One year ago today, Nick Adenhart pitched the game of his life for the Angels.  Adenhart pitched six brilliant innings of shut out ball against the Athletics at Angel Stadium. The 22-year-old right-hander was aglow, and afterward he shared his feelings with pitching coach Mike Butcher.

“He’d had a couple of spot starts the year before where he was kind of nervous,” Jered Weaver said. “That was his best outing; you could tell everything was coming together.”  Nick gushed after the game as he felt he had “figured it out.” His confidence grew each and every outing and the Angels expected big things from him for the upcoming season.

About 3 hours after the Angels newest rising star gave the ball to Mike Scioscia and walked off the mound, Adenhart tragically lost his life.  A vehicle driven by a man who had prior DUI’s and subsequently charged with triple-murder had crashed into the vehicle occupied by Adenhart and three companions. Courtney Stewart and Nick Pearson died alongside Adenhart. Jon Wilhite remarkably survived, without memory of the incident.

Weaver who was going to be roommates with  Adenhart described the days after as an “empty feeling in the stadium.”  The Angels stumbled after the tragic loss of their teammate but were able to regain their focus and win the American League West.

Weaver, who won his season debut against the Twins and makes his second start on Saturday against the A’s, went on to accept the inaugural Nick Adenhart Award as the team’s Pitcher of the Year for 2009.  A bronze bust of Adenhart commemorating the first award in his honor will be treasured by the man who was about to become his roommate.  “It means a lot,” Weaver said. “I’ll always have that to look back on, tell my kids about, my grand kids.”

Weaver will tell his kids all about Nick Adenhart, a wonderful kid himself who was taken way too soon.

Info from MLB.com was used in this article.