Nick Adenhart

Catching his breath every few moments, Jim Adenhart explained to the hushed crowd that the greatest day of his life was when his nine-pound, three-ounce baby boy was born. Then, in detail, he relayed his final conversation with his son last week, after Nick Adenhart had pitched the best game of his brief major league career.

For a young pitcher who struggled for years with an injured arm and doubts that he could cut it in big league baseball, Nick Adenhart's performance Wednesday night gave promise that he had finally arrived. But a few hours after the most impressive game of his brief career -- just seven miles from the mound where he threw six scoreless innings -- the 22-year-old right-hander was killed by an alleged drunk driver, the latest calamity in a baseball franchise haunted by a history of misfortunes.

It began soon after the news broke Thursday morning -- a handful of bouquets, a lone baseball and some loose papers, expressions of sorrow from a few grieving fans outside the entrance to Angel Stadium. Inside the stadium, the flags flying at half-staff. But the procession of visitors didn't end and by nightfall, this makeshift tribute to pitcher Nick Adenhart was of a size and scope equal to the profound sense of loss washing over anyone who watched.

He bounced into the Angels clubhouse Wednesday wearing a faded Washington Redskins T-shirt and hole-pocked blue jeans, a reminder that the player who would throw six shutout innings against the Oakland Athletics that night was, really, just a kid. Nick Adenhart had lightning in an arm that could produce 94-mph fastballs and sharp overhand curves, but he also had the baby face and soft-spoken personality of a 22-year-old who was just beginning to make a footprint in the major leagues.

As darkness gave way to dawn, the doctors delivered the awful news: There was nothing more they could do to save his son. Jim Adenhart found his sanctuary where his son found joy. The hospital was no place for a grieving father, not in the hour after death, not when there was solace in life, and in baseball. And so the Angels unlocked their stadium, and their clubhouse, for a private sunrise service Thursday morning.

Tight hamstrings, sore knees, tired arms . . . the Angels are used to coping with such nagging injuries. Friday night, they took the field with heavy hearts. Playing their first game without fallen teammate Nick Adenhart, the 22-year-old pitcher who was killed along with two friends in a traffic accident early Thursday, the Angels took a 2 1/2 -hour break from mourning to beat the Boston Red Sox, 6-3, in Angel Stadium.

On a crisp, cloudless morning, a tight-knit rural community and a contingent of major league baseball personnel from Southern California joined together at a quaint, red-brick church to honor a young man who bridged divergent worlds. Nicholas James "Nick" Adenhart, the 22-year-old Angels right-hander from western Maryland who was killed last week in a car accident, was buried Thursday after a private service attended by about 200 people.

One of the first things Bobby Wilson did upon arriving in the Angels clubhouse Tuesday was spend a few moments at the locker of Nick Adenhart, the 22-year-old Angels pitcher who was killed in a traffic accident April 9. "If I imagined how he would have left his locker, that's exactly how it would have looked, like his room, which was most likely a pig sty," Wilson said. "It's nice to see the guys are keeping his legacy going. It means a lot to me and to his family."

Toxicology tests have detected alcohol in the blood of the driver who was with Los Angeles Angels pitcher Nick Adenhart before a deadly collision in April. The Orange County Sheriff's Department says Courtney Stewart had consumed alcohol shortly before the crash but says it does not know how much. Stewart, along with Adenhart and Henry Pearson, died when their car was broadsided April 9 in Fullerton by a minivan allegedly driven by Andrew Gallo.

When Nick Adenhart picked up his father, Jim, from the airport on April 7, the Angels pitcher spoke excitedly about his first start of the season, against the Oakland Athletics, the following night. "He went through the A's lineup -- what this guy liked, what he didn't like, what he was going to throw them," Jim Adenhart said. "After he was finished, I put my arm on his shoulder and said, 'Man, you sound like a pro.' " On April 8 in Angel Stadium, Nick Adenhart, a 22-year-old right-hander making only his fourth big league start, showed the promise that comes with being an organization's top pitching prospect, throwing six shutout innings against the A's. A few hours later, Adenhart was dead, killed when the car in which he was a passenger was broadsided by a drunk driver in a Fullerton intersection.