englander, that he is a 33-year-old left-hander vying for a spot in the bullpen, that he is one of the kindest, most thoughtful and genuine men to ever wear a Red Sox uniform only compounded the grief that flooded a clubhouse that just moments prior had been all about chewing gum, profane T-shirts and checking out the latest on YouTube.
When Hill was finished speaking, he stayed at his locker, eventually sat down and pulled out his phone to compose a text before heading out to the field for his first workout.
He is one player among many, each with his own family, each going through his own set of battles, most of which no doubt will forever stay shielded from the public eye.
Yesterday, for the worst of reasons, Hill’s news pushed aside everyone else’s.
Today, tomorrow and the next day, Hill will blend in, as much as he wants and as much as he can, with his teammates, and Red Sox baseball news will resume its steady drumbeat.
Nobody will wish for news to go back to being its typically trivial and inconsequential self more than Hill and his family.
It’s why he’s back here.
Hopefully with enough time, baseball will help Hill and his family find what they’re looking for.
