I recently joined Twitter for some stupid reason and thus far have been kind of excited/pleased by the speed and volume of information I can get from my feed, especially on sports and movie news. I may have to reform my opinion on the whole thing because the news I got so quickly while eating some breakfast at 7 AM kinda ruined my day.
Mariners outfielder Greg Halman, one of the few Dutch-born players in MLB, was stabbed to death. He was 24 years old. This news comes just over year after losing Dave Niehaus. The hits just keep on coming.
Halman was one of those Mariners players who had spent most of their time with the organization in the minor league system and one that Mariners nerd fans like myself wanted to be promoted to the big leagues whenever someone on the M's roster was failing and needed to be benched/replaced. He had potential to hit for power if given the chance to adjust to MLB pitching. He was a quality outfielder capable of making tough catches. He got his debut in late 2010 when rosters expanded, but he got a good chunk of playing time in 2011 before getting sent back down to Tacoma. He hit his first major league home run at Safeco with his Dad in the stands. It doesn't get much better than that for a lot of players. That's a moment you can hang your hat on.
Sad. Senseless. Tragic. As small as his contributions were to the team in the whole scheme of things, I appreciated them and for whatever reason, I really liked him as a player. He was intriguing and unique. A black European guy, covered in tattoos, rockin' a chinstrap beard, playing baseball for the Seattle Mariners. From a purely spectator viewpoint, he was fun to watch.
And per usual, Jeff Sullivan at Lookout Landing put it better than I can.
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