Sad News, Too Sad

Just the other night, I remembered an IM conversation I had with a fellow blogger and a manager of a team in my fantasy baseball league.  It was a very late April night, one of my first in Raleigh, and  the Braves and Giants were playing out on the Left Coast.  Still early enough in the baseball season and my clock not yet adjusted to Eastern time, I was wide awake and for some reason I decided to click on AIM, something I rarely if ever do.  Mike happened to be online so we spent most of the rest of the game chatting about baseball and books and music, but mostly baseball, and he made it clear that he was going to kick my ass in this year's league.  Before signing off, we made a promise to "watch" more games together over IM.  Well, as life would have it, I've been far too busy to live up to my end of the bargain, so when I remembered it the other night, I checked to see if he was there.  No luck.

In fact, I'll never get the chance. It turns out that Mike passed away earlier this week.  I don't know how our paths crossed to begin with. I think he once told me that he found Syntax of Things through Gwenda's site.  Through numerous email exchanges we both found that we had a lot in common.  We kept in touch over the two years or so since he first left a comment at SoT, and he participated in my last two fantasy baseball leagues.  Recently, he'd started working on a damn good baseball blog alongside his book and pop culture blog, Little Toy Robot.  And his team is currently in third place in the league, a full thirteen games ahead of my Stubby Clappers.  In other words, he's kicking my ass.

I'd like to send out my warm regards and deep sympathies to Mike's family and friends.  Even though I never met him in person, from what I gather from his online persona he seemed like a really great guy and I know that my fantasy league, both this year's and the years to come, will never be the same.

More info can be found here, here, and here.

Comments

[Dan Wickett]

That's truly horrible news. I'd only emailed with Mike one or two times after co-commenting over at Justin's site, but he was generous with his time both instances. Sad.

[Justin]

I remember he tried to get me to trade him David Ortiz for some third-rate catcher last year. He had a rational but Big Papi was my offense and I was keeping him.

[Justin]

Or rationale...