Pete— I don’t mean to overstate my grief here—and if I have, I apologize—but there’s clearly a direct relationship between one’s familiarity with a person and how their death affects you.

10,000 die in a monsoon in Bangladesh, eh. 32 die in a shooting at a college a couple of hundred miles away: big news.  Person I’ve never heard of dies in a fight at Anaheim Stadium?  I wrote a quick blurb about it, but I quickly moved on.  Ballplayer whose name I’ve known and whose career I’ve casually followed for a couple of years (and whom I gave a few thoughts to mere hours before he died): it’s worth a pause.

Adenhart’s death to me is kind of like the death of the guy in payroll at my wife’s office.  I never met him.  I don’t know him.  But I’ve seen him and been generally aware for him for a while, and it’s just natural that I’m going to feel differently about him.

A fan died as a result of a fight on Opening Day in Anaheim.  None of us know his name, nor have I seen any tributes to him on the web.

We certainly do know his name.  It’s Brian Powers.  And if you haven’t seen any tributes, perhaps it’s because you’re not looking hard enough.

I tend to think of it in the same terms that Craig does - it all depends on proximity, I think.  None of us really “knew” Adenhart any more than we did Brian Powers, but as a major league ballplayer playing the game we all love, he’s slightly more “proximate” to us than a random fan we didn’t know.  But certainly less “proximate” than a close friend or family member.

Alternatives? If we treated every death the same way, we would either be mired in misery all day every day, or be stone cold to all of ‘em.  Neither of which seems to be a particularly healthy alternative.