Heart of the Game: Life, Death, and
Mercy in Minor League America by
S.L. Price
Parallel Lines
From the author of Pitching Around Fidel and Far Afield comes an account
of the accidental death of minor league first base coach Mike Coolbaugh,
illustrating the many ways in which baseball still has a hold on America.
Heart of the Game centers on the death of Mike Coolbaugh, a minor
league coach who was killed on a sweltering Sunday evening in Little Rock
in July 2007 when a foul ball rocketed off Tino Sanchezs bat. Coolbaugh
died almost instantly, his body carted off the field of the Double-A
Arkansas Travelers. He was thirty-five years old and the father of two; a
third child was on the way.
Mikes exemplary life—his devotion to the game and to his family—is the
spine of the story. But it isnt the drama. The drama is in the telling of what

can happen when a projectile hits the human body, of the narratives of the
remarkable people who happened to be in the ballpark at that fatal
moment, of the impact of Coolbaughs death on the man who hit the ball,
and of all the lives left behind.
Price reveals anew that classic heart of Americana—small-town sports,
small-town lives—and makes us understand that a game played away
from the mindless churn of Internet blather and highlight shows can be
more important than those played on the national stage.
Personal Review: Heart of the Game: Life, Death, and Mercy in
Minor League America by S.L. Price
"That can kill a guy."
Split seconds and fractions of inches. On July 22, 2007, Mike Coolbaugh
was killed by a baseball hit by Tino Sanchez during a Class AA minor-
league game in North Little Rock, Arkansas. Coolbaugh was coaching first
base for the Tulsa Drillers - his 18th game with the ball club after a
journeyman's career chasing his dream to play Major League Baseball -
when the wicked line drive viciously struck him.
"The impact of the ball crushed Mike's vertebral artery - which carries
blood from the spinal column to the back of the skull - against the left first
cervical vertebra, at the base of his skull," writes S.L. Price in Heart of the
Game: Life, Death, and Mercy in Minor League America (May 2009; Ecco,
An Imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers).
In dual biographies of Coolbaugh and Sanchez - along with research into
tragedies that have occurred in the game due to players being struck by
balls and a number of eyewitness accounts from the fateful July evening -
Price delivers a stunning exploration on the personal drive, bitter
disappointments and the lure of the diamond that ultimately brought them
together.
By the time Coolbaugh ended his pro playing days, he had played for nine
different organizations and on 19 different teams in a 17-year career that
included a mere 44 MLB games. The 433rd pick of the 1990 June draft by
the Toronto Blue Jays, he was served first his cup of pro-grade coffee in
2001. The Colorado Rockies made Sanchez their 342nd selection of the
June 1997 draft, but his career had stalled due to a number of personal
and professional issues. Tulsa's parent club is the Rockies.
Price weaves through the politics of pro baseball - where a player's career
may hinge on one vote in a room filled with team management and an
unwritten code can derail a former player from finding a coaching job in the
low minors - with the biggest variable in the machinations of the expansive
draft being a scout who has the courage to shout above the noise from his

brethren. Particularly interesting is a section on Al LaMacchia - who
scouted for Cincinnati, Philadelphia, the Braves, Toronto, Tampa Bay and
the Dodgers - and what he saw in Coolbaugh that made him feel he had a
future in the game.
A recap of the Tulsa season in 2007 finds an April 26 incident versus the
Arkansas Travelers where a Tulsa pitcher suffered a fractured skull when
he was struck by a line drive. Yes, it was the same teams in the same
location. Coolbaugh, age 35, was not with the club at that time; he was
hired in midseason after a coach abruptly left the club. Sanchez, then 28,
was in his fourth stint with the Drillers, though he also spent a very short
time with the Class AAA club in Colorado Springs.
The days leading to the fateful game have Coolbaugh and Sanchez
perched at the crossroads found inside the clubhouse of life. Both had
pregnant wives - the women would each give birth to a girl - and are facing
a new set of priorities away from the ballpark; for Coolbaugh, in San
Antonio, Texas, and in Puerto Rico for Sanchez.
But the tragedy will forever link their lives. One pitch and one swing in the
immaculate Dickey-Stephens Park, a ballpark that would have been the
envy of most pro clubs in seasons that are distant replays for historians;
and most definitely in 1920, when Ray Chapman of the Cleveland Indians
died after being hit by a pitch thrown by Carl Mays of the New York
Yankees. After the 2007 season, MLB announced that base coaches
would wear helmets starting in 2008. The rule remains in place, but the
game is not quite the same.
"The last baseball games out west will be finishing late, in stadiums filled
with strangers, and by morning all will know who won and who lost."
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