Goodbye, Lefty

This getting older business has its good and bad sides. One of the good is the older you get, the quicker you are to recognize nonsense when you see and hear it. Yes, we still get fooled by people on occasion. But it is not as often as when, say, you are 25 years old.

The bad is you have to say goodbye forever to a lot of people you liked very much ... even if you didn't know them all that well. I noted last week the passing of one of those guys, Glenn Gostick. Today, it saddens me even more to note the passing of Dan Carey.

Not that this was unexpected. No, we knew this day was coming for 13 months ... even since it was discovered (via a CT scan) that Dan had a brain tumor.

But I hoped against hope this new treatment Dan was undergoing would somehow produce a miracle and we could resume our friendly discussions about baseball and life in general.

Like Gos, I didn't know Dan that well. (For example, I never knew his nickname was "Moose" until he went into the hospital.) I would run into him most of the time at St. Thomas athletic events (he was a professor there). We talked often about his days as a Mets minor league farmhand. Since he had been a left-handed hurler himself, Dan was very knowledgable about what made (and did not make) a good pitcher. Occasionally, the conversations drifted into other areas but, for the most part, baseball was our topics.

But there was something else about Dan that I found quite remarkable. He had the amazing ability to disagree with you on a subject without being disagreeable himself. I discovered he was a fellow who despised conflict. He thought it was basically unnecessary. Most disagreements could be reasoned or discussed out. I only saw him upset once. A student who thought he deserved a better grade had come into Dan's office and yelled at him long and hard about it. Dan was genuinely puzzled as to how the student could really think this would get him to reconsider his decision. To Dan, you could have strong opinions -- even sharp disagreements -- without turning into one of the screaming folks you often see on cable television. It didn't make sense to him at all.

There are those who knew Dan Carey much better than I did. I am sure they probably feel a deeper sense of personal loss than I ever could. But I found myself in church Sunday lighting a candle to him and saying a silent prayer. And I will go to the funeral home tonight and pay my respects ... even I don't recognize a single person there (I know he had a couple of siblings. But I have never met them.). Fact is, Dan Carey was one of the nicest, kindest people I have ever met in my 57 years, 10 months and one day on this earth. It is a pleasure to say so publicly.

I find myself hoping that Dan knew I (and many others) felt this way about him and whether that was a comfort to him in his final days. I want to think so.

But it makes a fellow wonder, though. Is there anybody out there who feels that way about me? If so, what did I do to deserve such high praise? If not, is there anything I can do to change people's opinions?